The pro-life movement, 44 years after Roe

By KATHLEEN M. GALLAGHER- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

I recently signed an online petition at change.org. I'm not ordinarily a petition kind of person, but this particular petition caught my eye. It was aimed at media organizations and implored them to show the diversity of the pro-life movement when covering the issue of abortion.

It was developed by a group called The Consistent Life Network, and it took issue with the media feeding false stereotypes.

As a signer, I attested to the fact that I am "frustrated that news organizations, who would never think of discriminating against women or ethnic minorities in other contexts, do so with free abandon by not selecting them as spokespersons" for the pro-life cause.

Boy, have they got that right. I have been active in the pro-life movement for more than 40 years, and I have witnessed the diversity of the cause up close and personal all across this country.

I've attended conferences sponsored by Concerned Women for America and seminars organized by Feminists for Life. I've spoken at roundtables convened by peace-loving social justice organizations and conventions assembled by conservative Evangelical Christian groups. I've worked with members of the Knights of Columbus and members of Atheists for Life. I've marched for life alongside the Thomas More Society and the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians. In the state Legislature, I have worked hand-in-hand with both Democrats and Republicans, women and men, to advocate for laws to protect the unborn.

I recently became aware of a group called the 'New Wave Feminists,' an edgy New-Age bunch of millennials with brightly-colored hair and sharp wit who say, "Sometime before we were born, our womanhood was traded for a handful of birth control pills, the 'privilege' to degrade ourselves in Playboy and the 'right' to abort our children." They aim to take feminism back from those who have corrupted it. You go, girls.

Diverse? You bet we are. Yet, the secular media consistently portray us as a single-issue, male-dominated, right-wing, intolerant bunch of zealots.

I can personally swear to the media bias that the petition seeks to eliminate. Back in the early '90s, I was seven months pregnant with my second child, and testifying at a legislative hearing in Albany about the need for better maternity leave policies. I knew the Associated Press reporter who covered the Capitol was in attendance, and I also knew he was planning a feature piece on "the face of the pro-life movement."

"Here I am," my expectant body seemed to say as I waddled up to the microphone, my witness broadening the very meaning of "pro-life" by encouraging more family-friendly policies in our state.

No such luck. The reporter's syndicated piece ran that weekend. It featured a quirky old man who often stood outside the Senate chamber, holding large, graphic photos of dead unborn children.

Then there was the time I handed my business card to a New York Times reporter so that he would get my correct spelling and title when the paper printed my quote -- the card that reads "director of pro-life activities" for the state's Catholic bishops.

When the story ran the next day, they quoted me as the "director of anti-abortion activities." Apparently, they can't even read without bias. They were forced to publish a correction.

We need to shatter the stereotypes and discourage the media from typecasting the pro-life cause. It's an uphill battle, but it needs to be done in order to bring balance and fairness into the public conversation surrounding abortion -- a conversation that's showing no signs of ending, even after 44 years.

(Mrs. Gallagher is director of pro-life activities for the New York State Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of the state's bishops. Learn more at www.nyscatholic.org.)[[In-content Ad]]