“Pro-Choice” is on the way out; “Care, No Matter What” is in. After 40-plus years of debasing the language by equating choice with abortion advocacy, Planned Parenthood has focus-grouped its way into a new message. Jill Stanek reports here about this week’s quiet announcement from PP. Not every partisan of Roe has bought into the new approach, but where PP leads, others will follow.
Maybe the label “anti-choice” can now be retired from active duty. Stay tuned for “anti-care,” although perhaps I’m being pessimistic.
The same I day I read Stanek’s report, I came across the latest issue of Alliance Defending Freedom’s magazine. The cover story is about twelve nurses in New Jersey who fought back in 2011 after they were ordered to participate in elective abortions that were falsely called “emergency” procedures. With pro bono legal help from ADF, they were able to say no and still keep their jobs. They shouldn’t have needed assistance at all, but they did, since neither their employer nor their union was any help. The brief account of the nurses’ experience, coming as it did right after I read Jill Stanek’s post, made me realize that they didn’t have any focus groups to help them figure out the best way to express their beliefs about choice and care. They did pretty well anyway.
Leaven for the Loaf 