What's Next for Anti-Choice Zealots?

The trouncing of Akin and Mourdock, says Dannenfelser, did not mean that the electorate was rejecting an agenda of pseudoscience and lack of compassion towards rape victims. She offers two solutions: “1) Our candidates must be better trained to articulate their pro-life position. 2) We need more women candidates.” The answer, in other words, is better media training.

She may well be right: The “Kinsley gaffes” (a politician accidentally telling the truth) allowed voters to see beyond rhetoric about fetal rights and compassion and towards the essential cruelty and misogyny of the anti-choice position. And these gaffes were primed for 140 characters and cable news outrage. The question is, if the movement gets savvier and subtler, and if everyone thinks this election beat back the extremists once and for all, will it work?