Trouble in Paradise

Ann at Feministing has been kind enough to scan and post this story in the August 2005 edition of Glamour magazine entitled, "The mysterious disappearance of young pro-choice women."

It discusses the shifting of positions of young women over time with regards to their views on abortion. Various theories are put forth - confidence in birth control, different prolife approaches, ultrasound technology, a new reverence for motherhood among celebrities, young women don't realize what it was like before Roe v. Wade, etc.

Something that I found to be especially interesting is on page 217. Naomi Wolf, a longtime pro-choice activist, discusses how her views on abortion have shifted, admitting "the issue got more complicated when I got pregnant." The article goes to describe Wolf's current position in the abortion debate:

Wolf now sees value in the way some European countries do it: free, legal abortion in the first trimester but close regulation thereafter (with exceptions for cases in which the health or life of the mother is in jeopardy. Rigidly insisting on the right to elective abortion late in the second trimester, she argues, "is a loser of a position, and it's not what we should be fighting this battle on... and I'm not even sure it's right.....Would pro-life women maybe be more willing to support a safe reproductive agend" - including legal first trimester abortion - "if the pro-choice side wasn't out there screaming about the right to terminate what feels to many women like a living being at five or six months?" asks Wolf.

This line of thinking didn't go over too well with former president of Planned Parenthood, Gloria Feldt. Fidelity to abortion on demand is a seemingly a must.

"Naomi should stop yapping about giving something up and start concentrating on making sure women continue to have access in the first trimester," responds a frustrated Feldt.....Ceding any more ground could prove devastating, Feldt believes. Why? Because, she maintains, "The political forces opposed to abortion are the same factions who want to eliminate sex education and make it harder to get access to the morning-after pill and other contraception," she says..... "This is about the consequences of letting the political power go to people who will take away every other reproductive right...."