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Abortion Supporters use Urban Legends in Supreme Court Debate

Abortion rights extremists continue to propagate myths about the potential impact of a conservative replacement for Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Although five of the current justices support the core finding of Roe, abortion rights activists suggest a Bush appointee will overturn abortion and cause thousands of women to die each year.

Feminist Majority president Eleanor Smeal is the latest liberal to spread the myth that Sandra Day O'Connor's replacement will overturn Roe v. Wade. "Abortion rights, access to birth control and women's rights are on the line," she wrote. [more from Michelle Malkin]

Similarly, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Tuesday, "It means a minimum of 5,000 women a year will die."

Its hard to imagine a U.S. Senator repeating this completely debunked legend. Annie from AfterAbortion writes:

We pointed out that this claim of 5,000-10,000 maternal deaths from pre-Roe abortions was an urban myth, as outed by

Dr. Christopher Tietze, a leading pro-abortion statistician for Planned Parenthood,

NARAL Co-founder Dr. Bernard Nathanson,

Dr. Andre Hellegers (before his death, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University), and

The Centers for Disease Control
... just to name a few.

This didn't stop the National Organization for Women from responding with similar hysteria. LTI Blog writes,

No sooner did justice Sandra Day O’Connor announce her retirement when this appeared on the NOW homepage: "These are the faces of women who died because they could not obtain safe and legal abortions. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, these pictures could include your daughter, sister, mother, best friend, granddaughter. Don’t let George W. Bush and the U.S. Senate put another anti-abortion justice on the Supreme Court."

As a result, radically pro-abortion organizations, such as MoveOn.org, are organizing grassroots efforts to campaign against Bush nominees.

The stakes are "pretty high," MoveOn.org says. "If President Bush replaces Justice O'Connor with a conservative hard-liner, the balance of the court will shift dramatically. That one nomination could strip millions of Americans of constitutionally guaranteed rights-among them our rights to privacy and our civil liberties."

more from CNS News

MoveOn apparently refers to "abortion" as a civil liberty which the constitution guarantees. Right.

One final note. Annie suggests that it may be time once again to help Boxer see that she's effectivley touting the same urban myth that Ellen Goodman was forced to retract: