underzealous

Tierney does say some good stuff in this article -- I agree the fight needs to be taken elsewhere. Tierney highlights what he thinks is the problem with pro-choice people:

If that argument sounds reactionary, it's only because Naral and other groups have worked so long to make abortion a civil rights issue, presenting it as women's fight for freedom against an oppressive patriarchy. The tactic makes for displays of solidarity like the March for Women's Lives, an occasion for denouncing male anti-abortion politicians and waving signs with that perennial slogan "If men got pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."
[...]
Treating the issue as a civil rights crusade may be good for mobilizing some women, but this strategy alienates the public because it ducks the central issue. If you believe that life begins at conception, then protecting women's rights means protecting the rights of females in the womb, too.

Do people find the pro-lifers' civil rights argument as "offensive" as Tierney suggests the pro-choicers' civil rights argument is? The civil rights argument came in one of the presidential debates last year where Bush was asked about Supreme Court decisions, and he mentioned one in particular: Dred Scott. And he said it because it is a code word for how conservatives might view the abortion issue. The analogy is that there might be certain decisions of law that we make that we later consider against human dignity. Conservatives want Roe v. Wade to be one of these decisions.