Obama-Backed Freedom of Choice Act Draws a Clever Pro-Life Response: “What the FOCA?!”

As President Obama’s liberal base gets impatient with his moderate moves, he may be tempted to drop a nuclear policy bomb sure to draw gratitude from activists: actively push Congress to send him the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), as he promised to sign in a widely-shared Planned Parenthood speech. The bill is basically an abortion time-warp, returning the country back to the early days after Roe when states hadn’t yet tried to apply abortion restrictions. FOCA would write Roe into statutory law and basically gut the Supreme Court’s 1992 Casey decision – named after the pro-life Democratic governor of Pennsylvania – that gave a little wiggle room for states to apply abortion restrictions. (Statheads may remember that the abortion rate in the U.S. peaked in the late 1980s, and started a long, gradual decline in the 1990s for reasons that remain disputed.)

Though FOCA has united pro-lifers in a way they haven’t been since the partial-birth abortion ban vetoes by President Clinton, the message – epitomized by sites like Fight FOCA – has been forceful but not really memorable. All that changed when I saw a Facebook group started by Illinois Students for Life called “What the FOCA?!” which is kicking off its “WTF?! Project” with a “Day of Action” today. The allusion is obvious – “WTF,” that ubiquitous shorthand expletive found on t-shirts, IM conversations and undoubtedly shaved in some kid’s hair. It may be the most irreverent slogan to ever come out of the pro-life movement – if the movement, permeated by religion (as I’ve previously written), can embrace this bit of youthful impudence:

Isn’t ‘What The FOCA?!’ Offensive?

Yes, it references a phrase that is offensive. However, unrestricted abortion is much, much more offensive. Using this phrase points to that fact. In addition, “WTF” is common to the language of the culture. If we say… “Stop the Freedom of Choice Act!” that is meaningful to those of us who know about FOCA, but it is meaningless to those who do not. If we say…”What the FOCA?!” it piques the interest of the culture and conveys the ridiculousness of the Freedom of Choice Act all in just three words. Then, you can start to elaborate through dialogue.

The Facebook “Day of Action” listing even has an amusing photo of a baby making a face that conveys “WTF” with the letters superimposed. Two things jumped out at me at WhattheFOCA.com: the negligible references to religion. There’s an interview about FOCA with a lawyer from the Thomas More Society, a Catholic legal group, and a link the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is heavily involved in federal and state lobbying efforts on abortion. That’s it. No crosses, no deities, no pictures of Mary holding the baby Jesus. The site and Facebook group could just as easily be mistaken for a protest against the World Bank.

And yet, chances are this wise-ass grassroots online effort won’t be mimicked soon by the better-organized pro-life institutions, which may well take their cue from the Apostle Paul that irreverent initialisms aren’t noble, just, pure, lovely or virtuous. Even if they work.