monica miller

Miller wrote a book that we should read

Part 2: The Abortion Wars – Then and Now

What are some of the most significant changes you’ve noticed in the pro-life movement since your initial involvement back in 1970s to now? Have there been any encouraging developments? Setbacks? 

• Prior to the Roe vs. Wade decision, which was 1973, and all the way through the 1970s the other side was not uncomfortable with calling themselves pro-abortion. They did a PR shift in the early 80s where they consciously began to refer to who they were and what they were all about as the pro-choice movement. That was helpful for them even though I think it’s a lie.

• Another very big change on the other side is that for most of this fight it was very important for the other side to deny the humanity of the unborn. That was their primary justification for why it was all ok for a woman to have an abortion. Because the fetus, the embryo, the zygote, was subhuman, not human, not one of us and so she can have a moral justification to do what she’s doing. Now they have, to a certain extent, abandoned the emphasis on denying the humanity of the unborn because that’s a fight they can’t win. The evidence for the humanity is so obvious. Once you get to that argument you can easily show from science, from biology, from just plain old common sense, that we’re dealing with a human being.

• On our side the pro-life movement has gained credibility and respectability that we didn’t even have 25 years ago. And I think it’s just because we’ve hung in there. We’re not going away. This is a real war. We’re in it for the long haul. We have big name people who are on our side, including lots of politicians and even presidents of the United States. We’ve proven that this is not a political liability to have an anti Roe vs. Wade position.

• I do think more of the population is against the Roe vs. Wade decision, and I put it that way deliberately. Roe vs. Wade essentially gave us abortion on demand for the full nine months (of pregnancy). The general public is, I think, uneasy — and I’m deliberately being conservative with my analysis here — with this idea that a woman can get an abortion at any time in her pregnancy for any reason at all, completely without any government limitation or intrusion on that decision. We’ve shown that the vast majority of the polls show that Americans do not like late term abortions when they are presented with the facts. We’ve got some states that have banned abortion after a certain period of fetal development based on the unborn child feeling pain in the procedure.

• Activism is still alive and well but it is not as bold of an activism. The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act coupled with local injunctions placed such an enormous burden on activist activity that the rescue movement is virtually gone. It’s alive in a flicker of activity here and there. Whether it will be revived in the future remains to be seen.