"It’s strange to realize that one of the dominant battlegrounds in one’s lifetime is not some exotic place like Iraq — or even the war on terror. No, the ultimate battlefield has been the female body.
So here we are again, with the Republican candidates trying to outdo each other in the sanctity-of-life sweepstakes. They regularly have to do this to play to their religious base. But this round, the intensity has picked up. There is a new fervency in the air.
One candidate, Mitt Romney, has done a full 180 — from pro-choice to anti. Another, Rick Santorum, has suggested that even rape victims should keep their fetuses, however “horribly created” those babies-to-be. They are, he says, gifts from God, whatever their origins.
On some level, one shouldn’t be surprised. The abortion pushback has been going on since the Supreme Court decided Roe v.Wade almost four decades ago. Within three years, we had the Hyde amendment, barring any federal funding for abortion. Since then, there has been constant effort by the activists.
They always had a rhetorical edge: the language of “life” versus the language of “choice.” One sounded big, emotional, a matter of deep values, while the other seemed wimpy and selfish by comparison.
The pro-lifers’ passions often came with a deep faith, not easily dismissed. Those who believe abortion should remain legal often seemed to be at a linguistic — and thereby moral — gap.
I’ve never written much about abortion because I could never figure out how not to tumble into seemingly unsatisfactory clichés. A woman’s right to choose? Was there not something more urgent, more elemental? The right to privacy? That didn’t seem big enough either — though it was the right on which Roe rested.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72689.html
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