We Are At A Crosswords, My Friends

insomniacs have seen them all: the miracle weight-loss elixir that produces results requiring no change in lifestyle (we promise!), the patented time-travel skin cream that just melts the years away (results guaranteed!), the breakthrough medical cure for male pattern baldness, buh-blah, buh-blah, di-blah-blah. blah. the carnival of hucksters haunting the wasteland of late night television isn't great entertainment, but sometimes a poor sleepless bastard can't endure another viewing of The Beastmaster without turning into a mindless brain-eating zombie. clearly, eating the brains of one's terrified victims would be real entertainment, but the dry cleaning bill is a choker.

the upside to paid advertisements is that they're an excellent teacher in the art of implied authority. they always use a lot of vocabulary like 'patented', 'laboratory-tested', and 'scientifically proven'. the unbiquitous gimmick of quack medicine infomercials is the caucasian, white-coated, male doctor wearing a stethoscope around his neck and resting a clipboard on his knee. with a wall full of diplomas in the background, he leans forward reassuringly to let you know ... he. can. fix. you.

like the late night tv snake oil parade, the report issued by south dakota's task force on abortion is an infomercial -- a marketing strategy designed to pass off an ideological agenda as neutral, fact-based policy advice. its scientific authority is an actor surrounded by signifiers of authority. abortion is a complex topic that addresses complex moral and ethical concerns. politically, it has played out as a binary issue, but in reality, the public at large has a less partisan attitude:

Only a minority of Americans actually hold strict pro-life or pro-choice views, and there is relatively little difference in attitudes between men and women on this issue. For much of the public, time and circumstance appear to be the important factors.

Polls find that two-thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal during the first trimester, but that drops to 8 percent in the third trimester. When the woman's health or life is endangered, or when the pregnancy was caused by rape or incest, more than three-quarters of the public favors the option of abortion. But support falls to 34 percent when the reasons for having an abortion are economic (for example, if a family cannot afford more children). There is broad support for laws that require waiting periods, or that require parental consent for minors.

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the task force didn't embody this typical nuance. according to dr. marty allison, the prolife chair of the task force, "The mentality of the task force was really an us-against-them mentality - pro-life, pro-choice." allison voted against the report. brock greenfield, the task force member who took 'many, many notes' responded, "Certainly there were two opposing views," but the "final product represented the science behind the technique, the procedure of abortion. It represents the science of life."

because he is the director of an organization called South Dakota Right To Life, i think it's fair to say that brock greenfield represents partisan activist interests and naturally would be unable to discuss abortion in anything other than binary, adverserial, partisan terms. someone also ought to take him aside and tell him that the 'science of life' is biology. it appears that the task force was not only just divided along rigid ideological fault lines, but suffered from outbreaks of open hostility:

Allison said the task force's meeting ended badly.

"It got to the point at the end that part of the task force members, as well as the vast majority of our public audience, left the meeting because it just got so ridiculous. It was an embarrassing end, to tell you the truth. I was disappointed in the process," Allison said.

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the report also failed to include an important detail about the allegedly extensive testimony by women who have had abortions:

Adelstein said he was upset by a number of falsehoods in the report. One example was a reference to 2,000 women testifying to the panel, but those women's views were in the form of letters brought from Texas, he said.

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judging from the backstory to the task force, i think it is safe to say that a blindly partisan prolife faction took control of the process and produced a report that reflects an extreme partisan position on abortion. that faction was interested in the appearance of scientific objectivity more than its practice.

(To be continued)