One doesn't expect Time and First Things to agree on much regarding abortion rights. However, this week I read articles in both magazines which discussed how the pro-choice movement has declined since the passage of Roe vs. Wade.
The Time piece, "What Choice?," notes that the Roe decision not only energized abortion opponents, it also instilled complacency in the pro-choice movement. In Kate Pickert's narrative, this allowed abortion opponents to chip away at the national abortion-on-demand license with various restraints passed by state legislatures, such as 24-hour waiting periods or mandatory information on prenatal development. As one might expect, the article evokes in the reader a faint but definite taste of moral repugnance as it recognizes that each passing year brings more irrefutable scientific evidence of the fetus' humanity, and simultaneously strikes the standard liberal pose that there is something inherently distressing about a decrease in the number of abortions in this country.
In "Roe's Pro-Life Legacy," Jon A. Shields begins with the same observation as Kate Pickert. From there, however, he attributes the decline in abortion numbers not to legislative triumphs, but to the ever declining acceptability of abortion itself among the American public. This he attributes to the pro-life movement's commitment to moral argument and care for individual women and their families.
The confluence of topic is no doubt the result of the Roe decision's upcoming anniversary. The divergence of analysis is attributable to a more fundamental difference in worldview. The modern American liberal regards the state, and in particular the national government, as society's primary, and in some senses only, institution which can mediate among individual citizens. Liberals thus believe gaining control over legislatures and courts will enable them to steer society according to their liking. Sadly, this blinds them to the fact human society has any number of mediating institutions, and that most people organize their lives not primarily with regard to the state, but instead toward other people. Relationships open the door to genuine conversation, and conversation to the possibility of conversion to other points of view.
Returning to the subject at hand, the primacy of individual relationships in ordinary life forces us to recognize our shared humanity; and once you start recognizing human beings, it's hard to stop at those who have already been born.
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