We’ve had an article on transgressive art and one on pornography (subscription required) in the last few issues of First Things. So what should I find when I open up this week’s New Yorker but an article by Calvin Tomkins about an artist who has combined the two, sort of (at this time, the article is not available online). Actually, John Currin has more combined pornography with classical Renaissance art, as in his most recent picture of two women pleasuring a third in various ways, all set on a backdrop worthy of Michelangelo, with the prominent use of perspective to boot. Tomkins quotes Currin commenting on his own technique at work in the piece: “I’ve always liked that thing of a figure coming in from the side who doesn’t quite obey the spatial rules of the rest of the painting. . . . The thing with angels and Annunciations.” So, modern culture has reused the form of classical art to express its own vision.

Three things struck me upon reading the article. First, it seemed like Currin would bring up the old question of what separates pornography from art. I would have expected the artist or the author of the article to claim that, no, this art was not pornography. However, this doesn’t happen. Tomkins frequently calls Currin’s work pornographic, but pornographic no longer seems like a dirty word the way he uses it.

Second, I was struck by what Currin’s wife said of when he first met her: “For a while, being with John was hard for me, because he sees women as different beings, some kind of embodiment of creativity, of life and beauty, all these strange emotions. The male-female issue is a constant battle for John and me.” Notably absent from the list of what women are was “a human being possessing dignity.”

Third, was the why behind Currin’s unabashed pornography: Currin is fighting against the rise of violent Islamic fundamentalism. In short, Currin is fighting a culture war. He cites the riots over the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and says, “That’s when it occurred to me that we might lose this thing–not the Iraq war but the larger struggle.” Tomkins continues:

When I asked how this tied into his making pornographic paintings, Currin talked about low birth rates in Europe, and people having sex without having babies, and pornography as a kind of elegy to liberal culture, at which point I lost the thread. “I know how right wing this sounds,” I recall him saying, “but I was thinking how pornography could be a superstitious offering to the gods of a dying race.”

Pornography as the artistic first fruits–as a pinnacle of humanity–of modern culture. There is nothing more to say.

I wrote a short essay for The Weekly Standard that describes an encounter Barack Obama had with a group of anti-abortion protestors who disrupted one of his campaign events in New Hampshire. Obama was thoughtful and level-headed. He displayed admirable strength of character in defending the anti-abortion protestors from the jeers and sniggering of his pro-abortion audience. It was an impressive moment and it spoke well of his temperament and intellectual seriousness.

Obama’s email statement today on the anniversary of Roe is less so:

Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it’s never been more important to protect a woman’s right to choose. Last year, the Supreme Court decided by a vote of 5-4 to uphold the Federal Abortion Ban, and in doing so undermined an important principle of Roe v. Wade: that we must always protect women’s health. With one more vacancy on the Supreme Court, we could be looking at a majority hostile to a women’s fundamental right to choose for the first time since Roe v. Wade. The next president may be asked to nominate that Supreme Court justice. That is what is at stake in this election.

Throughout my career, I’ve been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

When South Dakota passed a law banning all abortions in a direct effort to have Roe overruled, I was the only candidate for President to raise money to help the citizens of South Dakota repeal that law. When anti-choice protesters blocked the opening of an Illinois Planned Parenthood clinic in a community where affordable health care is in short supply, I was the only candidate for President who spoke out against it. And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president. . . .

But we also know that Roe v. Wade is about more than a woman’s right to choose; it’s about equality. It’s about whether our daughters are going to have the same opportunities as our sons. And so to truly honor that decision, we need to update the social contract so that women can free themselves, and their children, from violent relationships; so that a mom can stay home with a sick child without getting a pink slip; so that she can go to work knowing that there’s affordable, quality childcare for her children; and so that the American dream is within reach for every family in this country. This anniversary reminds us that it’s not enough to protect the gains of the past–we have to build a future that’s filled with hope and possibility for all Americans.

