CELEBRATING ROE, ANTI-CHOICE STYLE. I marked the 34th anniversary of Roe v. Wade by attending the Blogs4Life conference this morning at the Family Research Council HQ. A couple observations:
- The majority of anti-choice bloggers, judging by the attendance, are 50-year-old men, several of whom brought their young sons along. Nearly every younger woman I noticed there was attending as a reporter.
- They love to equate the anti-abortion movement with the civil rights struggle. There were a lot of power-point slides featuring Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes and fuzzy photos of smiling black people. See, if you ask Sam Brownback, one of the problems with America is that we treat fetuses as second-class citizens, much like African-Americans were treated in the pre-civil rights era. Does this seem more than a little insulting to anyone else? Saying that black people and fetuses (and really, embryos) should be considered "equally human"? Wow.
- Peter Samuelson, of Americans United for Life (which pushes incremental, state-level anti-choice legislation like parental consent laws and waiting periods), said he is confident that Roe will not be overturned -- it will be made irrelevant by the type of laws his organization promotes. The group only focuses on legislation that polls with public approval of 50-60% or more. "It's incremental. It's step-by-step. It's very effective."
- Did you know that abortion providers EAT FETUSES?! No, really! Jill Stanek told me so today.
- Tony Perkins: "There is something innately in us that tells us as one generation we should give birth to the next." So if you don't want children, you're only lying to yourself.
- There was also much talk about how the annual March for Life never receives any coverage from the "secular media." Quick Nexis and Google News searches reveal this is total bullshit.
And speaking of anti-choicers, Bush called marchers to wish them well and issued an official proclamation naming today "National Sanctity of Life Day." Bush has issued a similar proclamation every January 22 during his presidency. --Ann Friedman
