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Maybe they didn't realize they were devouring their own children when they threw off the bonds of traditional morality, but they seem almost oblivious to the depths of their failure. The tired message of women like Kate Michelman, retiring president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, is part of their legacy.

The New York Times calls Michelman "one of the grand dames of the reproductive rights debate." She became an abortion activist after her husband abandoned the family when she was pregnant with their fourth child. She was humiliated to discover that she would need his permission and that of an all-male hospital board to obtain a legal abortion. (Imagine allowing a single humiliation to define you.) Michelman is stepping down to care for her ailing husband and their daughter, according to The Times. She says, "After nearly 20 years of pouring my heart and soul into this organization I must now put them first." It's an ironic statement from the lips of someone who advocated a utilitarian view of family for so many years.

Michelman says the "true impact" of NARAL can be measured by the "countless women whose lives have been saved and children whose lives have been enriched by our work." Though the lie is smooth as silk, her message is both hopeless and materialistic: hopeless because it says the human spirit cannot overcome devastation (in this case, of unwanted pregnancy), and materialistic because it assigns a family's economic concerns ultimate priority, devaluing the poor—not to mention the unborn—in the process.

My grandmother's experience makes Michelman's (and my own) look like a day at the beach. Abandoned by her husband in the slums of Newark, New Jersey, she raised seven children by herself. Then she raised three of her grandchildren after they too were abandoned. It could be said that this course of action led to an early grave, and she was not a happy woman toward the end of her life. But would any of my cousins or I say one of our parents should have been sacrificed in utero so the others could have had a better life—or so that our grandmother could have? I don't think so. We would all agree, however, that our grandfather should have been wrangled back from his real-estate pursuits in Florida and sentenced to forced labor for their support. My grandmother surrendered her life for her family. That's everyday nobility. It degrades us to sacrifice our children and call it virtue.

Michelman is obviously a resourceful woman. Somehow I think she would have managed to succeed, even with that fourth child. To say others are incapable of the same is nothing more than condescension. And it hardly seems necessary to mention that legalized abortion exponentially reinforces the male tendency toward sexual irresponsibility. The argument that legalizing abortion prevents back-alley abortion tragedies is like saying society ought to dance with the devil because unless we do, those who sleep with him might get torched.

Two boomer friends of mine provided a sharp contrast to Michelman and her peers. In addition to hosting an annual National Day of Prayer gathering at their expansive home, Jean Peterson ministered to unwed mothers and post-abortive women, while her husband Don counseled repentant substance abusers and financial mismanagers. They went about the work of redeeming a generation of Americans, all the while tethering that work to its source in prayer. They left this world as part of the group of passengers who saved our nation's capital from becoming the third target of terrorists on September 11, 2001. Theirs is the legacy worth emulating.

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February 2004, Vol. 48, No. 2