Even by the standards of pro-abortion thought, there is nothing here which rises above cant. “Reproductive justice”? Daughters having the same opportunities as their sons? Bragging about ratings from NARAL? This is the type of mindless boilerplate you expect from any generic progressive pol.

Obama does not recognize that abortion, even if one favors its allowance, is a destruction of life. He does not reflect on the toll abortion has taken on society–and in particular the African-American community. He does not even dare approach the Clintonian formulation of wanting to see abortion safe, legal, and rare.

I’m not naïve enough to think that Barack Obama would move to protect the unborn. But based on his prior appeals to thoughtfulness and decency, I did expect him demonstrate a progressive commitment to defending abortion that was tempered by an understanding of the seriousness of the issue.

Instead, there’s nothing here but a full-throated defense of abortion on demand. It’s a disappointment.

And then there’s this. Writing in the L.A. Times, Frances Kissling and Kate Michelman (former president of Catholics for a Free Choice and former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, respectively) read the writing on the wall. They lament: “Twenty years ago, being pro-life was déclassé. Now it is a respectable point of view.”

And they explain how this come to be:

Science facilitated the swing of the pendulum. [RTA: Wait, I thought pro-lifers were anti-science.] Three-dimensional ultrasound images of babies in utero began to grace the family fridge. Fetuses underwent surgery. More premature babies survived and were healthier. They commanded our attention, and the question of what we owe them, if anything, could not be dismissed.

These trends gave antiabortionists an advantage, and they made the best of it. Now, we rarely hear them talk about murdering babies. Instead, they present a sophisticated philosophical and political challenge. Caring societies, they say, seek to expand inclusion into “the human community.” Those once excluded, such as women and minorities, are now equal. Why not welcome the fetus (who, after all, is us) into our community?

Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus.

Somehow, though, they don’t think any of that explains why more and more young people are pro-life. The real reason is something else all together: “Let’s face it: Disapproval of women’s sexuality is a historical constant. So our claim that women can be trusted still falls on deaf ears.” Ahh, yes, that’s the reason!

And they close with this:

If pro-choice values are to regain the moral high ground, genuine discussion about these challenges needs to take place within the movement. It is inadequate to try to message our way out of this problem. Our vigorous defense of the right to choose needs to be accompanied by greater openness regarding the real conflict between life and choice, between rights and responsibility. It is time for a serious reassessment of how to think about abortion in a world that is radically changed from 1973.

Is this the op/ed that will signal the end of the NARAL generaton?

A surprising result of Roe, of course, is the effect it has had on the Catholic American voter.

“It would have required a lot of prescience to predict in 1965 that American politics, for so many decades based on economic divisions, would soon split over social issues and, especially, abortion. But not even a very prescient observer could have correctly predicted which party would take which side in the coming battles. On abortion, in particular, it looked obvious which way it would break: The Democrats were the party of Catholic Northerners and Southern whites, the party that believed in using the power of government to protect the weak; the Republicans were the party with historical ties to Planned Parenthood. Somewhere along the line, the parties switched places, with consequences—including the Democrats’ loss of their durable majority—that are plain to see.”

That’s Ramesh Ponnuru, author of The Party of Death, reviewing Mark Stricherz’s Why the Democrats Are Blue: Secular Liberalism and the Decline of the People’s Party. The review is in the March issue of First Things–which we’re sending to the printers tomorrow and you should receive in two to three weeks.

But in the meantime, consider this lament in today’s Washington Post from a Catholic couple describing themselves as “Political Orphans in 2008” and asking: “Is There Space for Our Pro-Life Ethic?”

They write: “But as we came of age politically, we felt orphaned by the Democratic Party, whose pro-life positions on war, poverty and the environment did not extend to the life of the most weak and vulnerable, those not yet born.” Meanwhile, “the Grand Old Party’s move to the right, including its hardening, dominant positions on the Iraq war, access to guns and the death penalty, among other issues, have made it an inhospitable place for us to dwell permanently.”

And they conclude: “If the Democratic Party could adopt a much less disdainful, more welcoming, perhaps even “pro-choice” stance toward those under its tent who have conscientious objections to abortion, we would be much less squeamish about supporting its candidates, and we know that we are not alone in that conviction.”

