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Abortion and Civil War -- 3
Seeking Another Way
All this is well known to the anti-abortion movement leadership, if not the rank-and-file. Similarly well-known, and equally futile, are their hopes for a legislative ban, by some version of a constitutional amendment. Congress has been willing to end federal funding for abortions, but it has also made abundantly clear that it is not going to adopt any amendment prohibiting the practice; and if by some chance it did, ratification would be extremely difficult.
At first glance, this mixed legislative message may seem inconsistent, but it actually shows Congress performing rather well at its job of representing the public. That is because most Americans are in fact deeply ambivalent about abortion:
Given a choice, we definitely do not like it, and are content to keep our tax money from paying for other people to get it. But at the same time, we definitely want it available for ourselves or our close kin--just in case.
This ambivalence, incidentally, explains why both pro-and anti-abortion partisans can with equal sincerity claim that public opinion polls support their respective positions: The fact is, they're both right. There is in truth some support for each side, often among the same group of people. After all, where is it written that public opinion has to be entirely consistent and free of ambivalence? But this also accounts for the stubbornness with which Congress has stuck to its seeming inconsistency.
The movement, after years of getting nowhere pushing its anti-abortion amendments, has tacitly accepted the validity of this analysis. While still paying lip service to amendment proposals, it has all but given up on them as a practical objective, aiming instead at the Supreme Court and a reversal of Roe.
Yet despite the legal, technological and legislative dead ends they face, the anti-abortion leadership does not yet show any sign of giving up. Partly this may simply be inertia: the true impact of the Bork rejection has not yet sunk in; then too, 1988 is an election year. Campaigning will occupy just about all the movement's attention through this year and for several months beyond, enabling its cadre to avoid thinking about their cause's dubious long term prospects for at least another year.
Nonetheless, discontent with the movement's stalemated condition and lack of results is almost certain to start showing up eventually. When it surfaces, some hard questions are waiting to be asked:
What accounts for this record of failure?
Who is to blame?
What plausible options are there for turning the tide?
As these questions are debated, the movement will likely face intense internal turmoil, as it has before during struggles over strategy.
John Brown Rides Again
While grappling with these questions, some in the movement may be strongly tempted, as others have been before, by what can be called the John Brown Syndrome: As their hopes for ending abortion by legal means diminish, the resulting frustration may boil over into renewed outbreaks of violence against abortion facilities and practitioners. The appeal of the John Brown Syndrome is reinforced by an important movement custom, that of comparing itself to the abolitionists of the last century.
As a typical example of this practice, consider the book, A House Divided, by former Congressman Pat Swindall of Georgia (Oliver Nelson Publishers, 1987). Swindall, before his defeat in 1988, was a fast-rising New Right stalwart. And his rhetoric is typical of many more well-known activists.
He takes his title from Lincoln's 1860 campaign slogan; he declares early on that "Our nation today is more deeply divided than it has been at any time since the troublesome days of Abraham Lincoln's presidency"; most of a chapter is taken up with his analysis of the abortion-slavery parallels; and he then insists that support for capital punishment is not inconsistent with his anti-abortion stance--indeed, he says the government has a duty to "apply it equally, consistently and expeditiously to all who take innocent life by premeditation. Whether the issue is abortion or capital punishment," he concludes, "the principle is the same."
The emphasis on "all" is mine; but during a radio interview on a Washington talk show, Swindall explicitly affirmed that he would like to see all who perform or undergo abortions executed. This statement so shocked me that I ordered a copy of the tape to be sure I had heard correctly; and I had.
Thus if you are one of the millions of American women who has undergone an abortion, or one of the thousands of physicians who has performed one, perhaps you will understand why I regard this matter of historical parallels as of more than rhetorical importance. (For that matter, while Swindall did not discuss the penalties for "accessories" before and after the fact of abortion, no doubt he would want them punished severely as well; so the millions more who supported others who had abortions are presumably in jeopardy under a Swindall regime as well.)
But if Swindall's proposals are shocking, his preoccupation with history is not entirely off the mark. First of all, it needs to be acknowledged that there are indeed a number of striking parallels between the anti-abortion and the antislavery movements:
a central issue which turns on the definition and value of human life;
the crucial role of Supreme Court decisions, Roe v. Wade and Dred Scott;
and above all--at least so the anti-abortionists hope--the activity of a crusading movement as the key factor in ending a monstrous social evil.
Yet while there is some validity to this comparison, there are problems with it as well. The most important of these we will get to in a moment; but the first problem with looking to the abolitionists is that the anti-abortionists do not pursue the parallel far enough.