Today's News &
Views
May 10, 2006
The Passing of a Powerful Enemy of Life
"Basically, the opposition [pro-lifers]
really hates women, which I think comes out of a woman's sexuality... They fear
women's independence -- women no longer chained to the home waiting for the man
with a rose in their teeth."
Lawrence Lader in a 1991 interview with "The Body
Politic" magazine.
Sometimes we forget that Roe v. Wade did
not spring from Harry Blackmun's noggin, fully formed and armed, like Athena
from Zeus's head. Roe gestated, as it were, over a long period. A slew of
contributors chipped in with the equivalent of toads, deadly nightshade,
henbane, and hemlock to create this judicial witches' brew.
One of the most prominent, Lawrence Lader,
died Sunday. As a sign of his influence and the esteem in which the anti-life
newspaper of record, the New York Times, held Lader, the Times published a
lengthy tribute that makes Lader out to be part political strategist, part sage,
and all wonderful.
Lader wrote a number of highly influential
books, including "Abortion" and "Abortion II," in addition to his biography of
Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger. He is best known to pro-lifers
through the writings of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, whose journey took him from being
the director of the largest abortion clinic in the world to becoming a staunch
pro-life champion.
Lader conjured up an enemy against which
the newly created National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (later
re-christened the National Abortion Rights Action League and, more recently,
Naral Pro-Choice America) could hurl taunts, accusations, and charges of
persecution. The target was, of course, the leadership of the Catholic Church.
In his book, "Aborting America," Nathanson
recalled Lader's lecture about the importance of demonizing the Catholic Church
hierarchy.
"Historically, every revolution has to
have its villain ... Now, in our case, it makes little sense to lead a campaign
only against unjust laws, even though that's what we really are doing. We have
to narrow the focus, identify those unjust laws with a person or a group of
people. A single person isn't quite what we want, since that might excite
sympathy for him. Rather a small group of shadowy, powerful people. Too large a
group would diffuse the focus, don't you see. ... It's got to be the Catholic
hierarchy. That's a small enough group to come down on and anonymous enough so
that no names ever have to be mentioned, but everyone will have a fairly good
idea of whom we are talking about."
Indeed, Lader's accusations were so
vituperative that Nathanson, who was Jewish, wrote, "It passed through my mind
that if one substituted 'Jewish' for 'Catholic,' it would have been the most
vicious anti-Semite tirade imaginable."
Lader is universally credited with
convincing a reluctant Betty Friedan, founder of NOW, that the feminist movement
of the 1960s must embrace abortion on demand. (Friedan once described Lader as
the "father of abortion rights.") Abortion was not even mention in the early
editions of Friedan's powerfully influential book, "The Feminine Mystique." Not
until 1966 did NOW include abortion as one of its goals.
Besides demonizing the Catholic Church and
co-opting the feminist movement, Lader, in conjunction with Nathanson, created
out of whole cloth many of the myths that have shaped the abortion debate to
this day.
"We persuaded the media that the cause of
permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one," Nathanson
wrote. "Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we
simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that
we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive
abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be
in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive
abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the
U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the
media repeatedly was 1,000,000."
Likewise, they fabricated the claim that
10,000 women died annually from illegal abortion. Many pro-life feminists have
written it was this latter imaginary figure that swayed Friedan.
The irony need not be belabored. Two men
created the abortion movement in a living room, an accomplishment made possible
in no small measure by duping a woman whose organization latter would become
synonymous with militant support for abortion on demand.
Lader would subsequently leave NARAL to
form his own group, Abortion Rights Mobilization, which "aggressively fought his
battles against the Catholic Church and for [the abortifacient] RU-486,"
according to the Times.
Lader, described by the Times as the
"Champion of Abortion Rights," was 86. He is survived by a wife and daughter.
Please send any comments or questions to
Dave Andrusko at dandrusko@nrlc.org.