Rall – pro-choicers need to talk better, be more honest

Ted Rall, far from a conservative, and pretty much an absolutist on reproductive rights, nonetheless says, in the wake of Dr. George Tiller’s murder, that pro-choicers need to communicate better, rather than engaging in some of the same demonizing the other side does.

In words that folks like P.Z. Myers and his Pharyngulac followers need to listen to (but won’t), Rall says:

I am disgusted by much of my fellow pro-choicers’ rhetoric in the aftermath of the shooting of Dr. Tiller.

Reveling in the same kind of smug self-righteousness that characterized Bush and his supporters after 9/11 (did they really think questioning liberals' patriotism would convince them to support invading Iraq?), my fellow pro-choicers are attempting to marginalize pro-life Americans as out of touch and possibly insane.

Regarding that last comment, he calls Tiller’s murder “tragic” while insisting that, from pro-lifers’ stance, it is NOT “senseless.” In fact, Rall goes further, showing the clarity that Myers lacks outside of his academic field, in many cases:

Abortion is murder. In my view women have--and ought to continue to have--the right to murder their unborn babies. Each abortion is a tragedy, some necessary and others not, and all of them are murder.

He then puts this in terms of larger complexity:

It’s not a position that I'm comfortable with. But as sad and horrible as abortion is, I can't see telling a woman who doesn't want to carry a pregnancy to term that she has to do so.

If you want to wrestle with more thoughts like this, read the full column.