The Majority of Pro-lifers are Misrepresented

This past week I learned of a divide between my generation and the older generations while I was on vacation with my family. My grandparents come from a time when the news media could be trusted to provide timely, reliable, factual information. I, however, come from a time when the news media can be relied on to broadcast whatever will get the viewer to stop channel surfing long enough to make it through a few rounds of Viagra commercials. It can't be trusted. Turning on multiple 24 hour news networks, I saw little more than a constant misrepresentation of public opinion and a severe lack of substance. If I were to take what I saw seriously, as my grandparents do, I would be under the impression that almost everybody in this country opposes health care reform and it's being forced upon us against our will. With a constant barrage of clips showing people lining the streets shouting at each other, people disrupting town halls convened to discuss solutions, cartoonishly angry questioners, men showing up with guns for no reason other than to intimidate, and the endless negativity, it's hard to imagine that most people actually do support health care reform.

The problem with all of this is when extremists hijack the discussion by yelling, screaming, and flat-out lying how are the rest of us supposed respond? Stooping to the same level of discourse only helps perpetuate the chaos and confusion extremists want. But the focus being placed on the tiny minority opinion has blown the entire dialogue into funhouse-mirror proportions. It has created this illusion that health care reform is about to destroy all of our lives. And this exact same phenomenon has taken place within the pro-life community.

And Crowepps is right. At a time when common ground is not only vital, but finally a part of the conversation, the anti-contraception pro-life faction hold all the levers of power in the pro-life movement and is attempting to steer any discussion of common sense prevention into an iceberg. In my previous post about a bill on prevention, I mentioned the overwhelmingly positive response I received from many pro-life people who all thought it was important to take precautions that would decrease the number of abortions. I still hear similar sentiments often. These are the kind of people who represent the 80% of the pro-life movement and with this solution, they're on our side. This demographic is key in moving the common ground agenda forward.  But first, we need to make some critical connections. We need to reach out to those whom we know support pregnancy prevention because we can't enact change without them. But before we can count on their support, it is they who need support. An organization for pro-lifers who support prevention and contraception needs to be formed because, as it currently stands, no pro-life organization does. That means the supermajority of pro-life people are not being accurately represented. This is how the extremists become free to use these so-called supporters in their statistics and skew the image of what pro-life truly is. There are members on both sides of the abortion issue who want to fix the problem. They do exist. WE exist. We are not enemies. We are comrades in the fight to take back that little cottage of reason. We just need to get together, get mobilized, and get loud.