Freedom. On the issue of abortion, only one side really uses that word with regularity – those who want to be clear about what is hurting women and pre-born infants. For those who want more of it, everything but abortion is said to be on the line. You’ve seen slogans like “My Body, My Choice” in branded Planned Parenthood messaging for years. But link any word to abortion often enough, and no one wants to keep it in the mix.
Forget choice, access, and health care as the top rationales for ending innocent life in the womb. It’s all Austin Powers now; “It’s freedom baby, Yeah.”
A recent Reuters article signaled that a pivot is underway on Team Abortion.
“It’s about freedom,” said Hassan Martini, who founded the No Dem Left Behind PAC.
Democratic strategist Jennifer Holdsworth echoed that emotion, saying, “You can’t run a party talking about freedom and then base one of your major policies on taking one of the most fundamental freedoms away from half the population.”
NARAL Pro-Choice America got the message and is changing its name to Reproductive Freedom for All (all but those in the womb of course.)
After sending some staff into a Planned Parenthood messaging training years ago in New York City, I knew “choice was on its way out as trainers admitted “choice” was associated with “abortion” and people, regardless of their labels, don’t like that word.
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So, choice, exit, stage left. It seems that abortion agitators have read Marxist activist Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” who wrote: RULE 7: “A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
I also wonder if part of “choice’s” unpopularity comes from the extreme lack of choice abortion-supporting legislators offered those who didn’t agree with how they wanted their bodies to be treated on other issues. Consider national vaccine mandates (and jail for those who refuse); National school lockdowns and violations of the right to assembly; and the sudden disdain for free speech if the Left doesn’t like what you’re saying.
My words, my choice?
Yet, for all the naked hypocrisy of the pro-abortion Left, the question of what to do with freedom matters greatly.
This country was founded, albeit imperfectly, on the principles of freedom and liberty for all, protected by a government that was to exist only to serve people and protect their rights.
This summer, my family has been on a history hunting road trip. My husband, a historian by training, has made sure that we see the places pivotal to our nation. I recently saw Norman Rockwell’s “Four Freedoms” paintings. They’re remarkable in-person and inspired by wartime President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State of the Union Address on January 6, 1941, where he said:
“In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech, and expression—everywhere in the world.
“The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.
“The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.
“The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.”
The spirit of freedom that FDR speaks of is one in pursuit of social harmony, peace, and the freedom to choose or express one’s deepest values or belief systems. Nowhere in that speech, or within the Constitution, do we see calls for the freedom to pursue destructive ends, such as the untimely deaths of others.
Not even the pro-abortion Left believes or follows their own logic on this so-called freedom when talking about their own families. Kathleen Parker, op-ed columnist for the Washington Post, powerfully described how when she became pregnant with her son over a decade ago, it changed her, writing: “It was clear to me that I was a mere vessel for this other autonomous life growing inside me and my job was to protect him. Sure, it was my body, but it was his life.”
The rebranding from “My Body, My Choice” to “Let American’s enjoy their freedoms” is nothing more than a subversive tactic to deal with the broken truth of choice – that it matters what you pick, because not all choices are created equal.
It’s not “freedom” to end an innocent’s life. That is the definition of tyranny.
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Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America & Students for Life Action with more than 1,400 groups on educational campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.