Did NARAL chastise Nancy Pelosi for agreeing with them?

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is the second major Democrat to upset her pro-abortion constituents with unexpected comments lately. In a new interview with Roll Call, she said this (emphasis added):


This from Nancy Pelosi, who has dutifully voted for everything the abortion lobby wants, who called late-term abortion “sacred ground,” who gladly accepts awards named after the founder of the abortion-as-birth-control industry, who bitterly snaps at anyone who tries getting her to discuss the science behind what she claims not to believe in?

This isn’t the first time the former Speaker’s tried this whopper—last fall, she claimed to “abhor” abortion. However, Pelosi’s actual record being everything the abortion lobby could want didn’t stop NARAL from criticizing her remarks:

At a time when our rights are under daily attack in the halls of Congress, on the campaign trail, in statehouses and in the courts, now more than ever, we need our champions to speak with a clear and strong voice in support of our legal right to abortion. Unfortunately, Leader Pelosi’s recent comments fall well short of this standard.



So NARAL isn’t satisfied with their elected representatives agreeing 100% with their positions and effectively delivering on their goals; they must also abstain from any rhetoric that might soften their public image enough to better sell their goals to the public. No wonder they keep losing elections.

It is deeply revealing that NARAL is this sensitive. As Ramesh Ponnuru quipped, “How dare Pelosi suggest that it is hypothetically possible to be too extreme in support of abortion.” They have no concern for how they want to be perceived by those not already supporting them, or for how preposterous their complaints sound. Abortion may not be birth control in the sense that you regularly schedule abortions on the assumption you’re going to need them, but it certainly is in the sense that whole point of abortion is to prevent giving birth when you don’t want to.

And if NARAL is right about abortion’s morality, then what would be wrong if women did use it “as birth control”? It’d be less practical for the woman, sure, but from NARAL’s perspective shouldn’t that fall in the category of “women’s personal decisions”?

Similarly, pro-lifers know why we find the concept of abortion “on demand” disgusting, but I’m at a loss as to why NARAL would. They are constantly lobbying to make abortions cheaper and easier to obtain regardless of the reasons for any regulation. NARAL does not support any policy, from informed consent to waiting periods, that would help ensure that the decision to abort isn’t being made casually. And we’re constantly told that no matter what a woman’s reason for aborting is, it’s unquestionable.

All of that sounds an awful lot like an on-demand service to me.

Lastly, NARAL’s implication that they don’t want people getting the idea that abortion is used casually is… essentially the same thing Pelosi was saying. So really, all NARAL is critiquing Pelosi for is agreeing with them, albeit without adding “and of course neither does the pro-choice movement.” Even though the implication was obvious anyway from the facts that Pelosi presumes to represent it and thinks it can do no wrong.

In the pro-abortion world, the activist and politician classes have little of substance to disagree on, so the pettiness of this squabble is to be expected. Truly, they deserve each other.

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