Held to answer

Planned Parenthood needs a shot of testosterone, and I know just where they can get it: the National Rifle Association.

For more than three decades abortion foes have whittled away at women’s reproductive rights while abortion supporters have compromised. Just earlier this month, House Republicans and 16 Democrats passed a bill that would limit abortions paid for with private insurance.

Remember when former president Bill Clinton and then- U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton each said abortion should be “rare?”  With support like that, no wonder abortion has become a dirty word. Can you imagine any prominent NRA member saying gun ownership should be “rare”? No way.

In 1982 when I was a young newspaper reporter, I took a break in my career and worked for several months in California’s “No on 15” campaign that opposed Proposition 15, a handgun control initiative. The organization I worked for – Citizens Against the Gun Initiative – was comprised of several gun rights groups, the biggest and most influential one being the NRA.

“No on 15” won the election, and I saw up close what made the NRA so successful. Their detractors like to credit the group’s success to gun manufacturers’ money. But money is no guarantee of political success. (If it was, Meg Whitman would have been governor of California, and there would be a Peripheral Canal running from Northern to Southern California.)

As someone who is pro-choice on guns and abortion, I think Planned Parenthood could learn something from the NRA. This is an organization that doesn’t apologize, doesn’t seek common ground with gun-haters. It gives its opponents no wiggle room. I rummaged through my old file containing the “Campaign Plan for Opposing Handgun Controls” and found some useful lessons for Planned Parenthood and abortion supporters:

“Don’t waste time trying to convince gun control advocates.”

Translation for abortion supporters: Don’t waste time appealing to Catholic bishops or anyone who believes abortion kills babies. During the health care debate when the Catholic bishops came calling on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, she let them in. The NRA would’ve slammed the door in their faces – after rubbing their noses in the Catholic priest sex scandals and reminding them that they have no claim to any moral high ground.

“Play upon public fears that ‘moderate’ handgun controls are only a prelude to greater and greater controls ….”

Translation: Adding roadblocks to abortion will lead to greater restrictions on birth control. This has, in fact, already happened and will continue to happen. Consider, for example, policies that allow pharmacists to reject filling prescriptions for the morning-after pill. Consider how birth control is regarded as a negative. Earlier this spring when New York schools Chancellor Cathleen Black was forced out, the media piled on about one of her gaffes – joking that birth control could be a solution for overcrowded classrooms. Nobody dared acknowledge that she was right.

“Reinforce public perceptions that handgun controls benefit only the criminal element in society while penalizing the law-abiding citizen.”

Translation: Outlawing abortion only penalizes the daughters of ordinary citizens. The daughters of the wealthy have always had, and always will have, access to safe, legal abortion. If Planned Parenthood were as bold as the NRA, it would tell in graphic detail the stories of girls and women who have died from illegal abortions – with photos to match anything paraded by protesters outside abortion clinics.

“Build upon … the individual right to self-defense.”

Translation: Forcing a girl or woman to carry a pregnancy to term is nothing short of a physical assault on her body. She has an absolute right to defend her person. What could be a more basic, individual right?

A final piece of advice in the NRA’s successful campaign plan was to point out the absurdities of its opponents. The anti-abortion movement is rife with absurdities. How can you tell a girl or a woman – an actual human being– that the fertilized egg attached to her uterine wall is more valuable than she is? If abortion is murder, what is a miscarriage – involuntary manslaughter?

The past three decades have given Planned Parenthood and abortion supporters an arsenal of evidence in their favor. At no time in history, has the second-rate status of females been so heavily publicized. Whether it’s the Taliban prohibiting women from working, or girls’ schools being burned in Afghanistan or CBS correspondent Lara Logan being sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square, there is a frightening portion of the world that sees females only as wombs.

Imagine what the NRA would do with this kind of ammo against its opponents. It would use it, with no apologies. And it wouldn’t speak in a finger-wagging Mom voice calling for a time-out.

If the NRA’s cause was reproductive rights, it would use an authoritative Dad voice to deliver this brutal truth, as breathtaking as a shotgun blast: “My daughter’s life will not be at the mercy of some guy’s semen.”

– Pamela Fitzsimmons

Related:

“The Week That Wasn’t”

“This Will Never Stop”