A Primer on "Abortion Distortion"-The Myths That Helped Soften Public Opinion and Overturn Protective Abortion Laws.

The engine that powers the pro-abortion wrecking machine is a high octane, fuel-injected mythology that is as powerful as it is inaccurate. This faux-history softened public opinion, leveled abortion statutes during the 1960s, and offered courts a convenient justification for overturning protective abortion laws.

This tissue of lies was comprised of equal parts made-up factoids, distortions, and out-and-out lies, such as that tens of thousands of women died from millions of illegal abortions.

But (to switch metaphors) garments woven together with duplicities and omissions will eventually begin to fray. Mistakes must never be straightforwardly admitted, but can be alluded to as part of a campaign to reweave a convincing narrative.

I have a full plate of pro-abortion samplings to choose from, but my selection is from a couple of years ago written by the Boston Globe's redoubtable pro-abortion columnist Ellen Goodman. Although she never uses the word "mistake" or even "revision," she tells us that a previous column she'd written contained a statement that needs ... clarification? As someone who describes herself as both "pro-choice and pro-facts," can we expect a mea culpa from one of the most partisan, take-no-prisoners pro-abortion scribes?

Goodman assumes the posture of truth-teller. Were a modern day Diogenes on the lookout for an honest man, Goodman's tone tells us, he'd need go no further than the offices of the Globe.

In that earlier column, she wrote, "I referred to the bad old days when 10,000 women a year died of illegal abortions. Kaboom. The number10,000 deathsproduced a mother lode of e-mails insisting that it was either a lie or propaganda or an 'urban legend.'"

Why such a tidal wave of reaction? The 1960s abortion movement toppled protective state abortion laws based on two lies which acted like battering rams: that there were 10,000 abortion-related deaths and a "million" illegal abortions each year. Like wrecking balls they demolished state statutes, some over a century old. To this day these lies refuse to die, continually popping up in pro-abortion legal briefs.