The L.A. Times, too, has an article today about the pro-life youth movement.

Three things stood out.

The statistics:

Today’s students and young adults have grown up in a time when abortion was widely accessible and acceptable, and a striking number are determined to end that era.

Pew Research Center polls dating back a decade show that 18- to 29-year-olds are consistently more likely than the general adult population to favor strict limits on abortion. A Pew survey over the summer found 22% of young adults support a total ban on abortion, compared with 15% of their parents’ generation.

Looking specifically at teens, a Gallup survey in 2003 found that 72% called abortion morally wrong, and 32% believed it should be illegal in all circumstances. Among adults surveyed that year, only 17% backed a total ban.

The reasons:

“I feel like we’re all survivors of abortion,” Claire said.

She has five sisters and a brother; most of her classmates, she said, come from much smaller families. The way Claire sees it, they’re missing out on much joy — and she blames abortion.

“I look at my friends,” she said, “and I wonder, ‘Where are your siblings?’ ”

This sense that millions of their peers are missing motivates many young activists.

They are also the first generations to grow up seeing images from inside the womb displayed like prized family photos — tacked to the fridge, posted on the Web, pasted into scrapbooks. Ultrasound videos even interrupt their TV shows; the conservative advocacy group Focus on the Family bought ad time to air fetal pictures during “American Idol Rewind” and a college football all-star game.

“Abortion feels more personal for us,” said Kristan Hawkins, who supervises 400 college clubs through the group Students for Life of America.

The attitudes:

At St. John the Evangelist, a Catholic church in Philadelphia, Father David Engo encourages the passion he sees in young adults for social justice.

Engo organizes volunteer work at an AIDS hospice and among the homeless. Then he explains that he sees the antiabortion cause as part and parcel of such work — yet another way to fulfill Christ’s commandment to serve the least among us.

That connection inspired Bill Gonch, a 23-year-old administrative assistant.

“I didn’t know any pro-life people before I joined the church. All I knew was what I saw on the news — a lot of noise, a lot of anger,” Gonch said. “It surprised me how caring and loving they were. . . . And it’s more of a youth movement than I expected.”

The next time the church’s young-adult club gathers for peaceful protest outside an abortion clinic, Gonch plans to be there, praying.

There is, of course, some good news to report about abortions: today they’re down by 25% when compared to 1990. Advocates of abortion-on-demand will argue that this is due to changing economic realities and increased access to contraception, but not the results of pro-life legislation or pro-life candidates. Michael J. New, professor of political science at the University of Alabama, takes a decidedly different position. After highlighting the many media and quasi-academic attempts to downplay the role of pro-life efforts, New concludes with this:

Now in reality, there exists plenty of good evidence that changes in the legal status of abortion have a real impact on the incidence of abortion. U.S. history should give supporters of abortion rights pause. Between 1973, the year of the Roe v. Wade decision, and 1980, the number of abortions performed in the United States more than doubled. Furthermore, there is also evidence that this liberalization of abortion policy had a significant impact on sexual mores. The years following Roe v. Wade saw significant increases in both sexual activity and the number of conceptions.

Articles that have appeared in peer reviewed academic journals provide further evidence that legally restricting abortion results in reductions in abortion rates and ratios. A 2004 study that appeared in The Journal of Law and Economics analyzed how changes in abortion policies in post-communist Eastern Europe affected the incidence of abortion. This study was particularly interesting because after the demise of communism, some Eastern European countries liberalized their abortion laws, while others enacted restrictions on abortion. At any rate, the authors concluded that modest restrictions on abortion reduced abortion rates by around 25 percent.

Furthermore, a study that was published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2006 found that a Texas parental-involvement law led to statistically significant reductions in the number of abortions performed on minors (both in and out of state) and a slight, but statistically significant increase in the teen birthrate. Finally, my own Heritage Foundation research on state level pro-life legislation which utilizes data from both the Alan Guttmacher Institute and the Centers for Disease Control provides evidence that informed consent laws, public-funding restrictions, and parental-involvement laws are all correlated with reductions in the incidence of abortion.

