Blogging for Choice II

Because today is the 33rd Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, many newspapers ran articles/editorials that discussed the subject. 2 from the NYT's were pretty good.

Three Decades After Roe, a War We Can All Support calls out the pro-choicers and likens them to the Plight of the Democrats: if we keep taking a substandard position on choice, we're going to lose it (choice I mean). Saletan says we need to declare a war on abortion and start fighting the real fight.

This is why the issue hasn't gone away. Abortion, like race-conscious hiring, generates moral friction. Most people will tolerate it as a lesser evil or a temporary measure, but they'll never fully accept it. They want a world in which it's less necessary. If you grow complacent or try to institutionalize it, they'll run out of patience. That's what happened to affirmative action. And it'll happen to abortion, if you stay hunkered down behind Roe.

He goes on to say that we need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk.


States of Confusion revisits the "Support Choice, Not Roe" argument proposed by Richard Cohen.

Overturning Roe and leaving the states to regulate abortion will not be the compromise that ends the debate. Rather, it will worsen it. Pro-choice and pro-life states will not enjoy an easy and untroubled coexistence, as some would like to believe. Nor will overturning Roe get the federal government, or the federal courts, out of the business of abortion jurisprudence. Instead, state regulation will make a complex legal matter even more complicated, and the divisions over abortion that much wider. If Roe is reversed, the ensuing chaos will demand a federal resolution to the abortion battle - again.

Baude claims that making abortion illegal won't solve anything because the pro-choicers and pro-lifers will still be arguing over who's right, and I agree. It's a discussion that seems to never grow old or die away; we've been arguing about it, albeit silently, since the procedure was invented long before Roe.

I wonder why we can't let women make their own decisions since we will know what is best for us and our lives if you just trust us a little. And allow us to follow our instincts without constantly second-guessing us. Ya know?