What Now, Lifers?: Ditch partial-birth.(pro-life movement strategy)

Pro-lifers, one might think, have never had it so good. "As you know, I campaigned as a pro-life candidate," George W. Bush reminded the country shortly before his inauguration. On January 22, his first weekday in office, Bush banned aid to international groups that promote abortion abroad. The same day, tens of thousands gathered in Washington to participate in the March for Life. They hailed Bush's move, and their cheers resounded-it was the annual event's biggest crowd in recent memory. The new secretary of health and human services, former Wisconsin governor Tommy Thompson, is pro-life. The abortion rate is down nationwide. And poll support is as strong as ever: Americans are about as likely to call themselves pro-life (45 percent) as pro-choice (47 percent), according to a Gallup survey last fall. (In years past, the pro-choice label enjoyed as much as a 23-point advantage.) A Los Angeles Times poll in June found that 65 percent of the public believed that second-trimester abortions should be outlawed. Pro-life candidates continue to benefit from their stand: Among the 7 percent of voters who say they care deeply about abortion, Bush trounced Al Gore, 61 percent to 30 percent, according to Democratic pollster Mark Penn.

So what should the pro-life movement do now? It should suspend the most successful political strategy it has ever had: the drive to ban partial-birth abortions.

The mere proposal of such a ban was, politically, a smashing success. "It's the only example we have of a pro-life legislative initiative moving public opinion," says Princeton University's Robert George. It has compelled the media, at least occasionally, to describe in some detail what Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor has called "a rather gruesome procedure." And it gave the pro-life movement a rallying point during the eight wilderness years of President Clinton.

But the pro-life movement has squeezed everything it can out of partial-birth abortion. To begin with, its value was primarily symbolic. In almost all cases, a woman slated to receive a partial-birth abortion could also get an abortion another way. Symbolism shouldn't be underrated; but the symbolism of partial-birth abortion could now end up cutting against pro-lifers. The effort to end the practice suffered a major defeat last summer when the Supreme Court struck down a Nebraska law that served as a test case for restrictions that had been passed in nearly half the states. This was a demoralizing moment for pro-lifers, who had struggled for years to achieve what would in substance have been a rather modest gain. The political temptation has been to forge ahead anyway. Banning partial-birth abortion remains attractive to pro-life strategists because it regularly wins almost two-thirds approval in polls. As recently as last fall, it gave pro-life candidates an appealing way to talk about abortion before a divided public. In fact, it was one of the few routes Bush would use to approach anything like specificity on the subject; during his first debate with Gore, Bush actually raised the issue himself.

Yet emphasizing partial-birth abortion was a curious choice. "Bush led the grass roots to believe partial-birth abortion would be a top item on his agenda," says Teresa R. Wagner of the Family Research Council. "I was a bit perplexed by that." Congress twice passed a ban, which Clinton vetoed both times. The pro-life grass roots may now expect Congress to send the same bill to Bush's desk for a signature, and soon.

But that would be a mistake. The courts would slap an injunction on the ban immediately, and then they would review a law almost identical to the one they struck down ...