Vogue Magazine attempts to bring partial birth abortion into vogue

Cleverly marketing legal abortion as a boon to women's emancipation has been the most important task of the abortion industry and lobby for thirty years, reports Hilary White, LifeSiteNews.com. In this month's edition, the gruesome procedure of partial birth abortion has been given a style makeover by the world's most influential fashion magazine, Vogue.

The magazine offers the article's description: "When Lori Campbell's second pregnancy developed complications, she was faced with a painful decision. But she was thankful it was hers to make." What follows is a paean to legalized late-term abortion and a series of long complaints about the efforts of pro-life Americans to make it illegal.

In the article, "Private Lives," that appears in the January 2008 issue of the US edition of Vogue, Lori Campbell describes her decision in 1998 to have a late term abortion by the method usually referred to as "partial birth." In partial birth abortion the child is extracted from the mother's womb, until only the head remains in the birth canal; he is then killed by suctioning out the brains and collapsing the skull. This type of abortion is called "intact dilation and extraction" by the medical community, and was banned in the US in 2003. In 2007, a US Supreme Court decision upheld the constitutionality of the ban.

Campbell describes how her water broke at 22 weeks into her second pregnancy, and doctors told her and her husband that the child would be unlikely to survive. Campbell justifies her decision to kill her child, saying she was sparing her needless suffering. Campbell's life was not threatened by the pregnancy.

"I chose what I believe was the path of least suffering, for myself, my husband, our future children, and mostly for the baby inside me."

Campbell complains that the term partial-birth abortion "is also inherently judgmental". "A partial-birth abortion, if you must call it that. One born out of love."

"How can I agree to a partial-birth abortion and not feel like a bad person? It preys on women in a weakened state - women who already likely believe they are 'bad' because they have failed as mothers."

"In my case, an incompetent cervix threatened the life of a fetus otherwise healthy and so close to meeting the world. All she needed was another lousy couple of weeks, I kept telling myself. But I had failed her. My incompetence, I felt, extended well beyond the cervix into every fiber of my being. I didn't need another person, or the government, to confirm it."

With Vogue's usual mastery of imagery, Campbell has been depicted as an archetype of the beautiful happy young mother, with both her and her daughter dressed immaculately in clothes strongly reminiscent of the idealized 1950's family.

The iconic magazine, a worldwide institution, was founded in 1892 and publishes editions in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom and the United States.

Vogue, owned by Conde Nast Publications, is a major engine of the women's movement, but is often criticized for valuing solely material wealth, appearance and social position and is regularly accused of creating an unhealthy weight-obsessed idealized body-image among young women.

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[01/11/2008]

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