I was quite excited last week to hear a lecture by Kate Michelman, the former head of NARAL, as I care strongly about reproductive rights issues. Unfortunately, by the end of the talk, I realized that she had failed to inspire what should have been a receptive audience.
Michelman gave a speech that did little to stress the importance or give any credibility to the pro-choice cause. Instead, she repeated the same old rhetoric about how abortion rights are constantly being curbed and how sexual education cannot be abstinence-only. Been there, heard that.
More disappointing than Michelman's inability to offer any original insight was her assessment of the selling points of the pro-choice cause. Michelman spent a considerable amount of time telling anecdotes about women who, for financial or other reasons, had difficulty obtaining abortions. Though compelling, the anecdotes were little more than sob stories and dated as far back as 1989. By attempting to appeal to the audience's sympathy for the pro-choice cause, Michelman weakened her own argument.
People who disagree with abortion are not going to change their minds because they learn that it can be difficult to obtain one. People who already support the cause do not need stories; they need a specific means of advancing the pro-choice movement.
Perhaps Michelman is just disillusioned with the challenges pro-lifers are posing to reproductive rights. Rather than offering suggestions about what can be done, Michelman harped on all the things that have not gone right. The suggestions she did offer were vague and obvious: appointing pro-choice Supreme Court Justices, having more respect for women and building a stronger grassroots movement for advancing the cause of reproductive rights.
We got a stump speech.
A student asked Michelman what we could do to shake up our politicians and get them to listen more to the pro-choice cause. Her response was, "I don't know." If, after 20 years working solely on pushing for reproductive rights, Michelman still has no answer, then how can anyone else?
Without leaders like Michelman giving the movement direction, the pro-choice cause can do little besides flail its limbs and flounder until someone more dynamic comes along and inspires it.
Thus we need to do what Michelman fails to: look in front of us instead of behind. We cannot use stories from 1989 to justify our claims any longer. We should focus on what is going on today and make sure our eyes are focused on the future, not the past.
We cannot continue to grumble about the clich5fd pro-choice road blocks: the make-up of the Supreme Court, the difficultly poor women have obtaining abortions and the right-wing agenda that pervades a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill. Instead, we can find new angles of focus: forging a coalition with pro-life groups to reduce the number of abortions through birth control education, defeating the partial-birth abortion ban and pressuring politicians to stop shying away from these important issues.
Michelman cited apathy as the greatest threat to reproductive rights. If that is the case, we need someone who will leave us feeling motivated rather than disappointed.
Michelman, I'm begging to be inspired. But if you can't even galvanize your own supporters, then your desire to transform apathy into action is never going to be accomplished.
--Carey Polis is a junior Writing Seminars major from Bethesda, Md.
