Not pro choice

October 15, 2002
No More Pro-Choice Movement
by Richard M. Doerflinger

[Note:  Mr. Doerflinger is Deputy Director of the  Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.]

Once there were basically two sides to the abortion debate.

One side said that, whatever the moral status of unborn life may be, a woman  and her physician must be free to make a choice about abortion. The other  side said that, whatever value the struggle for greater freedom may have in  other contexts, responsible freedom for women and physicians must stop short  of destroying the life of an innocent child. Not surprisingly, these sides  called themselves "pro-choice" and "pro-life" respectively.

Those were simpler times. For however useful these labels once were, it's  becoming ridiculous to refer to abortion advocacy groups as "pro-choice."

This was already clear to anyone following the debate on U.S. funding of the  U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) a few months ago. President Bush ultimately  decided not to give this group any funds this year, because it helps the Chinese government implement a population program that  uses coerced abortion and involuntary sterilization. His decision was greeted  by howls of protest from pro-abortion groups, who ditched their commitment to women's "reproductive freedom" to defend  their allies in the population control movement.

More recently the coerced-abortion agenda has come home to guide domestic  policy. When the House of Representatives debated a modest measure called the  Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA) last month, the idea that each  individual should have "freedom to choose" whether to be involved in abortion  was denounced as heresy by "pro-choice" groups.

ANDA builds on a law that Congress passed in 1996 to protect medical  residency programs from being forced by government bodies to provide  abortions or abortion training. It clarifies and extends that law to make sure that this protection covers the full range of health care  providers, so everyone can make his or her own conscientious decision whether  to participate in abortions. But to hear pro-abortion spokespersons talk, you  would have thought that abortion was about to be declared a capital crime. If  women can only get abortions from those actually willing to provide them,  they seemed to say, there will be almost no abortions - an interesting  comment on how widely accepted abortion is in the medical profession!

Pro-abortion groups opposed every aspect of this bill -- including its effort  to extend the conscience protection now enjoyed by doctors to cover other  health professionals, such as nurses, who are mostly female. In opposing this modest step toward equal treatment, abortion  advocates managed to promote an agenda that was anti-life, "anti-choice," and  anti-woman all at the same time. Fortunately most House members ignored their tirades and approved the bill, which now goes to the  Senate.

One bumper sticker produced by pro-abortion groups says: "Against abortion?  Don't have one." That slogan always ignored the unborn child, who has no  opportunity to choose not to "have one." But now women and doctors may join the child in having their choice disregarded,  unless pro-life legislators are vigilant.

Against abortion? If you're in China, have one anyway. If you're a health  professional in the U.S., perform one anyway. Oddly, that is now what being  "pro-choice" is all about.