The media have been ripping into pro-choice campaigners in a hysterical feeding frenzy. This is one helluva mess. It is obvious why the pro-choice campaign decided to fight their case on the basis of those tragic cases that could attract most public sympathy. Opinion polls have shown that the procedure is unacceptable to more than three quarters of the American public, and it must have seemed tactically astute to present the cases of good family women like Mary-Dorothy, a practising Catholic whose fetus was affected by severe hydrocephalus. Distorting the facts to fit your case is always an illegitimate and ineffective way of campaigning.
Reality has an embarrassing tendency to reveal itself.
But more importantly, making an argument in support of the facts is ultimately the only way to shift public opinion. And 'the rest', it transpires, are the vast majority of women benefiting from the disputed abortion technique. Given that a pro-choice argument has not been put, it is hardly surprising that public opinion remains firmly against it. There are those who would argue that trying to win support for the heart-wrenching cases was the only argument that could be put, the only one that could carry public opinion. Others would say that the pro-choice campaigns only argued what they thought to be the case and they were naive as to accepted clinical practice.