By Dave Andrusko
News that Washington Post (and syndicated) columnist William Raspberry died yesterday was another reminder that there is much less tread left on my tires than has already worn off. More importantly, the story in the Post this morning of his passing kindled a few flames of memory, which when augmented by an all-too-brief web search provided the impetus for this blog item.
Raspberry was by no means a pro-lifer. I don’t recall if he ever affixed a label to himself, but he certainly would have not have designated himself one of us. But the Post tribute/obituary was certainly correct when it said
Raspberry’s “writings were often provocative, but seldom predictable” and that, though a liberal, he “often bucked many of the prevailing pieties of liberal orthodoxy.”
On abortion, that meant Raspberry could tip-toe up to the blatant inconsistencies that undergird the “pro-choice” worldview but never quite get over the hump. The best he could do—and, to be fair, this is an awful lot more than most “mainstream” columnists were/are willing to do—was to show with great insight how an honestly conflicted “pro-choicer” could assuage his or her own conscience.
When I did my Google search the first two items, amazing as it seems, were two columns I actually remember reading way back in the late 1980s. One, “Moral Nuances And Ambivalence About Abortion,” was written a few weeks before the 1989 Webster v. Reproductive Health Services decision was rendered. (You can read the column here.)
At the time there was tremendous pro-life anticipation and pro-abortion dread that the justices might use the case to essentially dismantle Roe, which, alas, did not come to pass. That was the setting, the backdrop.
The column was an excellent example of Raspberry’s measured tone (by that time, he was, with some exceptions, a great deal less strident than he was earlier in his 40+year career writing op-eds for the Post). The piece also illustrated the trademark hesitancy of writers who know deep down that abortion is an abomination. They keenly illuminate the inner illogic of other writers who also know they are on the wrong side of the moral equation but are unable (as was Raspberry) to get past using excuses to refuse to choose the pro-life side.
As it did in Raspberry’s “Moral Nuances And Ambivalence About Abortion,” that frequently takes the form of making “militants” on both sides equally guilty yet condemning, for example, sex-selection abortions! (He was ahead of his time on that one.)
Raspberry did a brilliant job unpacking a piece written for the Washington Monthly by Jason DeParle. DeParle (who, as it happens, just wrote a piece for the New York Times on a different topic that has generated an extended conversation) essentially wants pro-choicers, of whom he is one, to feel bad about abortion.
DeParle wants them to acknowledge that you can be simultaneously supportive of the right to abortion but appreciate that there is a “moral tension” that is inevitably part of addressing an unwanted pregnancy.
In other words, don’t be cavalier about abortion.
Raspberry’s conclusion is that
“DeParle’s argument finally is against what he calls ‘abortion-without-qualm,’ against the contention that a fetus isn’t human unless we want it to be, and that our moral obligations to it don’t exist unless we want them to.”
It would be fair to conclude, from the way Raspberry constructed that column, that this was likely his position as well.
One final thought. After he retired in 2005, the Pulitzer Prize Winner
“devoted much of his time to an educational foundation, Baby Steps, that he organized in his hometown in Mississippi. He funded the project for low-income parents and children from his own pocket.
“After writing more than 5,000 opinion columns, Mr. Raspberry said in a speech at the University of Virginia in 2006, he had learned two important lessons.
The first, he said, “is that in virtually every public controversy, most thoughtful people secretly believe both sides.
“The second, which has kept my confidence from turning into arrogance, is that it is entirely possible for you to disagree with me without being, on that account, either a scoundrel or a fool.”
In his own writings, when it comes to abortion, Raspberry seemed to genuinely epitomize lesson #1. Hopefully in looking at his opinions on our issue, I am honoring lesson #2.
Our condolences go out to Mr. Raspberry’s family and friends.
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