For 40 years, abortion advocates have invented a long list of euphemisms to hide the truth.
Slogans such as “a woman’s right to choose,” “my body, my baby, my choice,” therapeutic termination,” “it’s only a blob of tissue,” and “reproductive freedom”
have been trotted out to deny the reality of taking a human life.
That approach is changing.
The most shocking example is a January, 2013 article in Salon.com entitled: “So What If Abortion Ends a Life?”
The author, Mary Elizabeth Williams, while acknowledging that a fetus is a human life, makes the unbelievable assertion that:
“… a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside her. Always.”
GLTL President Becker observed: “In all my years of working to protect the pre-born, I have never heard such a callous, heartless attitude about another human being.
“The only positive aspect of this self-centered admission is that it helps make the case for passing personhood constitutional amendments in Georgia and across the nation.”
Acknowledging what pro-life advocates have always maintained, Ms. Williams added:
“When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn’t involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand: first trimester abortion vs. second trimester vs. late term, dancing around the issue trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person.
Are you human only when you’re born? Only when you’re viable outside the womb? Are you less of human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?”
Even though she claims to believe that “life begins at conception,” her bottom line conclusion is: “a life is worth sacrificing.”
A significant, although less dramatic shift in strategy was recently demonstrated in a new Planned Parenthood advertising campaign.
Titled “Not in Her Shoes,” the ad is based on the organization’s belief that young Americans are dissatisfied with labels such as “pro-life” and “pro-choice.”
The thrust of the ad is that a woman’s decision to have an abortion should be made between her and her doctor; no one else should be involved.
An expanded version of Planned Parenthood’s approach was outlined in a January, 2013 Time Magazine cover story:
“40 Years Ago, Abortion-Rights Activists Won an Epic Victory with Roe v. Wade…..They’ve Been Losing Ever Since.”
The article says the pro-choice cause is “in crisis” because “memories of women dying from illegal pre-Roe” abortionists are becoming more distant. As a result, young abortion rights supporters want to modernize and expand their activities to include more issues.
“They often don’t even mention the term pro-choice, which they say is limiting and outdated. Instead these young leaders have embraced a cause known as reproductive justice—a broader more diffuse agenda that addresses abortion access but also contraception, child care, gay rights, health insurance and economic opportunity,” the article states.
Putting a different spin on how the issue is framed, newly-elected NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue described the right to abortion as a “genie” that pro-life supporters want to stuff “back in the bottle.”
Hogue blamed recent pro-life gains in several states on the “rise of the Tea Party.”
So what do these changed strategies and campaigns mean?
There can only be one conclusion. Those who don’t value the sanctity of all innocent human life feel they are indeed losing.
The only reason to change a strategy is when it’s not working. Recent pro-life victories in Georgia and other states have obviously set off alarm bells for abortion supporters.
“The message for us is clear,” Becker said. “Stay close to God and stay the course. We need to lovingly work to protect those who can’t protect themselves.”
Becker pointed to 2 Timothy 1:7 for encouragement: “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline” (NIV).