The pro-choice crowd has never wanted abortion to be rare. Were abortion rare, women considering abortions would feel subtle societal pressure to preserve the life growing within them. Such societal pressure would create a "coercive" environment for women, inhibiting their ability to choose. For abortion to thrive, it must be common.
With abortion statistics shockingly high (25 percent of pregnant women abort their babies, and one third of women will have an abortion by age 45), abortionists and their advocates can make women who abort feel accepted. At Dr. Harrison's office, abortion statistics are posted on the exam-room mirror; a nurse rhetorically asks, "You think there's room in hell for all those women?" Of course, no religion has ever considered a population cap on Divine punishment -- surely, there is room in hell for whomever God chooses to place there. But the nurse's point is simple: You are not alone.
And the message works, as Harrison's patient "Amanda" demonstrates. According to the LA Times, Amanda, a 20-year-old administrative assistant, says it's not the obstacles that surprise her -- it's how normal and unashamed she feels as she prepares to end her first pregnancy. 'It's an everyday occurrence,' she says as she waits for her 2:30 p.m. abortion. 'It's not like this is a rare thing … It's not like it's illegal. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong.'"
This is the pro-choice agenda. For pro-choice activists, abortion is a good in and of itself. It allows a woman to exercise her "freedom of choice" at any time. Context does not matter; moral gradation does not matter; timing does not matter. The high school volleyball player who aborts her child because she does not want to ruin her body for nine months -- "I realize just from the first three months how it changes everything" -- is just as valid as the woman who aborts because her life is seriously endangered by pregnancy. Abortion must remain an absolute right, commonly exercised, if women are to be truly free.
For years, pro-life advocates have described their opponents as pro-abortion. After viewing the pro-choice movement's support for across-the-board abortions, that description seems apt.