The problem I have with this strategy is that politics always focuses on certain kinds of *people* when discussing certain kinds of pain. For a while, the kind of person America focused on may indeed have been the abandoned mother, the reluctant mother, the abused mother. But opponents of abortion sacralize the submissive, all-suffering mother as a blessed vessel for the vulnerable baby. Experience with irreverent, opportunistic, hedonistic women has hardened the religious right to the suffering of exploited mothers. When sincerely believing Christians are asked to weigh the innocence and victimhood of women and their unborn children, duty and responsibility will always tip the scale away from the mother.
The problem I have with this strategy is that politics always focuses on certain kinds of *people* when discussing certain kinds of pain. For a while, the kind of person America focused on may indeed have been the abandoned mother, the reluctant mother, the abused mother. But opponents of abortion sacralize the submissive, all-suffering mother as a blessed vessel for the vulnerable baby. Experience with irreverent, opportunistic, hedonistic women has hardened the religious right to the suffering of exploited mothers. When sincerely believing Christians are asked to weigh the innocence and victimhood of women and their unborn children, duty and responsibility will always tip the scale away from the mother.