At The Progressive's recent 100th anniversary celebration, I moderated a panel on women's rights with three expert panelists: Nation columnist Katha Pollitt, Freedom From Religion Foundation head Annie Laurie Gaylor, and historian Nancy Unger. Although not one of the panelists made more than a glancing reference to abortion rights in her opening remarks, the issue dominated the discussion period. One person after another wanted to talk about abortion. The tenor of the questions was: Why haven't feminists won on this issue? The feeling in the room was remarkably downbeat, considering the general subject of the program. After all, as Katha Pollitt pointed out, women have made enormous progress since The Progressive was founded 100 years ago. In 1909 we didn't even have the right to vote.

But somehow, our discussion of women's rights got completely bogged down in the 1970s. Why was there no ERA? What's wrong with young women that they aren't fighting passionately for abortion? The final question came from a disgruntled man who asked why there are so many pregnant movie stars on magazine covers, and then answered his own question: They're just telling young women that they should be barefoot and pregnant.

This was too much of a drag to me. Personally, I think pregnant women who happily show their bodies rock, I said. The depressing thing about the whole discussion to me was how it completely failed to capture the extremely positive energy of The Progressive celebration's kick-off concert, with Dar Williams, the Indigo Girls, Ani DiFranco, and other gorgeous, happy, high-energy women rockers.

Women have made enormous progress in the last generation, despite some backsliding on issues like access to abortion, just in the overwhelmingly positive way we now see ourselves. These changes are hard-won, as Ani DiFranco pointed out at the concert: "You should call yourself a feminist just out of respect for the women who fought so hard and gave their lives so I could have one."

My daughters are growing up in a world filled with loud, proud, joyful lesbian rockers, star female athletes, and all kinds of other female role models to give them the sense that they can love themselves and relish life as fully physical, sexual, and intellectually free people. That is really worth celebrating.

But instead, at our discussion on women's rights, I heard a lot of kvetching.

Why?

The recent Gallup Poll showing that, for the first time in the 15 years they've been asking the question, more Americans polled described themselves as "prolife" than "prochoice" is a big clue.

Anti-abortion groups are going nuts, of course.

The Rev. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, told the A.P. that the poll findings demonstrate that the anti-abortion cause "is a vibrant, growing, youthful movement," and that, "we are winning the battle for hearts and minds in our culture on the life issue."

Whoa. Not so fast there, reverend.

Prolifers may dream about legions of college students waving placards with dismembered fetuses at campuses around the nation, but the truth is, the "vibrant, youthful" nature of the prolife movement is not responsible for the poll numbers.

At Notre Dame, don't forget, the anti-abortion folks were on the outside yelling, but on the inside, the actual students and faculty who attended the President's commencement address were welcoming and enthusiastic.

The youth vote is with candidates like Barack Obama, whose first acts in office included lifting the global gag rule and restoring women's access to birth control.

Young people are not suddenly turning prolife. They just view the abortion issue differently. The fact that we grew up in the era of safe, legal abortion makes women under the age of 50 a bit complacent about the issue. Shrinking access to doctors who are trained and willing to perform the procedure is not nearly so dramatic as an open battle over its legality.

Also, since young women are not in a defensive crouch over abortion or other fundamental issues of controlling their own bodies, many simply don't see abortion as THE issue in women's rights.

Yes, women want a full range of reproductive health care options--plus affordable, accessible, respectful, high-quality care. But getting an abortion is not an empowering and wonderful experience for most women. It's a bummer. It means something happened that we didn't have control over and didn't want. We need abortion rights and access to abortion. But it's not an obvious rallying point for a lot of good feeling, and a lot of people would just as soon avoid the whole topic.

As Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards points out, the dated terminology Gallup used in its question of the 1,015 adults in its telephone survey may also explain their answer: "The terms prochoice and prolife no longer define the parameters of the debate, witnessed by the fact that in the Gallup Poll, a majority of people say they are both pro-life and that abortion should be legal," Richards said in the same A.P. story.

In other words, we aren't talking in the same terms we used in the 1970s anymore.

That's not all bad. It does mean there is not as much militant feeling about protecting abortion rights, which makes us more vulnerable to the erosion of those rights when we aren't paying attention. But it is also part of the evolution of women's position in society, from oppressed to embattled to full members of society. We have other priorities besides this most fundamental control over our own bodies. We can even afford to admit we don't love the idea of getting an abortion. But that doesn't mean we think the antiabortion busybodies should get to make the decision for us.