The Shadow of Political Symbolism

No one has ever written a great,popular book against abortion in America.There have been books on the subject that are serious and illuminating, such as Hadley Arkes’s “Natural Rights and the Right to Choose” and “The Cost of Choice,” edited by Erika Bachiochi. There have been books that are lucid and accessible, such as Bernard Nathanson’s “Aborting America” and President Reagan’s “Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation.”But no writer has done for opposition to legalized abortion what Harriet Beecher Stowe did for abolitionism or Harper Lee did for racial equality – present the issue in stark, morally simple terms that convince millions of skeptics.Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at National Review, almost achieves the unprecedented feat in “The Party of Death” (Regnery, 320 pages, $29.95). But his book, though a minor classic about one of the central moral issues of our age, suffers from a flaw characteristic of the movement that opposes legalized abortion.“The Party of Death” takes aim at various elites from the professional classes – the leadership of the Democratic Party, the press, the courts, historians, philosophers, and even two wayward economists. Mr. Ponnuru identifies them as a “party of death,” a group whose core members “explicitly deny that all human beings are equal in having a right to life and who propose the creation of a category of ‘human nonpersons’ who can be treated as expendable.”They support not just unfettered abortion but also euthanasia, stem-cell technology, assisted suicide, and even infanticide.If you believe that one can support a woman’s absolute right to choose without supporting the killing of babies, Mr. Ponnuru exposes the position as illogical.A day-old human embryo is just as human as a day-old infant. They belong to the same species, the same family; one is not an animal or plant and the other a human. The only differences between them are those of capacity, such as the ability to think or live independently. To conclude otherwise is to undermine “any account of basic human equality.”Mr. Ponnuru is not the first person to make this argument. But he might well be the first person to present the “party of death” in a tightly reasoned, insightful, and lucid way. His book is especially sharp on Roe v. Wade, one of the two 1973 Supreme Court decisions that created a constitutional right to abortion. Mr. Ponnuru shows that Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe, defied logic and common sense in ruling that unborn humans do not deserve to be protected under the 14th Amendment.Mr. Ponnuru writes, “[Blackmun] mentioned the clause of the Constitution that commands states to extradite any ‘Person charged in any [other] State with Treason, Felony, or other Crime, who shall flee from justice.’ Blackmun was right to say that this provision is not very likely to apply to fetuses. But it is unlikely to apply to infants or toddlers. Are they not persons?”“The Party of Death,” however, is more than a philosophy book. It also wades through history and politics. Mr. Ponnuru persuasively argues against a brief submitted by professional historians in 1989 and 1992 on behalf of Roe. Like Justice Blackmun’s opinion in the case, they wrote that American common law never really recognized the rights of the unborn. Mr. Ponnuru shows that their claims were based on nothing more than assertions, overstatements, and lies.One way to appreciate “The Party of Death” is to read “The Rhetoric of Operation Rescue” (T&T Clark, 224 pages, $29.95), by Mark Allan Steiner. Mr. Steiner, a professor at Regent University, delivers a bruising critique of the once-mighty evangelical organization opposed to legalized abortion.During its heyday in the late 1980s and early ’90s, Operation Rescue led hundreds of sit-ins at and blockades of abortion clinics. But its confrontational approach also created many enemies, and by 1994 President Clinton signed a law basically outlawing its tactics. The group has never been the same.Mr. Steiner lays part of the blame on its rhetoric, which he labels “inadequate, even dangerous.” The group’s members, who saw themselves as spiritual warriors leading a self-evident cause, quoted Scripture constantly. Like other conservative Christian groups, Mr. Steiner notes, Operation Rescue failed the Socrates test. It never considered the perception of others, made sound arguments, or displayed humility.Mr. Steiner’s argument is persuasive and deserves a fair hearing from fellow Evangelicals and opponents of legalized abortion. But aside from slighting the organization’s achievements, his thesis has lost some relevance. Evangelical leaders, most notably Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, increasingly employ nonsectarian rhetoric on behalf of opposition to legalized abortion.The chief intellectual weakness of this movement is no longer rhetorical. If anything, it’s political. The cause is too often linked with that of conservatism and the Republican Party.“The Party of Death” is an interesting example of this phenomenon. Though its style has wide appeal, the book is structured as a conservative polemic. It contains virtually no criticisms of the Republican Party, let alone social conservatives.The problem can’t be a lack of material.Though neither belongs to the party of death, neither do they boldly lead a party of life. Yes, both impose litmus tests on life issues,but they also haven’t proposed dramatically reducing the number of abortions performed annually in this country (1.3 million).Criticizing the GOP and social conservatives would show that Mr. Ponnuru is not simply preaching to the political choir, that he seeks to convince those who love everything about the Democratic Party except its cultural stands. After all, great books on burning social issues don’t conform to political convention. Their appeal is, practically at least, universal.Mr. Stricherz resides in Washington, D.C., and is writing a book about the post-1968 Democratic Party. He keeps a Web log at www.InFrontOfYourNose.com.

The Shadow of Political Symbolism

The Shadow of Political Symbolism

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