The Last Abortion Clinic
Tomorrow night (tuesday) on Frontline will be a documentary on the erosion of Roe vs. Wade over the last thirty years and the current threats to abortion rights; the episode is called "The Last Abortion Clinic," and more information is available here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/clinic/ . It’s a critical time for this critical issue - while early anti-abortionists were mostly radicals/fanatics and thus widely ignored for many years, they’ve quietly gained a lot of political ground in the last decade, especially in the politically powerful (though often overlooked) deep south.
For those of us who want to preserve abortion rights, it’s very important to know how serious this battle is, who the players are. Most of us are already aware that the real risk is not a sudden reversal of Roe vs. Wade, which is highly unlikely, but a slow erosion of rights through many small decisions. Consider, for instance, the legislation from a couple of years ago which made the murder of a pregnant woman a double homicide - one for the woman, one for the unborn child. Most congresspeople (including Democrats) sided with this law, since who wants to be seen as being against murdering pregnant women? The insiduous aspect, though, is that it paves the way to give legal rights to the fetus - if killing a pregnant woman is two murders, killing the fetus alone must be one murder, right? Well, not yet, but it’s definitely something to worry about.
For those of you in the Seattle area, the documentary will air on KCTS (channel 9) at 10pm on tuesday (11/8) and 3am on friday night/saturday morning (11/12). I plan to watch it at home (and probably record it); if you’re in the area and want to come over let me know.
