I have been maintaining this truth

I have been maintaining this truth for years: Pro-life *IS* pro-woman

I have been maintaining this truth for years: Pro-life *IS* pro-woman








http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=3D18198




The landscape confronting the abortion movement has changed
significantly.
The abortion movement has a hidden self-destruct mechanism. Having
worked
strenuously to sustain itself as "the women's movement," they now face
a
problem that originates with, well, women themselves.

Look at the data: abortion in America is on the decline. After Roe v.
Wade,
abortions remained consistently high at more than 1.55 million
abortions
annually throughout the 1980s. But after hitting a high of 1.6 million
in
1990, the trend declined throughout the 1990s, reaching a new low of
1.3
million in 2000.

What's going on?

The answer starts with the cumulative power of the numbers. From 1972
to
2000, the number of abortions in the United States alone totaled more
than
40 million, eliminating the equivalent of the entire population of
Spain
(40.2 million).

The terrible tsunami that struck Southeast Asia offers sobering
perspective
on the scale of abortion: If the killer wave had engulfed the entire
island
of Java in Indonesia (where the northern province of Banda Aceh was
decimated), with its population of 19.9 million, the victims would
still
number less than half the total of the American death toll from
abortion.

In the wake of the tsunami, authorities have noted that at least
one-third
of the over 200,000 dead or missing are children. Stories of babies
swept
from their frantic mothers' arms broke our hearts. Early stories that
speculated on the complete annihilation of some island tribes left us
stunned and horrified.

These images carry the tsunami impact one step further: Once the waves
claim
their victims and recede, the survivors stand on the beach and grieve.

And so it is with abortion.

While we may analyze "trends" and look at abortion in the aggregate,
each
and every abortion "statistic" is a tragedy for one, lone, individual
woman.
She experiences the reality of her loss and, for many, haunted dreams.
This
is one of the animating passions of the pro-life movement: the
consequences
of abortion, for women themselves, cannot be swept away.

The abortion movement has worked assiduously to present a
dispassionate,
clinical view of abortion. It has refined a soothing narrative that
emphasizes a value-neutral tale of difficult, yet necessary "choices."
Dr.
Warren Hern, who performs partial-birth abortions (euphemistically
called
late-term abortions) describes termination as an "interruption" of a
pregnancy and reassures his readers that "psychological studies
consistently
show that women who are basically healthy can adjust to any outcome of
pregnancy."

Hern and other seemingly benevolent abortion demi-gods offer a woman
the
opportunity to erase her "mistake" and get on with her life, as though
nothing happened.

But something will have happened. As the virulently pro-abortion
stand-up
comic Margaret Cho said, with callous poignancy, about her own
abortion,
"The tenant was evacuated." And that is something a woman does not soon
forget.

This is the engine of the self-destruct mechanism. The abortion
movement has
a new antagonist: the post-abortive woman. Along with the newly-matured
"blogosphere," websites and outreach organizations have sprung up using
the
power and reach of the Internet to get the message to women -- from
other
women -- that the abortion "choice" is more than an interruption in
their
lives.

In tragic irony, survey data indicate that a sizeable percentage of
women
seeking abortions believe that they "didn't have a choice." On a Web
site,
Rachel's Vineyard, devoted to helping women who grieve their abortions,
one
woman named Patti states in sorrow that abortion is "a choiceless
choice."
Patti's boyfriend drove her to her appointment, and then, when she
walked
out in tears unable to go through with the abortion, he forced her to
return
a second time.

Why are abortions declining? It may just be that a post-choice message
is
spreading. Marguerite writes, "[M]y abortion has left me with a feeling
of
emptiness. ... I just keep picturing my baby." Lori writes, "My
abortion has
left me empty, alone and in despair." Even cynical Cho revealed in a
blog
that her abortion left her feeling "hollowed out and alone."

You can't sustain a movement on hollowed-out emptiness. This is the
catch-22
confronting the abortion movement: As women experience abortion for
themselves, the truth cannot be contained. Witness the development and
growth of the Silent No More campaign of post-abortive women,
determined to
help others avoid the choice they regret.

Call this the "post-choice" movement. It's the wave of the 21st Century










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J Y=F6ung
youngopinions@aol.com

I have been maintaining this truth for years: Pro-life *IS* pro-woman

I have been maintaining this truth for years: I hate everybody.