RIGHT OF CENTER: EITHER FAVOR ABORTION -- OR DON'T

To the chagrin of moderate Republicans, anti-abortion conservatives have drawn a line in the sand, pledging to withdraw support for any GOP presidential hopeful who is anything other than unabashedly pro-life.

Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition that is growing in numbers and stature since playing a decisive role in the Republicans' November victory, said religious conservatives won't support the Republican ticket in 1996 if either candidate supports abortion rights.

Sen. Arlen Specter, a liberal Republican who is likely to seek the 1996 presidential nomination, called the threats "not-so-subtle blackmail," and warned that Republicans who make abortion an issue next year give President Clinton his best shot at re-election. Undoubtedly, the likes of William Weld of Massachusetts, Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey and Pete Wilson of California -- all moderates likely to seek a spot on the ticket -- agree with Specter.

They're wrong. The only winning position for Republicans to take on abortion is to be consistently and unambiguously anti-abortion. Here's why.

The vast majority of the estimated 1.5 million abortions performed in America each year are not the result of the pregnancy threatening the mother's life. Nor are they pregnancies that followed a rape or incest, involve a hideously deformed fetus, or stem from other hard cases cited by abortion proponents. Most aren't even first-trimester abortions. The vast majority of abortions are performed for one reason: convenience.

To stand for abortion rights today is to espouse abortion as a legitimate method of birth control, and that it's a decision that must be left entirely up to the pregnant woman, regardless of her age.

But how many abortion rights advocates take this position? More often you hear spurious arguments that go something like this: "I personally find abortion abhorrent, but I don't believe I have the right to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies."

I've discussed abortion with many people who make such claims. Here is how the conversation usually goes:

(ital)"I take it, then, that you favor decriminalizing prostitution, since such laws only try to regulate what a woman does with her body. And what about narcotics? If you have no right to say what a woman does with her body, why should she be arrested for possessing cocaine, for example?" (end ital.)

"But prostitution affects others. The prostitute can become a home-wrecker and a spreader of unspeakable diseases. She should be regulated to prevent her from harming others. It's the same with drugs. Everyone knows drug abuse never only affects the abuser. There are family members involved, and there's the issue of supporting underground organized crime, which peddles the stuff."

(ital)

"So you would contend that abortion is OK, because it doesn't affect anyone but the mother. What about the unborn baby that is burned or dismembered when ripped from the womb and, if not already killed, left in a heap to die?" (unital)

"That's where you pro-life people get weird. It's not a baby. It's a developing fetus, not much more than a bundle of tissue with features barely discernible from the fetuses of other animals. Abortion is simply a medical procedure, but you anti-abortion nuts always want to call it murder."

(ital)

"Then let me ask you this: If abortion is merely a medical procedure to remove an unwanted mass of tissue, if the procedure is legal and protected as a right of all women, why do you find it personally abhorrent? Isn't the pro-life position at least consistent. After all, we have a reason for finding abortion abhorrent -- it involves the taking of innocent life. I'm not going to let you have it both ways. What happens if we apply your reasoning to other behavior? 'I personally think rape is wrong, but I don't believe I should impose my morality on others?' Of course it's absurd, but no more so than your position on abortion.

"There are only two intellectually honest positions to take on abortion. Either an unborn child's right to be born supersedes his mother's right to end her pregnancy or vice versa. Those who espouse the former position have an advantage in this ominous debate: Their's is a belief with an external reference point -- a Creator who inheres value in all human life. Those who hold to the latter have only an opinion that, when conscientiously examined, provokes their considerable discomfort."

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.