In a world of media and news overload, some stories grab you and plenty of others that should get your attention slip away instead. The pained re-ignition of the seemingly insolvable abortion debate following the heinous murder of Kansas late-term abortion provider Dr. George Tiller grabbed me, though I’ve been disappointed by the tenor of so much I’ve read and heard.
What I’ve found rattling and at times revolting about the rhetoric of anti-abortion-rights advocates from Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry to Fox News talking head Bill O’Reilly isn’t their fundamental anti-abortion position, which I respect and find ultimately rational; it’s the utter unwillingness to acknowledge — much less sympathize with — the tragic circumstances that bring women and families to the question of whether to terminate a pregnancy, especially one late in the gestation period, which is often a wanted pregnancy stricken by severe complications.
For a civil and serious take on this issue, I’ve turned to The Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan’s terrific blog for Atlantic Monthly. Sullivan is a Christian, self-described conservative, and has expressed an opposition to the legality of late-term abortions that he is starting to second-guess. Over the past few days, he’s opened a significant portion of his blog space to a detailed, open-minded discussion of the issues surrounding late-term abortion, letting people tell their own stories in a series of anguished but illuminating “It’s So Personal” posts that are gripping, essential reading, and allowing space for readers to dissent from both ends of the abortion debate.
Another oasis of cultural seriousness amid the noise is Lake of Fire, a colossal 2006 documentary from British filmmaker Tony Kaye (American History X) that deserves renewed attention in the wake of Tiller’s assassination. Kaye shot his film (on black-and-white celluloid) over the course of 18 years, winnowing his material down to a two-and-a-half-hour epic that nobody saw.
