Skip to comments.

Posted on 09/05/2001 5:51:42 AM PDT by pittsburgh gop guy

By David O'Reilly and Marie McCullough
INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS

An antiabortion ad campaign launched in the region yesterday by Roman Catholic bishops has sparked criticism from abortion-rights advocates who say the ads are dishonest and a "stealth campaign" aimed at stacking the U.S. Supreme Court with antiabortion justices.

The campaign - which the bishops say is designed to promote a new discussion of abortion - asserts that the Supreme Court allows abortions "at any time, for any reason" during all nine months of pregnancy. "Abortion: Have we gone too far?" the ads ask.

The campaign's 30-second radio spots began airing on five local stations, and posters are set to appear on three commuter rail lines.

Abortion-rights advocates contacted yesterday said that the messages distort abortion data and fail to point out that 41 states prohibit most abortions after the fetus is viable.

Cory Richards, senior vice president of the Allan Guttmacher Institute, an independent, nonprofit reproductive-health research center that endorses abortion rights, said: "The campaign is really about laying the groundwork for making abortion illegal.

"It's sponsored by the U.S. Catholic Bishops, although none of the materials say that. It's basically a stealth campaign . . . to get an antiabortion justice appointed to the Supreme Court."

Carol Petraitis, director of an ACLU of Pennsylvania abortion-rights project, echoed that charge. "They'll see how this first salvo resonates with people, and then replicate it in other areas of the country."

But Cathleen Cleaver, a spokeswoman on abortion issues for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the campaign was designed to correct misinformation from abortion-rights advocates, and denied that the bishops were trying "in any way" to influence appointments to the Supreme Court.

Cleaver said the purpose of the campaign is to prompt a discussion of the Supreme Court's decisions on abortion, especially Doe v. Bolton in 1973. That decision, she said, allows a woman to claim virtually any health crisis at any state of pregnancy if she wants an abortion.

Doe v. Bolton, a companion to the landmark decision Roe v. Wade, identifies factors that should be considered in determining whether a woman needs an abortion to preserve her health; it leaves that decision up to her and her doctor.

The Supreme Court has also ruled that states may ban abortion after a fetus can survive outside the womb, except when the abortion is necessary to save the woman's life or health.

"We're trying to deliver a basic message to a very broad audience - in particular to people who consider themselves pro-choice - and bring forward a couple of basic facts about abortion that most people don't know," Cleaver said.

"Surveys show most people think abortion is legal only in the first three months of pregnancy, but our main message is that it's legal through all nine months."

The ads and commercials do not identify the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as sponsors, but declare themselves as messages "from the Second Look Project" and invite the reader or listener to visit a Web site at www.secondlookproject.org.

The three radio spots all use a woman narrator.

One begins with the sound of a fetal heartbeat.

"Hear that?" the announcer asks. "It's the heartbeat of a child in the womb at six months."

She says his chances of survival are better than 50 percent, "but his mother could choose to have an abortion instead. The law says it's her choice."

After noting that "13,000 babies" in the fifth month are aborted legally each year, the announcer says: "The Supreme Court says you can choose to have an abortion at any time, for any reason, right up through the ninth month."

The heartbeat stops.

"We simply ask the question: Have we gone too far?"

The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, a reproductive health-care research organization that supports abortion rights, published a data sheet this year reporting that 1percent of legal abortions occur at 21 weeks or later.

Eighty-eight percent are performed in the first 12 weeks, according to the Kaiser Foundation, which noted that about one in four pregnancies in the United States ends in abortion.

Richards, of the Guttmacher Institute, said that the campaign uses selective data "designed to deceive the average reader."

But Cleaver said there was no deception. "If other dioceses pick up this campaign, maybe a conversation will continue," she said.

The bishops' conference chose the Philadelphia area for its $500,000 "prototype" campaign because advertising is relatively affordable in this large media market, she said. Catholic dioceses and other groups that oppose abortion are invited to use the materials in their areas.

About a third of the people in the region are Roman Catholics.

Catherine Rossi, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said that no archdiocesan funds were being used for the bishops' campaign, but that the archdiocese "welcomed the Second Look campaign" and hoped it would "prompt some people to think twice about abortion."

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.