Abortion: Fox News Strikes Out
Fox News was supposed to give us unbiased news, free of the liberalism in which its competitors swim. With the likes of Tony Snow and Brit Hume on hand, conservative points of view were supposed to get a fair shake. So how does Fox News/Opinion Dynamics handle the question of public opinion 25 years after Roe v. Wade? With the same sort of misleading, superficial polling data we can get from the other networks. They found 64 per cent of respondents in favor of letting Roe stand, as opposed to 30 per cent who think the Supreme Court should overturn it: the kind of result abortion-rights activists use to claim that America has a "pro-choice majority."

But here's how the question read: "This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court decision called Roe v. Wade which made abortion in the first three months of pregnancy legal. Do you think the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade or let it stand?" As a matter of law this description of Roe is simply false, notwithstanding the fact that many otherwise well-educated people think it true. For the thousandth time, then, let's set the record straight: Roe prohibits any regulation in the first three months, prohibits any regulation except those about maternal safety in the second three months, and permits regulation in the last three months provided that an exception for the health of the mother is made. The same day, the Court ruled that "health" would be defined in the broadest possible terms, including "emotional health."

In other words, what Roe made "legal"—actually, made a constitutional right about whose legality the people's elected representatives could have no say—was abortion-on-demand at any stage of pregnancy. A pollster would be hard pressed to find much more than ten per cent of the public in favor of that.

. . . And So Do Republicans
Three pundits, all of them pro-life, offered their opinions of the famous partial-birth-abortion resolution (barring party funds to supporters of the procedure) in a closed session of the RNC's winter meeting in Palm Springs. Peggy Noonan and Vin Weber were against, Bill Kristol for. Weber made two interesting arguments, one pragmatic and one principled. The pragmatic argument was that a lot of money from wealthy pro-choice donors to the RNC makes its way to pro-life candidates—using funding as a weapon in the intra-party fight over abortion could backfire on pro-lifers, whose candidates would have a lot less money.

The other argument was dialectical: if it is wrong in principle to give money to candidates who support keeping partial-birth abortion legal, isn't it wrong to give money to candidates who support keeping abortion legal in general? Doing something about the latter wrong would, of course, have even more political drawbacks than the current resolution, but most of its proponents have argued that such considerations are inadmissible to the discussion. It is a matter, they say, of principle. But how is partial-birth abortion worse, in principle, than other forms of abortion? The campaign against it has been educational, yes; it generates more revulsion, sure. But its morally relevant characteristic is that of all abortions: it takes an innocent human life.

Some supporters of the resolution are questioning the pro-life credentials of opponents. The question could as easily be put to them.

Oh, And One More Thing
The Republican Leadership Council is—well, let's let Frank Rich describe it: "an organization formed by economically conservative G.O.P. donors to foster 'social inclusion' in their party." We all know what that means. (Hint: they're not talking about black pro-lifers or working-class Reagan Democrats.) And the names on the letterhead confirm the suspicion: William Weld, Julie Finley, Georgette Mosbacher, Tom Kean. And then there are the nominal pro-lifers like Pete Domenici and Al D'Amato. Even Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah doesn't seem all that out of place. Maybe Bill Paxon deserves a break—maybe—since his wife is a founding director. But what on earth are Gov. John Engler and Sen. Jon Kyl doing there?