Terry Mattingly criticizes the Washington Post story posted below. He denies that any pro-lifers are opposing helping women so that they keep their babies. Approving E. J. Dionne’s column that we blogged about recently, Mattingly points to another issue:
Now something huge is missing [from the Washington Post story] and it can be summed up with one date — July 17, 2007. That’s the day when candidate Obama told leaders at Planned Parenthood: “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.” The president-elect is a co-sponsor of this bill, which would, in the words of the National Organization for Women, “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”
In other words, the real tensions inside the right to life movement are not about whether to back legislative efforts — such as the Democrats For Life “95-10” package — to support women and their children (although there are some debates about issues linked to birth control). The tensions are about FOCA and efforts to erase restrictions on abortion that are supported by many or most Americans, including conservative, moderate and even some liberal Democrats. . . .FOCA is a dagger at the heart of the pro-life left and hopes for compromise and common-ground initiatives.
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