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  3. Advice to would-be culture warriors in the 21st century: walk softly and carry a big thesaurus—a dictionary of classified synony

Advice to would-be culture warriors in the 21st century: walk softly and carry a big thesaurus—a dictionary of classified synony

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问题     Advice to would-be culture warriors in the 21st century: walk softly and carry a big thesaurus—a dictionary of classified synonyms. According to the conventional wisdom, the culture wars are over in Washington—or, at the very least, reduced to minor disputes. Buoyed by the support of centrist, socially conservative Christians, the Obama administration has ushered in a new era of conciliation. Ideological opponents—especially those on either side of the abortion issue—are now trying to establish common ground. A first order of business is "abortion reduction," a seemingly non-controversial and praiseworthy goal. By agreeing that abortion is a complex moral issue and that it should be less frequent, former enemies can work together to find ways to reduce abortions.
    Beneath all the optimism though, tensions continue to boil, and it can seem that differences between the old culture wars and the new ones are merely differences in tone and tactics, not in ideology. In previous eras, warriors fought with rhetorical arguments; now they use new semantic weapons so sharp they could split a hair. On both sides, people say they want abortion reduction. But listen carefully to how they say it. On the left, the so-called common ground advocates talk about reducing the need for abortion, while on the right, folks talk about reducing the number of abortions. The way you talk about your desire for common ground, it turns out, signals whose side you’re actually on. The left wants to reduce demand for abortion; the right wants to reduce supply.
    Inside the Beltway, these seemingly invisible semantic differences have big policy implications, for the inevitable question arises: how do folks intend to reduce abortions? Two bills currently in Congress point to the deep, ideological differences that continue to linger. The Pregnant Women Support Act, favored mostly by pro-life groups, provides financial support especially for poor and younger mothers who want to carry their pregnancies to term. The Prevention First Act, favored mostly by pro-choice groups, funds contraception(the practice of preventing a woman from becoming pregnant when she has sex)and comprehensive sex education especially to poor and younger women.
    The conversation about "abortion reduction" then, is not really about abortion but about other hot-button issues: birth control, premarital sex, teen sex and sex education.
    Outside the Beltway, who really cares? According to an ABC News/Washington Post poll from August 2008, 54 percent of Americans support legal abortion in all or most cases—exactly the same percentage as a decade ago. It’s hard to imagine anyone arguing with the basic premise: in an ideal world, fewer American women would seek abortions. How our government achieves that end matters; how activists talk about achieving it matters not at all.
It can be inferred from the last paragraph that
选项 A、abortion is about to be specified as illegal in America.
B、the means of achieving the goal of less abortions is more important.
C、more and more Americans will support legal abortion in most cases.
D、the way of discussion determines whether the ideal will be achieved or not.
答案B
解析 推理判断题。作者强调了政府如何解决问题才是关键，积极分子纸上谈兵没有意义，故选B项，排除D项。A项中的“非法的”未提及；文中数据清晰表明美国人支持合法堕胎的人数在10年间几乎持平，故C项与事实不符。
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