Abortion Controversy: Novak on ‘Woman’s Right to Choose’
Despite Michael Novak’s well-intentioned argument (“Woman’s Right to Choose Is Important, but Not Solitary,” Op-Ed Page, Feb. 3), the abortion issue is definitely about political power--and who gets to exercise it.
Novak contends that people on the anti-abortion side devote themselves “quite unselfishly” to fight for those without political power, the unborn. Unselfishly? Hardly.
From the beginning, the anti-abortion movement has drawn its numbers from people frightened or morally repelled by the sexual revolution our country’s gone through--by that I mean the new, more equal standing women have in our society.
That’s scary to a lot of us--men and women--who have lived for generations with a certain division of the sexes. These people look at the state of the family in America today and blame women’s equality. Abortion rights are part of that.
Novak throws in with this view when he writes that “until our generation,” the United States had a tradition of respect for the unborn by outlawing abortion. The truth is abortion was very legal in this country until the turn of the century. Women suddenly began going to college for the first time and moving away from the home to work in our growing cities. As with today, the “new woman” frightened traditionalists of both sexes. One result: Abortion was outlawed.
The anti-abortion movement is anything but unselfish; they wish political power not for the unborn, but for their own view of how everyone else should live.
JOSEPH FERULLO
Hollywood
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