Interestingly, even some studies that have appeared in the Alan Guttmacher Institute’s own Family Planning Perspectives provide evidence that pro-life legislation at the state level reduces the incidence of abortion. While Guttmacher typically does not trumpet these findings, they are real nonetheless. As such, before the media and pro-choice activists insist that the incidence of abortion is unaffected by its legal status and attempts to legally restrict abortion are doomed to failure, they may want to consider looking at the trends and reviewing the research — including research published by organizations that support legal abortion.

As I mentioned earlier, today is the 35th annual March for Life–held on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade (and it’s companion case Doe v. Bolton). Readers might be interested in this interview that First Things board member Robert George did on the legal aspects of Roe.

Click on the link above to read George’s insights into the constitutional law, but also consider George’s practical advice. At the end of the interview, George is asked what ordinary people can do to help the pro-life cause. Here is his response:

First and foremost: Pray. Pray for the unborn victims of abortion and for women who are, so often and in so many ways, truly abortion’s “secondary victims.” Do not judge them, but rather pray for them and love them. Pray for those who have dedicated themselves to working in politics and the culture for the pro-life cause. Pray for our leaders at the state and federal levels—including judges—whose actions will literally determine who lives and dies. Pray for those whose hearts have been hardened against the unborn, and who defend and even promote abortion. And pray for those who perform abortions. God has already turned the hearts of some such people. Bernard Nathanson, a prominent abortionist and one of the founders of the pro-abortion movement in the United States, was converted to the pro-life cause by the loving witness and prayers of pro-life people. Who knows how many other abortionists and defenders of abortion will follow his path? Let’s give up on no one. Let us treat everyone, even our opponents in this profound moral struggle, with respect, civility, and ungrudging love. Loving witness is something all of us can give. And lovingly witnessing in our churches and communities to the sanctity of human life is something all of us are called to do.

And there is more that we can do. Pro-lifers do a wonderful job in pregnancy centers around the country in reaching out in love and compassion to pregnant women in need. These pro-life heroes need our financial and moral support. Moreover, they can always use another pair of hands, so I hope that many people will join those volunteering in these efforts. They save lives, and they bring God’s healing and practical assistance to our sisters in distress. Politically, we need to use our clout as citizens of a democratic republic to influence policy in a pro-life direction. The fight against abortion and embryo-destructive research should be put at the top of the priority list in evaluating candidates for state and federal offices. We should support pro-life candidates with our money as well as our votes. Moreover, I hope that some who read these words will take the very practical step of running for office themselves. We need more people who are dedicated to the defense of human life to step forward as candidates for Congress, the state legislatures, and other public offices.

Last week I mentioned some of the pro-life events that would be going on in Washington, DC, during the coming weekend and culminating today with the annual March for Life. I forgot to mention the West Coast Walk for Life (which was held over the weekend in San Francisco). You can view some pictures of that event–”the face of the pro-life movement”–here. The photos come with this description: “Not exactly the ‘old men’ that supposedly are behind the anti-abortion movement.”

One of the weekend events that I did mention, the Students for Life of America Conference, was highlighted in yesterday’s Washington Post. I have friends who have organized this conference in the past, and I’ve attended a couple of times, and the Post’s report rings true. Here’s the end of the piece:

A common theme [of the conference] was the need to focus on the challenges of being a mother. … “In pro-choice circles, people tend to talk about abortion casually, like getting a manicure or an appendectomy. But it is a procedure that takes one life and leaves another one irreparably damaged,” said Cayce Utley, a speaker from Feminists for Life. “We can’t say we care about the baby and not care about the mom.”

Students from several colleges said they were involved in groups that help young mothers find housing, clothing and other necessities if they decide to bear a child. Male students, who made up about half the participants, spoke of the need for unmarried fathers to take responsibility.

