That war took on new urgency with the death of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller's murder became the badly handled subject of a recent airing of a “ripped-from-the-headlines” Law and Order episode. Dealing with the death of doctor who performed late-term abortions, the episode shocked and outraged many pro-choice adherents. Many viewers have already written about how poorly the episode portrayed the reality of women who seek late-term abortions and the doctors who provide them.

This negative depiction of doctors and others who work with women when they have to make difficult choices appalls me. However, I see this as one more link in the continuum that moves the focus of abortion off the women who seek them and onto the hypothetical babies who would be born to those women, whether or not those women want to give birth.

Abortion was practiced in America long before the Roe v. Wade decision was handed down. While abortion was not protected by law, it was not necessarily illegal and it occurred in a variety of circumstances among the Europeans who settled America and it has continued throughout the country’s history. In fact, women from the dawn of history have known what herbs and devices to use to bring on their periods and avoid carrying a pregnancy to term. Until the late 19th century, abortion services were often advertised openly, either by midwives, doctors, or lay practitioners, who performed the procedure without facing criminal charges.

However, in the late 19th century, with the formation of the American Medical Association, laws were enacted to criminalize abortions. Some say the AMA pushed for these laws as a way to undercut the influence of midwives. Others say doctors wanted to protect women from the hazards inherent in unsanitary procedures.

Even with laws prohibiting it, the abortion rate never went down. Women sought out undercover practitioners to carry out the procedure and in most cities and towns everybody knew where to find the person who would do this—for a fee, of course. The procedure was dangerous and often left women feeling frightened and ashamed. They feared being found out and they feared the procedure would injure or kill them. The abortionist would often make them feel dirty for getting pregnant, then for ending that pregnancy. Follow-up care was non-existent and if a woman got an infection or suffered injury, she often died or was unable to have children in the future.

In the last half of the 20th century, some states began to loosen restrictions on abortion, even before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Also, during that time courts began throwing out cases against doctors who performed abortions. Thus, the stage was set for Roe v. Wade.

Several ironies can be found in the Roe case. Justice Harry Blackmun, who authored the decision in Roe, said, “Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection.” Recent history has shown that rather than freeing the issue from “emotion and predilection,” the finding has become among the most volatile issues in America since 1973.

Further, the woman who was Jane Roe, Norma McCorvey, never had an abortion and in later years, she has become active in the anti-choice movement. This after she appeared at a few pro-choice rallies, then indicated that pro-choice activists didn’t show enough interested in her.

The Roe finding focused on the health of the woman seeking the abortion, a fact that has been obscured by time and certainly was glossed over in the L&O episode. A woman’s right to privacy is paramount in Roe, as she is granted that right in her decision-making process. While earlier laws against abortion were enacted for the purpose of protecting the health of women, Justice Blackmun said that advances in medical technology in the 20th century made such concerns irrelevant. What is relevant is that women who get abortions need the best medical care available to them.

Even in the sections of the ruling dealing with second and third trimester abortions, the emphasis is on preserving the health and life of the woman, not on the fetus.

What happened immediately following the Roe decision was what had been happening pre-Roe. Women obtained abortions, with the difference that now they could do so openly, legally, and safely. Then came the backlash. Members of male-led groups such as Operation Rescue, The Lambs of Christ, and Missionaries to the Unborn spread misinformation and employed harassment techniques and worse at abortion clinics throughout the country. Abortion providers and clinic workers became increasingly under threat by those who are opposed to women making decisions about their bodies.

These groups and their threats of physical violence have had a dampening effect on abortion accessibility. However, another, more insidious tactic antis have brought into play is that of making the fetus the focus of their anti-choice rhetoric. This tactic, while not overtly violent, has made the abortion debate about saving the fetus rather than ensuring the safety of the woman. It is a tactic designed to erode public support of legal abortion. The approach is two-pronged. The first prong includes using posters of pictures of mangled fetuses, including larger-than-life images plastered on huge trucks that are driven around communities by men. The second prong takes the form of pictures of darling babies, supposedly the babies that those women getting abortions would have given birth to.

What gets lost in the choice picture is the face of the woman who wants to take control of her body and her life, the woman who knows she’s not ready to have a child at a particular time in her life. Worse, we never see the woman who has been told her wanted child has a condition that will not allow it to survive after birth, or that will leave the child living a life filled with pain and suffering.

In the recent L&O episode, two such women were portrayed, women who were advised to abort their severely damaged fetuses. One woman decided to give birth, even though she knew her baby would live only a short time. In what was set up as a heart-wrenching scene, we see this woman surrounded by her supportive family as she cuddles the sick baby, who despite being terminally ill, looks quite normal and pain-free.

The other woman is forced into giving birth because the doctor who was to perform the procedure was killed the day before her appointment. It’s hard to discern what the writers want viewers to make of this character. She knows her baby will require constant care, which will be extremely expensive and which she knows she is not physically equipped to give. The baby’s father admits he is selfish and doesn’t want to support a sick child. The woman’s father, however, is portrayed as being unselfish enough to want to work three jobs to help his daughter take care of this sick child. The last we see of this woman is not her, but a picture of her newborn baby swaddled in a blanket, sick with a condition that will affect him and his mother all his life.

This is what has happened to the face of choice in the rhetoric of the anti-choice movement. That face has become the darling face of a baby who surely will make her mother happy if only she will allow her to be born. The mother herself has become, at best, a phantom, a receptacle for the fetus rather than a whole and separate human being.

Women and men who support reproductive rights have to become the face of choice. They must show that women who exercise their reproductive rights are strong, capable people who make decisions that are best for themselves and their families. They are grandmothers, mothers, daughters, granddaughters, sisters, aunts, friends, co-workers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, clerks, accountants, secretaries, CEOs—all the women who inhabit our daily lives.

Changing the reproductive rights focus will take energy, imagination, courage, and teamwork. It will take women putting themselves on the line as they show that their lives are substantial, important, and unique. It will take women becoming more than phantoms in the battle for choice.