Abortion Rhetoric

There will be a pro-abortion rally this weekend in Washington and a march in favor of abortion rights. It claims to be "non-partisan".

"This march is non-partisan, it is not political in the sense of electoral (politics)," said Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a march sponsor.

However, Feldt said the event aimed to "create a social climate in this country that is so supportive of reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care that it will simply be a matter of course that anyone in public office will be so as well."

That's like saying cutting taxes is a non-partisan issue.

As usual it's impossible to have a substatial debate on the issue because the abortion advocates refuse to acknowledge the real point of disagreement. No one disputes the right to choose to reproduce or not, the problem is that there's no concensus on when reproduction actually occurs. To a pro-lifer, once a woman is pregnant she has already reproduced and has already exercised her right to choose.

Organizers hope for a bigger turnout on the Mall than a 1992 abortion rights march, which drew 500,000, according to the National Park Police, which no longer gives official crowd counts. The biggest demonstration was an anti-Vietnam War rally in 1969, which drew 600,000.

Except for, perhaps, the 1997 Stand in the Gap rally that drew between 500,000 and 1 million attendees. No official estimate was given, but according to NPP officers I spoke to on the scene they'd never seen a crowd that size before (and one officer claimed to have worked on the mall for thirty years).