When you’re winning, none of this matters.

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Feb 01, 2010

I think it is a good sign that abortion advocates are beginning to do a little infighting now that their primary vehicle for rapid expansion of abortion—Obamacare—is on the ropes. Apparently pro-aborts are upset with the compromise on abortion funding in both the House and the Senate bills, and they see their moment slipping away as the Democratic Party is weakened by the apparent failure of its healthcare reform efforts.

So now they are pointing fingers at each other and talking about the mistakes various pro-abortion leaders and groups made in pursuing a strategy which, as one columnist put it, “didn’t demand enough and ended up with less than nothing.” Or, as Center for Reproductive Rights President Nancy Northup said of efforts to amend health care to preserve the status quo, “I think without question it was a mistake to begin in a compromised position.”

Infighting is typically a sign that things are going badly. If I may be permitted an analogy from the sports world, whenever a team is losing, there is a tendency of players and coaches to become disaffected and begin laying blame on each other. In addition, of course, sports commentators go over everything with a fine tooth comb, pointing out all the little problems on the team which (allegedly) contribute to its current ineffectiveness. But as more experienced people invariably point out in these situations: “You always have problems and differences; it’s just that when you’re winning, it doesn’t matter.”

Although all serious pro-lifers have worried about the quality of the movement’s strategic decisions, and especially about the movement’s unfortunate divisions, the bottom line is that we would have far less internecine pro-life finger-pointing if the pro-life movement were making obvious substantial headway. But the same goes for the other side. And so I repeat: It is a good sign that abortion advocates are beginning to do a little infighting.