Abortion's battle of messages

Thirty-five years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed in Roe vs. Wade that women have a fundamental right to choose abortion without government interference. Now, on this anniversary of that landmark decision, the United States has some of the most restrictive policies on abortion in the developed world. In contrast to Europe, the U.S. forbids the use of federal funds for abortions, and the Supreme Court has upheld state laws that require parental consent or notification, mandatory waiting periods and antiabortion counseling. The court's 2007 decision on so-called partial-birth abortions was an unprecedented infringement on physician autonomy.

Since Roe, U.S. public opinion has been relatively stable and favorable to legal abortion. Early efforts to overturn Roe failed miserably. Given this reality, the anti-choice movement changed tactics. It no longer focused primarily on banning abortions but concentrated on restricting the circumstances under which abortion would be available. It succeeded in shifting public attention from broad support for legal abortion to strong support for restricting access. Twenty years ago, being pro-life was declasse. Now it is a respectable point of view.

How did this happen? Did the pro-choice movement fail? Or did those opposed to abortion simply respond more effectively to the changing science as well as the social shift from the rights rage of the '60s to the responsibility culture of the '90s?

In the 1970s, the arguments were simple and polarized: Abortion was either murder or a woman's right to control her body. The fetus, however, stayed largely invisible. The pro-choice movement stayed on the message offensive, tactically shifting in 1989 from women's bodies to the "who decides" question posed by NARAL Pro-Choice America. But this was rapidly parried by the anti-choice demand that we look at what was being decided, not just who was deciding.

Science facilitated the swing of the pendulum. Three-dimensional ultrasound images of babies in utero began to grace the family fridge. Fetuses underwent surgery. More premature babies survived and were healthier. They commanded our attention, and the question of what we owe them, if anything, could not be dismissed.

These trends gave antiabortionists an advantage, and they made the best of it. Now, we rarely hear them talk about murdering babies. Instead, they present a sophisticated philosophical and political challenge. Caring societies, they say, seek to expand inclusion into "the human community." Those once excluded, such as women and minorities, are now equal. Why not welcome the fetus (who, after all, is us) into our community?