The pro-choice movement hasn’t exactly been honest and forthcoming during the partial-birth-abortion debate. Now we come upon a planning document behind the distortion campaign. On September 17, 1996, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake distributed a memo to her “clients and friends” on how to talk about partial-birth.
“DO talk about the life and health of the mothers,” she writes in the memo. “DON’T talk about the health and condition of the fetus. Voters believe that this procedure, no matter what we call it, kills an infant. We cannot get around this basic belief.” (Yes, it’s hard to get around a “basic belief” that’s true.) She also advises, “DO talk about this procedure as medically necessary. This communicates to voters that having this procedure is not a “choice.’ . . . These abortions happen only in the most tragic and dire of health circumstances, and only when it is medically necessary.” This, of course, as everyone now acknowledges, is untrue, but Lake adds, “DON’T argue about how often this procedure is used. The absolute number of times this procedure is used is irrelevant. Voters believe that even one time is too many.” And finally she concludes, “DON’T argue about the procedure. The “partial birth” procedure IS gruesome. There is no way to make it pleasant to voters, or even only distasteful.” Lake goes on to note that ” a range of research we have done this fall” shows that “most Americans . . . are comfortable with many types of regulation, including substantial restrictions on abortion after the first trimester.”
Thus a Democratic pollster lays out the extraordinary vulnerability of President Clinton’s position on abortion far more forcefully than the Republican presidential ticket ever did.
