During my career at The Indianapolis Star, I occasionally sat it in on daily “budget” meetings, which were held by mid-level and senior editors who needed to determine what stories would make it in the next day’s edition of the paper, not counting true “breaking news.” The meetings almost always started with the following question: What are people talking about today?
Many of you reading this probably think that media elites set the agenda for the news but that would only be partly true. Before artificial intelligence and before algorithms, there was a clear attempt in mainstream media to follow public opinion for the same reasons social media outlets do it – we wanted more “engagement” with our audience and more advertisers who wanted to reach that audience.
Why this lesson on the inside of the news business? Well, today I’m going to talk about abortion. It’s what so many people are talking about now, and I think all political pundits agree abortion is going to be high on the public’s mind as it people go to the polls in the 2022 Midterms, along with inflation, immigration and just maybe the war in Ukraine.
Additionally, voters in Kansas go to the polls August 2 to vote on a change to their state constitution, which might lead to banning abortion in their state. The ballot is written so that a "yes" vote affirms that "there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion". Voting against the amendment would keep the constitution as-is, meaning that women in the state do have a right to an abortion.
What surprises me in the uproar over the Supreme Court’s move to undermine any constitutional basis for Roe v. Wade (i.e., the court did not ban abortion, but said the right to an abortion is not guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution) is that the language of the debate has changed. I just don’t see the term “pro-Choice” used much any longer. Maybe some people use it, and I’m not doing a Google search for the term because I’ll get a few zillion hits no matter what the current state of the debate might be. It’s all “abortion rights” or “abortion on demand” now. The demands by the most strident abortion rights activists for no restrictions up to term likely provoke a lot of people, too.
“Pro-Choice” (besides hiding the word “abortion,” which some would consider evasive) at least reflected a tacit recognition that many Americans are opposed to abortion and don’t want to countenance the procedure. You could choose abortion, or not choose it.
European nations, for the most part, have got abortion right, (my view, of course), typically using 15 weeks as a cut-off. Banning legal abortion altogether is not likely to get many women killed (look up the data on your own; one death is too many, of course, but statistically deaths from illegal abortions are rare events). But banning abortions altogether certainly is going to create hardships for many women and families. And it is so divisive for the country, which I think is what troubles me most. How can the country be more polarized than it already is? Well, it can.
I don’t know how all this will play out. President Biden wants Congress to codify the right to an abortion. If Republicans not only take both houses of Congress, but get a veto-proof majority, they might make abortion illegal as a matter of federal law. That will really be divisive.
Good column.
I looked up Europe's limits after the initial uproar here, and I agree with you, sensible -- of course, Bill Clinton said abortion should be safe, rare and legal. When Hillary tried to repeat that a few years later, I think when she was a candidate, she was hooted and radicalized.
Maybe there's something going on that has less to do with abortion and more with "rights" or women's perception of their autonomy.
A few years ago, NPR had a good interview with several women about what was becoming the celebratory nature of abortion, especially with younger women. A former Planned Parenthood leader, from the 1990s, I think, who was a nurse by training, said, "The American people will never 'celebrate' a surgical procedure," or words to that effect. We are conservative about surgeries, cautious, it's not a reason for a party.
The "pro-choice" people used to say fetus; now it's parasite.
Something is going on with American women that I can't quite figure out.
When you do, please write a column.
I know the conversation on abortion is a hot topic.
Personally, I am well-beyond childbearing years, but even so, I believe it is a woman's right to choose the best course of action, between her and her family, and her physician. I am Pro-Choice and have always been.
I do not believe the government can claim a fetus is a person/human until it is actually born.
From the information I have read, a fetus cannot live on its own outside the womb until it is approximately 24 weeks old, and then only with tragically expensive life-saving devices in a NIC-U.
A fetus even at 15 weeks is not yet a person and cannot survive outside of the womb. Sure, when you see pics of a fetus at that stage, it is beginning to look like a miniature human, but it is not viable outside of the womb. It is not yet a human. (I will agree a woman carrying a wanted fetus, knows in her heart it is a baby. I did when I was pregnant with my son. It was a joyous time.)
A woman should have the right to control her own body and the medical procedures that go along with it. If a woman or child is raped, she should not be made to carry a baby to term if she chooses not to. Again, a decision to be made by her and her physician.
If the government is going to start claiming a fetus is a human, then a pregnant woman should start getting the annual tax deduction for a child if she is in fact pregnant on Dec. 31st.
Our politicians should never have gotten into this debate. SCOTUS should never have overturned Roe v Wade. It was their personal opinions that overturned it. Their personal religious beliefs.
Our country has the right to believe in whatever religious faiths they want but putting our rights into one or two faith categories is not right.