In every single press release NARAL puts out, they make sure to add some subtle reference to the will of the people, stating something like "Americans stated loud and clear that..." or "Americans will not stand for..." as if NARAL was nothing more than the National Will-of-the-People Action League rather than the National Abortion Rights Action League. Their somewhat recent name change from "NARAL" to "NARAL: Pro-Choice America" is another way in which they try to show people that they are simply standing up for what Americans really want.
I have gone over time and time again that "pro-choice" to the average pro-choicer is not the same as NARAL's definition. However insane the pro-choice position may be, most people who attach themselves to the label do not believe:
1) In abortion after the first trimester for any reason
2) In partial-birth abortion for any reason
3) In forcing hospitals that are religiously-based into performing abortions
4) In allowing 14 year-old girls to get abortions without their parents' notification/consent
5) In allowing organizations like Planned Parenthood to cross-state lines with minors without their parents knowledge/consent
6) In not reporting rapes of minor girls to 1) their parents or 2) the police
7) In not holding any type of clinical or medical standards for abortion clinics
All seven NARAL supports. And yet Nancy Keenan can't manage to mumble a sentence without claiming to be the representative of plain old Americans. Yes, because farmer Jed Gustingson of Nebraska can't fathom how he lives in a state in which 14 year-old girls can't get an abortion without parental notification in order to protect her 45 year-old boyfriend. The indignity.
What makes things all-the-more funny is that the ladies at NARAL--along with the major feminist blogs--go into womanly hysterics whenever they don't get their way. We know that courts almost always give them their way, so they must be crying over 1) actual voters or 2) representative voters elected by voters. Whenever something as heinous as parental notification (mood music here) gets put on a ballot or on a legislative docket, NARAL and friends must swoop in like a pigeon, pooping pieces of misinformation upon normal pro-choicers and pro-lifers alike. ("Did you know that the only girls who get pregnant before marriage are RAPE VICTIMS whose parents would LITERALLY KILL THEM if they found out they were getting an abortion terminating their pregnancy?")
Then, whenever a place rejects something remotely pro-life, NARAL has this "Seeeeee?" attitude, insinuating that, well hey, the will of the people spoke prevailed. In Oregon, we were trying to pass parental notification. By "we", I mean I am real-life friends with the people on the campaign and was as involved as much as I could have been with my schedule at the time: so I was well-informed of our efforts and progress. We were comfortably ahead in the polls, with most Oregonians, including countless liberal ones, saying, yeah, it's not that unreasonable for parents to know about--not consent to--their 14 year-old daughter's abortion. It wasn't even what I view a "pro-life piece of legislation". It really would have made everything consistent: you can't do things with/to minors without parental consent (or notification), including abortion. Heck, if I had my way, I'd lock up all un-wed minors who get pregnant in a house and force them to undergo parenting classes (while at the same time forcing the fathers to get jobs to "prepare" for child support). But in Oregon, where we're killing the old and the young by the dozens every day, even parental notification sounds like a paradise at this point.
So we were ahead in the polls until one single commercial was aired. It showed the typical American abortion situation: a clean, good-looking teen-aged girl who was pregnant, and her white-trash, un-groomed father headed toward her in a violent matter. The man in the commercial seriously looked like he was one of the crazed homeless people you see while walking around NW Portland: I'm not saying that as a joke. The commercial didn't tell us, by the way, if the girl was getting her beating because she was pregnant or because she was getting an abortion, and her father was actually a pro-life advocate.
So we lost. Because of this one commercial, the emotions of the people overcame them for this poor, poor fictional girl. If only we could show some abortion pictures on TV and see what would happen! So once again, abortion was upheld as the exception for everything. I kind of want to introduce legislation that would stop underage girls needing parental consent in order to go sky-diving, just to make a point.
The only way the pro-aborts win is if they spread misinformation, which they turn around and proclaim as "the will of the people". They work feverishly behind the scenes to keep their more insane policies in effect so the general American public won't know what they stand for in its entirety. They fear the day when Roe vs. Wade is overturned, because they know the real problem isn't "anti-choicers", but really the American people.
[Posted at NathanSheets.com and the LiveJournal Pro-Life Community.]
