Who's listening N.O.W.? Lackadasia and the Pro-Abortion Left
by Amber Roseboom
Special to the RLM News

On the morning of Sunday, April 22, 2001, I made my way into Senate Park in our nation's capital with a camera in one hand and a pen and paper in the other. I was on my mission to report on what pro-abortion activists from California to Maine had gathered for — the National Organization for Women supported "Emergency Action for Women's Lives" to rally in support of, yes, "abortion on demand and without apology."

At first, a little apprehensive, and feeling as though I had a huge sign on my forehead alerting every passing "activist" that I was not one of their own, I became incredibly bored with the event. It wasn't that I had suddenly lost the prolife passion; it was that the entire mood of the afternoon lacked any passion whatsoever. In fact, many of the pro-abortion ralliers appeared to be feeling the same boredom.

Forget the obvious irony that the name of the event itself presented, given the fact that the very right they organized in support of presents grave, irreversible and even life-threatening dangers to women, the mood of this rally was captured not so much by irony as "lackadasia."

Last December, when it became clear that George W. Bush would occupy the oval office, the pro-abortion lobby hit the panic button. After receiving eight years of unwavering support from the Clinton White House, a prolife president would be back at the helm. That reality prompted a series of fits and rages from the pro-abortion establishment in which it attempted to incite fear in its rank and file and prompt them to organize to defend their "sacred right." The only problem, in the establishment's view of course, was that each alert was met with silence and inaction.

First, the pro-abortion lobby said that with a prolifer in the White House and an "anti-choice" majority in Congress, women's "reproductive rights" were on the chopping block. Then the nomination of prolife John Ashcroft to the post of U.S. Attorney General set off a wave of panic throughout the leadership. Still yet, talk of a United States Supreme Court appointment that could shift the balance on the Court to a prolife majority has the pro-abortion establishment frantically calling women to action. But time and time again, these alerts fell on deaf ears.

It shouldn't go unnoticed that not even the mainstream media is reporting the abortion lobby's hysteria as if it were fact. It seems even they know that "abortion on demand without apology" is a tough line to spout, one that the general public is no longer willing to buy.

Even at this "emergency" event, which somehow attracted supporters from across the nation, what lacked was any real mission or grand purpose. In fact, the most often repeated chant during the march that followed the rally was "What do we want? Abortion Rights. When do we want them? Now." Wait a minute. Maybe the participants of the rally weren't aware that abortion is, sadly, legal.

Although the speeches were peppered with the usual talk of back-alley abortions and the "threat" to a woman's right to abortion, the crowd sat in this park virtually unmoved.

More evident than a fear of losing this "right" was the anti-Bush sentiment oozing from t-shirts, signs and stickers. The event looked like a gathering of leftist, anti-Bush forces, with the call for abortion on demand serving only as their common rallying cry on this particular afternoon.

The support for abortion "rights" is evaporating as the truth of abortion permeates the public mind. With national support for abortion down to 49%, it's no big surprise that N.O.W. and their pals at N.A.R.A.L., Planned Parenthood and the like can't get a reaction of urgency, or really any reaction at all, from the general public. The folks at N.O.W. are, more and more, talking to themselves, just as they were at the rally that Sunday afternoon.

So, as the Patricia Irelands of the world are growing fewer and further between, it's our opportunity as believers in the right to life to take our message far and wide. It seems George W. Bush was onto something when he said we need to "change the hearts and minds of Americans."

 

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