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02/16/2005: "Hilary’s Common Ground"

Sen. Hilary Clinton has been criticized for trying to find common ground with those who want to criminalize abortion. I for one applaud the effort, not the least because looking for common ground is virtually the defining characteristic of moderation. I also happen to believe that there indeed are common interests and concerns to be found, if only the pro-criminalization crowd has interest in listening. That remains to be seen, but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. What common ground could there be? Sen. Clinton said she wanted abortion to be “safe, legal, and rare.” Criminalization advocates would also want abortion to be rare. Common ground! The primary program that anti-abortion advocates would put in place to make abortion rare is to punish women and doctors involved with abortion, both directly by putting them in jail (by making it illegal, in opposition to the “legal” in Hilary’s list) or indirectly by forcing desperate women to again risk their lives on back-alley abortions (by making it unsafe, in opposition to the “safe” in Hilary’s list). As a strategy for making abortions rare, it has to date been a total failure, simply because most Americans are opposed to outlawing abortion. It would be a failure even if the strategy were to “succeed” because women would merely travel to states where it remained a legal option. If criminalization advocates were truly Pro-Life – if they really wanted to reduce the number of abortions as opposed to just making noise - they would get off criminalization as their primary strategy and instead recognize that the overwhelming majority of Americans would like abortion to be rare but with this rarity not necessarily accomplished by fear of prison or mutilation. Common ground between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice ground is thus in alternatives to abortion. Abortion, legal or not, will always be a choice of desperate women, so the focus should be on eliminating the sources of that desperation, not the acts that desperation triggers. Some of the programs championed by the Right seek to do this, specifically programs that shelter pregnant women from disastrous circumstances like poverty that may be associated with their pregnancy. There is every reason for people across the political spectrum to support such of programs. I certainly do. The Left’s focus is largely to avoid the circumstances that created the desperate situation in the first place, most specifically by contraception. There is every reason that people across the political spectrum to support contraception programs. (There are people that don’t but they are Right Wing Dittohead idiots who would prefer the certainly of dead babies and dead women to the possibility that teens might have more sex if they’re not afraid of pregnancy). These approaches together are much more effective in reducing abortion than attempts at criminalization. For all the effort the Right has put into trying to criminalize abortion, they have no real results – in terms of reduced numbers of abortion – to point to. This is not at all the case for the abortion alternative programs they’ve championed. As even Rush Limbaugh points out, persuasion is a more effective strategy for getting your way than trying to enlist the coercive power of the state, since this power will never be delivered without the majority backing of Americans.