Barney Frank sent me an email the other day. He was warning me about a “right-wing, pro-life group”.
It never ceases to amaze me. The Democrats alway seem eager to let the Republicans frame the terms of debate, constantly ceding the rhetorical high ground.
I can understand why the Republicans want to call themselves “pro-life”, but for the life of me I can’t understand why the Democrats, or any group that supports abortion rights, let them get away with it.
I tried to do a little research on Google to find out whether the Republicans return the favor by calling abortion rights advocates “pro-choice”, an appellation that in any event is far less rhetorically appealing than “pro-life”. I didn’t get very far,but did see a surprising number of links to articles in which it was urged that a group should be allowed to call itself whatever it wants, and its wishes should be respected. Bizzarre thinking, when examined just a bit.
In this particular case, we are dealing with a group of people who come with a package of beliefs. These days the right is fairly monolithic. You aren’t a member unless you goose step to one drum. They are not pro-life. They are against providing health insurance to all those babies they insist must be born. That is not pro-life. They are for the death penalty. That is not pro-life. They support every imperial war a Republican president cares to launch. That is not pro-life. They resist every effort to save the planet from the coming global warming catastrophe. That is definitely not pro-life. They are, in fact, for the most part, quite definitely pro-death, providing always that it’s someone else doing the dying. Yet Barney and far too many of his compatriots on the left help them win the PR wars. Truly amazing.
One Comment