Over at Real Choice, Christina asks how people can buy into the notion that Roe v. Wade only legalized abortion in the first three months of pregnancy. Even when shown irrefutable evidence to the contrary, many social liberals, refuse to believe it.
I thought this passage was especially telling:
I had a discussion online with a man who also insisted that Roe only legalized abortion through the first 12 weeks. I provided URLs to the National Abortion Federation, Planned Parenthood, the CDC, and the Alan Guttmacher Institute, along with a dozen URLs for abortion services through 24 weeks. This guy insisted that all those URLs were phony -- that they'd been put up by prolifers trying to lie and convince the public that abortions were legal after 12 weeks, but, again, they weren't. This guy insisted that performing an abortion after 12 weeks would land a doctor in jail.
From a Canadian perspective, I've seen similar things. There are many Canadians who do not understand that there are ZERO restrictions on abortion. Or any protection for the unborn child. If a drunk driver slams into the car of a pregnant woman and kills her nine-month fetus, the death of the unborn child is not acknowledged under the law, because he's not considered a person. It may be an aggravating factor in the sentencing, but that's hardly justice to the woman loved that baby for the first nine months of his life. The fetus is not a person and has no protection under Canadian law.
I've seen this reaction from social liberals who come on to Free Dominion. They are astounded. They sound incredulous. They are certain the abortion debate amounts to what happens to the fetus in the first three months, completely oblivious to the fact that second- and third- trimester babies have no protection whatsoever.
And when they learn the truth about abortion in Canada, they all support bans on late-term abortions. They had no idea. Some come around to accepting the equality of the unborn child. But mainstream people who are not brainwashed with leftwing ideology, when they learn the true state of affairs, are very supportive of abortion restrictions.
As far as the social liberal elite are concerned, abortion is a closed issue. That attitude percolates down to the general population. Not being regularly exposed to the abortion debate, or information about abortion and the unborn child, they adopt many of the same assumptions of the elites: pro-lifers are all crazy, they all lie, their religious-driven agenda skews their perception of reality to the point of distorting even the most rudimentary facts.
That's not to say that pro-lifers haven't contributed to their own marginalization. For one things, many are cowed into remaining silent, for fear of rocking the boat and somehow being penalized for their outspokenness. However, the massive silence on the issue of abortion sure doesn't help.
Once people are presented with the facts, they do tend to become more pro-life. It's the case in the US, and I am certain this will be the case in Canada. It's only a matter of time before Canadians are exposed to the true nature of abortion and the indisputable humanity of the unborn child.
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