Ultrasound is abortion’s enemy

January 31.2010
Daily Mail.com

The Tim Tebow ad controversy brings to fore the abortion debate we keep having but we never had after the Supreme Court legislated abortion as a right in 1973, rather than have the issue play itself in state legislatures or even Congress.

Tebow is a home-schooled college quarterback whose mother decided not to abort him to save her life.

An anti-abortion group is ponying up the money to tell their story in a Super Bowl ad.

Pro-abortion groups object.

If the pro-choice crowd really favored choices, the Tebow ad would be praised. Feminists would praise it as well because the woman was right and the male doctors were wrong.

But it is not about choice. It is about political biology. The abortion rights movement’s clock is ticking. Technology is closing in.

The Washington Post gave op-ed space today to Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for Choice, and Kate Michelman, former president of Naral Pro-Choice America.

They noted that the anti-abortion crowd  is gaining and the pro-abortion is losing public opinion. In 1995, 33% were anti-abortion and 56% were pro-abortion. Now 51% are anti-abortion, 44% pro-abortion.

It is the technology.

“Neither movement can take full credit or blame for the change. Science played a big role, making the fetus more visible. Today, the first picture in most baby books is the 12-week 3D ultrasound, and Grandma and Grandpa have that photo posted on the fridge. We read about successful fetal surgery; we don’t read about women dying in pools of blood on their bathroom floors after botched abortions, as we did when the procedure was illegal,” Kissling and Michelman wrote.

It is a baby. At 12 weeks.

I have yet to meet a pregnant woman who said she was carrying a fetus. I suppose there are women like that. I just never have met one.

Against that backdrop, I can see why the pro-abortion crowd litigated instead of legislated.