"A New Day"

This piece, from First Things, by Fr. John Jay Hughes, is worth thinking about.  A taste:

The worst aspect of an Obama presidency, I have been telling friends for months, will be his Supreme Court appointments. They will set the so-called constitutional right to an abortion in concrete for years to come. While this remains true, Sen. Obama’s victory challenges pro-lifers in two ways.

We need first to recognize that politics is the art of the possible and that political battles can never be won by attacking our friends. During the annual march on Washington each January, some pro-lifers have had nothing better to do than to stage confrontations with pro-life members of Congress whose support they consider insufficiently militant. I received such an attack myself, during a previous presidential campaign, when a listener found the decibel count of a strong pro-life homily I preached too low. This is madness.

Second, we need to recognize that, for some years to come, abortion will be with us; we must support the kind of limitations on the practice which are in force in most other countries. To oppose such limitations on the grounds that they do not banish all abortions is also madness.

Beyond replacing political naivete with political savvy, the task before pro-life people now is to concentrate on the only task that will bring success in the fight for life: changing hearts and minds.

This is, of course, ex post advice.  That is, it seems clear that Fr. Hughes was not one of those arguing, ten days ago, that "changing hearts and minds" matters and good laws and clear-thinking Justices do not.  But, given the new (in his view, unfortunate) givens -- which seem to include a Congress and an Administration that will be strong proponents of abortion rights -- what to do?  Interestingly, his point is not, so far as I can tell, that those who oppose abortion should settle for re-packaging various spending programs as pro-life measures.  Instead, he suggests:

A good entry point for persuading people that abortion is wrong is pointing out the chilling similarities between the arguments for slavery in the 1850s and those used to defend abortion today. Like today’s pro-choice people, slaveholders said they weren’t forcing others to own slaves. They simply pleaded for the right to do what they wanted with their “property.” That word disguised, of course, the fact that human lives were at stake. The question of pro-choice people today, “Doesn’t a woman have a right to do what she wants with her body?” similarly disguises the fact that exercising these so-called rights involves taking a human life.

I wonder.  I wonder if Fr. Hughes is underestimating the trickiness, in a legal context that is thoroughly committed to the fundamental-right-ed-ness of abortion, of moving the ball with this kind of "pointing out"?  Is this really likely to be a "good entry point" (even if we assume, as I think I am willing to do, that there are instructive similarities)?  I just don't know.

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