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ROE VS. WADE
The 30-Year Lie: Turning the Tide Against Abortion
By Andrea Garrett
CBN News Sr. Reporter
A Zogby "American Values" poll showed that 51 percent of Americans believe that abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter.
CBN.com –
Thirty years ago, abortion advocates told Americans that every woman has a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. The Supreme Court agreed, and in 1973, the landmark "Roe v. Wade" decision legalized abortion on demand in the United States. But today, abortion is falling out of favor, and more Americans are pro-life now than they have been in the last three decades.
At least once a week now on network television, a new ad shows a young couple getting a first glimpse of their baby. But this baby is not yet
born. They are seeing her still in the womb through brand new 4-dimensional ultrasound technology from G.E. that offers an incredibly clear detailed picture of a developing baby.
Many say images like these are changing the heart of America toward abortion.
A new survey asks, "In light of medical advances that reveal the unborn child's body and facial features in detail, are you in favor of
restoring legal protection for unborn children?" Sixty-eight percent said, "Yes."
And a Zogby "American Values" poll showed that 51 percent of Americans believe that abortion destroys a human life and is manslaughter.
Janet Folger, president of the group called Faith2Action, said, "And most people are seeing the ultrasounds of their child, their
grandchild; they've seen the G.E. commercials on television. And guess what? They are seeing that that being in the womb is a human being, and want to restore protection to him."
Janet Parshall, cultural commentator and host of "Janet Parshall's America," offers this challenge to abortion providers:
"This 4-D ultrasound that lets you see the unbelievable perspective on the pre-born. Show that to a woman. Let her see. You believe so much in the right to choose, show her the facts, and let her
choose."
In its early days, ultrasound was available only in limited circumstances, and then the best you could get was a grainy 2-dimensional image. But
today, any pregnant woman wanting one can get a high quality ultrasound at a shopping mall for about $60, from a new franchise called "Fetal Fotos."
Time magazine recently showed pictures from inside the womb,
undeniable proof that it is a baby, despite the abortion lobby's claims for the past 30 years that it's nothing more than a blob of tissue.
The pro-abortion position was further weakened when the debate over partial birth abortion hit the media in 1996. A Gallup poll taken that year
showed that only 25 percent of Americans believed abortion should be legal in all cases. That is a significant drop from the previous five years.
Janet Parshall believes the partial-birth abortion controversy created a significant turning point in the abortion debate.
"I got the strong sense that somebody lifted a shade and the lights came on and the door swung open," Parshall said. "And all the
people in America who thought abortion was just a sterile little technique that took place during the first few weeks of pregnancy suddenly realized, oh my goodness, we're practicing infant sacrifice
in this country."
And Americans may be turning more pro-life for other reasons, too. Thousands of women who have had abortions now say they made a devastating
choice. Vicki Arcieri had three abortions when she was in her teens. She believed what she was told at the time, that abortion would leave no lasting emotional or physical scars. But 27 years later,
Vicki says that was a lie.
"I am just so overwhelmed with the knowledge and reality that there are three children, human beings, that are not here anymore because I
chose to go that route," she said. "That's a lie. You remember it, you live with it, and it's hard to live with it every day. I think of my three children, and I think about what would
have been that isn't now."
Vicki says she believed other lies about abortion — lies that made it easier to go through with the procedure. The biggest lie of all, she
says, is that it's not a child, it's a woman's choice.
"And the choice I make is whether that life is going to continue or whether it's going to end. And I murdered that life. You know, we
can put all these labels on it, and soften it, but I murdered three babies. It's a lie that it's not a baby, and it's a lie that it's not murder," Vicki said.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson was one of the pioneers of the abortion movement in the late 1960's and 70's. But by the late 1970's, after
presiding over some 75,000 abortions, medical advances in fetal research turned Nathanson around.
"I finally had to face the fact, reluctantly, that this was a human being, a person, someone of moral weight. And therefore, I could no
longer sanction destruction of it, nor could I do it myself," he said.
Nathanson turned from abortion pioneer to pro-life advocate. In this month's issue of Whistleblower Magazine, Nathanson confesses that in those early days, he and others fed lies to the media to gain sympathy for the abortion cause.
He said, "The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200 to 250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was
10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans, convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law."
Nathanson says they also lied about the results of fictional polls. "We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion
by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000."
Nathanson now claims the whole abortion movement was based on lies.
And Norma McCorvey says "Roe versus Wade," the Supreme Court case that opened the door for legalized abortion, was itself based on
lies. She should know — Norma McCorvey is the Jane Roe of Roe versus Wade. Today, McCorvey is a pro-life Christian who says she was used by her feminist attorneys who needed a plaintiff to make
their case for legalized abortion.
"I was very naive. For their part, my lawyers lied to me about the true nature of abortion. [Attorney Sarah] Weddington convinced me that
it's just a piece of tissue," McCorvey explained.
Sandra Cano, also now a pro-life Christian and the Jane Doe of "Doe versus Bolton," a companion case to "Roe," says her case
was also based on fraud. Cano never even wanted an abortion, and she says she was also a pawn in the political game to legalize abortion. Both women are now trying to take their cases back to court to
have them overturned.
The idea that Roe could be overturned has abortion rights groups scrambling to freshen their image. NARAL, the National Abortion and
Reproductive Rights Action League, is changing its name to "NARAL Pro-Choice America," and is launching a multi-million dollar media campaign to try to make abortion a critical issue in the
2004 presidential election. Their biggest fear, they say, is that Roe versus Wade will be overturned by the end of the decade.
Janet Parshall does not think we will see an end to legalized abortion anytime soon. But a Republican-controlled Congress, working with a
Republican President, is likely to move legislation in a more pro-life direction.
"I think incrementally we have to restore a pro-life ethic in this country. But we have to remember that the real battle isn't waged
here in Washington D.C. The real battle is waged in the chambers of the human heart," Parshall said.
And when it comes to changing hearts and minds, science may be an unlikely pro-life ally, and the key to shaping the moral and ethical debate
for the future.
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