“The first person a girl listens to is the father, so you have a big responsibility to help her. You can’t just ditch her,” said Tom Dougan, 20, an engineering student who was part of a five-bus caravan to Washington from Indiana.

Valentine, who is majoring in human life studies at a Catholic college in Ohio, said that every time he and his friends persuade a young woman not to have an abortion, they throw her a baby shower to make sure she and the newborn start out with the necessities.

He noted that the antiabortion movement is becoming predominantly youthful while the abortion rights movement is aging. “This conference shows that the youth are not the future of the pro-life movement,” he said. “We are the movement.”

[RTA: I expect it is the word “future” that should be in italics.]

Best Picture
There Will Be Blood
Juno
No Country for Old Men
Atonement
Michael Clayton

No surprises: Michael Clayton managed to massage every cliche of the law-firm-gone-bad genre into yet another mediocrity. As for Atonement . . . well, read this. Nice to see Juno in the mix. Ellen Goodman must be crying in her NARAL mailer. It’s a race between Blood and No Country.

Best Actor
George Clooney (Michael Clayton)
Daniel Day-Lewis (There Will Be Blood)
Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)
Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Elah)
Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)

No surprises (maybe Jones, who should have been nominated for No Country, the only reason to see that overrated dud). Doesn’t matter: Day-Lewis walks away with it, although I’m glad Mortensen was recognized—wicked performance. The missing names: Don Cheadle for Talk to Me, Emile Hirsch for Sean Penn’s surprisingly not awful Into the Wild, and Frank Langella for Starting Out in the Evening.

Best Actress
Cate Blanchett (Elizabeth: The Golden Age)
Julie Christie (Away from Her)
Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)
Laura Linney (The Savages)
Ellen Page (Juno)

Blanchett is the surprise here: Elizabeth II was generally panned—and denounced by some as anti-Catholic (which, of course, could only help in Hollywood). I think it’s a contest between Christie and Cotilard.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck (The Assassination of Jesse James)
Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Charlie Wilson’s War)
Hal Holbrook (Into the Wild)
Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton)

Assume Bardem, who was sufficiently Lurch-like and creepy, but I was sorry that Affleck was nominated for Jesse James and not for the far superior Gone Baby Gone, directed by his brother, Ben, and which presented a moral dilemma that was worthy of intelligent engagement. (Although his Gone role would have put him among the Best Actors, and that category was already stuffed with applicants.)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett (I’m Not There)
Ruby Dee (American Gangster)
Saoirse Ronan (Atonement)
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone” (Miramax)
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton” (Warner Bros.)

Figure Blanchett for the gender-bender, with Swinton as a close second choice, just to give Clayton something, because it will be blown out of the water once the envelopes are opened.

Best Director
Julian Schnabel (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly)
Jason Reitman (Juno)
Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton)
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men)
Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood)

So who directed the Best Picture nominated Atonement? I don’t begrudge Schnabel the nod; it was a fine feat. But dump Michael Clayton and nominate The Diving Bell instead. I wouldn’t be surprised if they gave Best Picture to No Country and Best Director to Anderson. (Remember the Oscars for 1972: The Godfather was Best Picture, but the Best Director was Bob Fosse for Cabaret. I hate when they do that . . .)

Quick note: This was a year for films that gave surprising support for not killing innocent people: Think Juno and Knocked Up, but also The Diving Bell and The Savages, which told stories of people persevering in situations where you would expect the assisted suicide/euthanasia bell to be rung. Into the Wild can also be read as a prose poem on the beauty of life for it’s own sake, despite its pain and disappointments. (It’s also a poignant plea for humility and forgiveness—a lesson learned too late, however.) Even though there is a fine line sometimes between hope and delusion, give hope—and life—a chance. Wow. Can this last? Or will we see the Culture of Death strike back come 2008?

P.S. To make the Oscar presentations more unbearable than usual, Michael Moore’s Sicko was nominated for Best Documentary. Why don’t real documentarians take the Academy to task for consistently nominating films that have more in common with Christopher Guest’s work than with, oh, Shoah? But figure No End in Sight as the winner.