Pro-Life or Pro-Ideology?

("Pro-Life or Pro-Lie" alliterates better, but it's too easy.)

"[A]bortion arguments become very tedious very quickly" -- I couldn't agree more with the good Professor Schaff. That's exactly the argument from Children for Healthy Families: instead of revisiting an issue that's already been hashed and rehashed with no practical results, it's time for the 2008 Legislature to drop abortion from its agenda and focus on real bread and butter issues.

Tedious as they may be, however, a few thoughts come to mind on the good professor's dispute with the still-unanswered Anna:

1. Where Dr. Schaff originally offered a thoughtful response (more honest scientific thought in one post than Leslee Unruh will ever offer), his latest "Response to Anna" falls back on speculation ("postulating" a connection between phenomena doesn't exactly win one a Ph.D.) and outright bad science (the abortion-breast cancer link, refuted in this study, but still trumpeted by abstinence-industry boosters like pseudo-scientist David Reardon). Saying abortion protestors are sincere in their belief of bogus science is, at best, faint praise.
2. We all appear to agree that we want policy based on hard numbers and good science. (Do correct me if I'm wrong.) Dr. Schaff criticizes the study Anna and I cite on the basis of the post hoc fallacy. However, the numbers cut as much the other way. Suppose I were working a scientist working for Leslee Unruh (tee hee). I want to support the hypothesis that "abortion laws have a significant deterrent effect on abortion rates" (or, more simply, "Bans save babies"). In my research, I would form the null hypothesis, "Abortion laws do not have a significant deterrent effect on abortion rates." The study at the genesis of our blog-outburst on this matter said that abortion rates are consistent regardless of the legal status of abortion. At that point, I look up from my research and say, "Uh oh. Data supports the null hypothesis. There goes my journal submission (and my paycheck from Leslee)."
   
3. In the end, Anna is dead right: some very vocal members of the abstinence industry are more interested in ideology and grandstanding than saving babies. Consider the position of the National Right to Life Committee against SCHIP (props to Ann at feministing.com):

   Initially, they wouldn't sign on to the legislation because it included coverage for pregnant women, not for fetuses specifically. (As if fetuses exist separately from pregnant women...) But with that provision stripped, NRLC still won't support S-CHIP. Anti-abortion Democrats aren't pleased, and sent a letter to the group telling them so. But the NRLC legislative director explained,

   “There’s nothing there [in the SCHIP bill] for us to really grab onto.”

   And,

   "They had their chance to put something in there for the pro-life community, and they batted it down."

   Because there's nothing for the "pro-life" community in a bill that protects children's health. They clearly have zero interest in that.

   Here we see one distinct faction of the anti-abortion lobbyists Professor Schaff would defend, putting an ideological position on terminology over health care coverage for the pregnant women who do all the work bringing precious lives into the world. If Professor Schaff's sincere anti-abortionist friends really do have, as he puts it [see his final parag.], "a sincere devotion to ending abortion and saving unborn human life" and a genuine concern about women's health, how can they put word games over practical steps to protect the health of women and children.

Anna asks (we all should) a very simple question (let's see if she'll accept this interpretation): what does "pro-life" mean? Slogan or action? Harangues or hugs? Legalisms or love? The anti-abortion crowd doesn't seem to have any clearer grasp on the answer than the rest of us.

Update: Anna offers her own response. Worth reading.