I recently happened upon a cache of articles from the post-Roe v Wade 1970s and 1980s on abortion in America. What makes these articles especially noteworthy is they were written by political moderates and liberals. Here’s Vietnam War protester Mary Meehan wondering where her “Celebrate Life” friends went after the war:
In the late 1960s, I marched down Pennsylvania Avenue against the war in Vietnam. The other day I marched down the same route against abortion, accompanied by a friend who had also been active in the antiwar movement. We couldn’t help wondering, “Where are all the others? Why did so many of them drop off the route when the war ended? Why do so many now support abortion?” We thought that most people in the antiwar movement shared a conviction that life is a great good, that we should, as some of the peace signs declared, “Celebrate Life!” And where are the liberals? How can so many liberal politicians be against war, against capital punishment and for abortion? How can they be concerned about poverty and neglect and child abuse after birth, yet accept what someone called “the ultimate child abuse” of abortion?
Here’s former Oregon senator Mark Hatfield with a brief yet powerful critique of the relationship between abortion and materialism:
To believe that a reversal of Roe v. Wade will end abortion is to ignore what drives the abortion decision: materialism. Materialism makes the decision for the poor mother who can’t make ends meet, and it makes the decision for the young mother who must choose between her future independence and a child. When things are more important than people, you end up with a society that will do little to help the mother or welcome the baby. This same society turns its back on the homeless and the drug-addicted and the mentally disturbed and the poor foreigner. Abortion is the ugly byproduct of a throwaway society where human life is depreciated each day by the arms race, the success race and the mad dash toward the electric chair.
Then there was famed civil libertarian and writer, Nat Hentoff, on the “Indivisible Fight for Life”:
I suppose in some respects I’m regarded as a “liberal,” although I often stray from that category, and certainly a civil libertarian – though the ACLU and I are in profound disagreement on the matters of abortion, handicapped infants and euthanasia, because I think they have forsaken basic civil liberties in dealing with these issues. I’m considered a liberal except for that unaccountable heresy of recent years that has to do with pro-life matters.
It’s all the more unaccountable to a lot of people because I remain an atheist, a Jewish atheist. (That’s a special branch of the division.) I think the question I’m most often asked from both sides is, “How do you presume to have this kind of moral conception without a belief in God?” And the answer is, “It’s harder.” But it’s not impossible.
Then there’s Jesse Jackson, who was pro-life before be was pro-choice, agreeing with Hatfield’s materialism argument:
Politicians argue for abortion largely because they do not want to spend the necessary money to feed, clothe and educate more people. Here arguments for in-convenience and economic savings take precedence over arguments for human value and human life. I read recently where a politician from New York was justifying abortion because they had prevented 10,000 welfare babies from being born and saved the state $15 million. In my mind serious moral questions arise when politicians are willing to pay welfare mothers between $300 to $1000 to have an abortion, but will not pay $30 for a hot school lunch program to the already born children of these same mothers.
With the confirmation of new Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett, all Roe-concerned eyes are cast upon the Court with either highest or lowest expectations. Will the 6-3 conservative majority overturn the longstanding precedent or will the court let Roe stand overall whilst chipping away some of its edges over time? Will the majority itself moderate over time until, as a friend mused, “Ten years from now Conservatives will be saying, what happened? I thought this was supposed to be our answer.”
It is possible Roe will be overturned at the docket’s first light throwing the legality and availability of abortion back on state legislation, potentially setting off new decades of court challenges. Then there is the possibility that, despite nearly half-a-century of campaigning for Republican presidents, getting justices appointed to the Supreme Court was a flawed strategy all along.
