Well, goodness I apparently didn't make the point to you. At least, I believe by the use of the word extremist that your post refers to mine. At least it's an opening to talk to someone who might not be waving their gold casts of aborted baby feet or a coat-hanger picture in our face.
Exactly what I tried to convey is that most Americans are not extremists in my opinion. Weisberg's article, while it takes swipes at extremism in the pro-life camp, neglects to mention any problems within his supply of information. For instance, all we hear of NOW and Planned Parenthood is some far fetched agenda that is outside the realm of what I've ever heard an actual woman say.
Perhaps there was a time to rouse the feminine conscience in such an extreme way and to shock men into seeing the plight of women at the time. Now we face a time to fine tune what we say and see ourselves as equal people not only with an agenda, but responsibility for what we do and say. (Uh, oh I can't believe I just wrote that) We have to look at the riduclosity of young women being able to have a major life altering medical procedure without their parents knowledge when they can't even go watch Schindler's List without their guardian knowing it. Who wanted this? It only breeds denial of reality and irresponsibility to us as women. Our daughters cannot face this choice alone. Can you really choose abortion alone when you are not yet able to drive, drink a beer or own a vehicle. You can't even have cosmetic surgery, but you are legally protected for an invasive procedure all on your own when you're a teenager without your family even being told and often the majority of counseling you might get is from your teenage friends on MYspace. Is that helping young women. My last issue with the handling of the abortion issue is if you can actually say that it is solely your body when the other entity harbored may have a different blood type than the female. These are my ponderings on the issue and I somewhat wonder if it isn't average americans thoughts as well. You know isn't that something to discuss besides coathangers and burned baby bodies?
No one wants a woman to die because of a pregnancy. No one wants a young womans life to be trashed. There are instances of necessity I suppose. We just have so much to discuss and let the talking heads and talking typers feed us our faction-biased popcorn while we watch.
Regarding the Weisberg piece it is very informed but it still is only half informed. That was my point, perhaps I'll never get paid to write for Slate due to an inability to effectively communicate my point;)
Regarding the term baby-killers...you know I just dislike that term altogether because there are men who were tortured by that term in the not so distant past, perhaps even reading this forum and while I may be slightly bent now I used to occasionally connect them to helplines and suicide hotlines in the midst of the night so I just pass that on (no extra charge)
