Katherine Spillar, Executive Editor of "Ms." Magazine and Executive Vice President of the Feminist Majority Foundation, is leading a campaign to have women sign an internet petition announcing to the world that they have had an abortion.
It's supposed to be all about removing the stigma of having one's unborn child snuffed out.
Michael Medved, the social conservative commentator and radio host, conducted an interview with her and asked about her campaign. She told him that abortion is safer and no more of a big deal than tonsilectomy.
Of the interview, he writes:
No one, however, feels ashamed of tonsilectomies, or tries to dodge questions about whether your tonsils are still in your throat. Ms. Spillar, however, left me startled and amazed when she refused to answer the obvious question raised by her new project. At the conclusion of our conversation, I asked her on the air whether she planned to sign her own peitition-- in other words, had she herself had an abortion?
In response, she said she had thought about this question before going on my radio show, and had considered how she might answer if I confronted her. She decided that whatever answer she gave might be used against her, so in a truly breathtaking display of world class hypocrisy, she refused to answer herself the same question she expects millions of women to answer in the pages of her magazine! Under the circumstances, I think her refusal to answer counts as more shameful than either a "yes" or a "no." If she's right that abortion is no more significant than tonsilectomy, why shouldn't she talk about her own experience with this procedure? If she had asked me about my tonsils, I would have admitted with no hestitation at all that I had them removed (and consumed prodigious quantities of ice cream during my recovery) as a little boy.
If Ms. Spillar is afraid to confront those of us who consider feticide to be murder, how in the world does she expect lesser-known women to do it?
Is she afraid of what us so-cons are going to think?
Is she ashamed that she didn't have an abortion?
Or maybe she fears the charge of hypocrisy: that she never had an abortion, but she expects millions of women to come out and say they've had it: easier to ask people to do something that one will never be able to do. Like the accusation that pro-aborts launch against little old lady pro-lifers who don't have a "functioning womb". They aren't in the position to have babies; she's not in the position of having had an abortion. I don't think it's wrong to ask people to do something one cannot do oneself. It's not hypocrisy. But the overtones are there.
And why in the world did she agree to this interview, anyway?
And for the record, I've had my gall bladder removed, two c-sections and a gum transplant, plus tons of dental work.
And what about the fact that she didn't want to respond because "the answer would be used against her"? How is that forthcoming?
Michael Medved concludes:
However you consider her insistence on dodging the same question she's posing to the rest of America, one thing became very clear in our interchange. The "Pro Choice" label to describe Ms. Spillar and her comradettes is misleading. These ladies, despite reluctance to disclose their personal history, count unequivocally as "Pro Abortion" regarding the rest of America. Their strident voices demonstrate their isolation from an American mainstream and a growing consensus that government indeed has a proper, inevitable role in discouraging abortion and encouraging respect for human life.
HT:/ Jivin' Jehoshaphat
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