Pro Choice Movement

Norma McCorvey--the "Jane Roe" in Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision that legalized abortion--recently announced that she has become a born-again Christian and is opposed to abortion. Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion groups tout this as a devastating blow to those who support reproductive freedom. Their political posturing about McCorvey's decision is a clear indication that they have never truly understood the meaning of the pro choice movement.

Over at Politics Now, our David Laute r has a fascinating deconstruction of a Gallup poll showing that the share of Americans who call themselves “pro-choice” on abortion has hit a record low of 41% while 50% now call themselves “pro-life.” Lauter explains why that factoid (resultoid?) is not a sure guide to Americans' views about whether abortion should be legal in certain circumstances: "On the issue of when abortions should be legal, Americans' views have moved very little, Gallup's numbers show.

Comparing herself to the woman who won the historic U.S. Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion, Sen. Lucy Killea on Monday told a noontime rally that the forces of history have thrust her into the spotlight as a reluctant symbol of the pro-choice movement. "Anyone who knows me, knows that it was not a role I sought," Killea (D-San Diego) told a noisy crowd gathered on the Capitol steps to celebrate the 17th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, as the court decision is known.

Re "Activist born on a church doorstep," Column One, May 17 C. Roy McMillan shows up almost every day at the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. He taunts anyone entering the clinic. What we have is another self-righteous activist who harasses women already making a tough decision - a decision that is theirs and theirs alone. A decision based on what is best for everyone involved. A decision that he has no right to interfere with. McMillan doesn't realize that he is probably the best advertisement for the pro-choice movement.

Maybe the reason no one has written a song for the pro-choice movement is that the deliberate termination of a human life--whether by abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment or murder--is not lyrically pleasant. KATHY BUNDRANT Corona

Being a pro-choice advocate is not an easy job when you happen to be a male. Recently, I attended another pro-choice rally, this time at a Fullerton clinic. As I stood there with my buttons and sign, I listened to the women around me talking to each other. The conversations were full of derogatory statements about men. Now don't get me wrong, women are justified in having many ill feelings about men for the oppressions they've suffered through the ages. But I think the women in the pro-choice movement should try and be more aware of the men who are standing side-by-side with them on this issue, not to mention putting their bodies on the line for women's rights for reproductive freedom.

Re "Activist born on a church doorstep," Column One, May 17 C. Roy McMillan shows up almost every day at the last abortion clinic in Mississippi. He taunts anyone entering the clinic. What we have is another self-righteous activist who harasses women already making a tough decision - a decision that is theirs and theirs alone. A decision based on what is best for everyone involved. A decision that he has no right to interfere with. McMillan doesn't realize that he is probably the best advertisement for the pro-choice movement.

Hundreds of thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied Sunday on the National Mall, railing against what they described as a dozen years of government backsliding on the issue of reproductive freedom for women in the United States and around the world.

In response to "People Don't Want a Child Like Me," Commentary, Sept. 4: I think that Lillibeth Navarro totally misses the point in her opinion about abortion and the handicapped. The pro-choice movement strongly encourages free speech, but we also believe in free choice. Whether or not the fetus is shown by amniocentesis to be handicapped or not is a moot point! The framework that we are working from is that a woman should be able to control her own reproductive processes rather than having people like Navarro try to step in and make that choice for each and every woman.

The pro-choice movement lost a vote and won a victory in the House of Representatives last week. Supporters of abortion rights fell far short of the 290 votes needed to override President George Bush's veto of a bill authorizing government-funded abortions for poor women who are victims of rape or incest. By losing the vote, they gained an issue. With a stroke of his pen, Bush cut off Medicaid funding for these women. It is a position he will never be able to explain. It defies common sense.

As the Democratic faithful assemble in Boston today for what is being heralded as a historic show of party unity, abortion rights advocates have been privately raising concerns with the Kerry campaign that the candidate has been publicly distancing himself from their cause. Even as those advocates, one of Sen. John F.

Hundreds of thousands of abortion rights supporters rallied Sunday on the National Mall, railing against what they described as a dozen years of government backsliding on the issue of reproductive freedom for women in the United States and around the world.

For years, the leaders of the abortion rights movement believed their success was secure. Limits on abortion rights were handily turned back in Congress. Roe vs. Wade took its place as part of the national culture, and public opinion on maintaining a legal right to abortion was holding at a favorable majority.

Billboards here warn, under the silhouette of a pregnant woman, that "abortion increases your risk for breast cancer." Radio spots and newspaper ads push similar messages elsewhere in the country. A TV commercial even features a high school coach telling her girls' volleyball team that she wished she had known all the risks before ending a pregnancy years ago. This is the ferocious new front line in the abortion wars.

Reacting to a political climate they see as increasingly hostile to abortion rights, religious progressives and supporters of legal abortion met at a landmark conference this week. Their goal is to assert the morality of the right to choose and wrest the theological high ground from religious conservatives. "We've been negligent in promoting our message that there's more than one religious viewpoint on this issue," said the Rev.

Germans have been struggling for a decade to unify the pro-choice policies of the former East Germany with the restrictive abortion traditions of the west, but the latest changes to laws and practice have only highlighted the seemingly unbridgeable divide.

Michael Kinsley's argument to keep abortion separate from health reform lacks the logical depth he normally shows (Column Left, May 26). He says anyone who thinks that abortion is murder can opt out if she wants to. But women always have that right; what pro-lifers want is to prevent other female citizens from exercising their own moral judgment. Kinsley also argues, unconvincingly, that moral objections to war differ from moral objections to taxes that subsidize abortion because war supposedly serves the general good.

In a setback for abortion foes, the Supreme Court Wednesday rejected an attempt to reinstate an Illinois law that had imposed a series of restrictions on physicians performing abortions. The decision left intact a ruling by a federal appeals court in Chicago that struck down key provisions of the law as unconstitutional. But the justices' unanimous decision was based on limited procedural grounds, reducing its impact.

In a decision that could affect the course of the divisive national debate over abortion, the policy-making board of the American Medical Assn. gave its blessing Monday to legislation that would ban a controversial late-term abortion procedure, calling it "bad medicine."

Twenty-seven years ago this month, Rosalie Abrams was picketing the Orange County Medical Center in Orange, carrying a sign that read: "If Men Bore Children, Abortion Laws Wouldn't Exist." Some 47 women had been denied abortions at the hospital, which is now the UCI Medical Center. Most of the abortions in Orange County were performed there until hospital administrators placed a "moratorium" on the procedure.