Breakpoint: “Critical Abortion Theory”

 By John Stonestreet and Shane Morris:

How new language is obscuring the debate about life.

Published July 17, 2024

Typically, the side that tries the hardest to obscure what is being argued about is the wrong one. For example, abortion supporters, having largely lost the scientific and constitutional battles, are turning now to Critical Theory talking points and claims of victimhood. The strategy is to portray abortion as a justice issue and anyone who opposes it as an oppressor.

A recent short film from The New York Times dramatizes the struggles of abortion clinic workers and patients against the supposed scourge of pro-life laws and protesters. The video by Lynne Sachs is entitled Contractions, and it features bizarre sequences of mostly African American women in hospital gowns milling around an abortion clinic parking lot covering their faces, while Planned Parenthood staffers deliver breathy, dramatic narration.

“Your character gets attacked just going into the building to do your job,” an employee says. “It’s war every day.”

“So many freedoms are being taken away every day,” says another.

“I feel like I’m on the new underground railroad,” says a patient who identifies as a woman of color.

“These changes, it’s really just about control.”

“They’re taking our power from us.”

And finally, a grimly ironic question, asked from a place that promotes the killing of preborn children:

“Why do we have to keep proving that we are humans?”

In the Times video, the so-called “procedure” is mostly obscured. The word “abortion” is barely mentioned. Front and center instead are imagery and wording meant to imply that pro-lifers are like Jim Crow supporters—powerful oppressors bent on controlling women (especially minorities) and denying their humanity.

Continue here.