The Next Level

In a column posted at National Review, Mona Charen comments on the Republican debate, and includes this:

Rudy Giuliani completely missed the point of the question about abortion. Asked whether he saw a parallel between the anti-slavery and anti-abortion movements, he seemed mystified and responded, “Well, there [are] no circumstances under which I could possibly imagine anyone choosing slavery or supporting slavery.” But the point was that just as no one would choose to be a slave, no unborn child would choose to be aborted.

So is her point that a pregnant woman is a slave holder? If that's not the inference, then does the analogy fall apart?

I find it disturbing that politicians must have concrete positions on certain issues despite whatever importance they place on it. Not that I follow politics as closely as I should/you might think, the one takeaway I've gotten from Guiliani's position on abortion is that it is not a critical issue on his agenda. That's a negative in March, but less so in November.

I can understand why it gets built up as an important issue--it's a touchstone moral issue that "says" something about the candidate's world view. What I don't understand is how it is basically the only issue that politicians can run with a strong position on that issue only a win (which is changing, to some degree, with an influx of immigration-focused pols), and what appears to be a sizeable block of voters who will be persuaded by that single issue.

Particularly an issue in which the legislative process is subservient to the the legal process.

In Letting go of Roe (Atlantic 2005), Benjamin Wittes argues that the fight to sustain Roe is a hindrance to the pro-choice view:

Still, the liberal commitment to Roe has been deeply unhealthy—for American democracy, for liberalism, and even for the cause of abortion rights itself. All would benefit if abortion-rights proponents were forced to make their arguments in the policy arena (rather than during Supreme Court nomination hearings), and if pro-lifers were actually accountable to the electorate for their deeply unpopular policy prescriptions.

The following year, the Atlantic had a cover story, The Day After Roe, by Jeffrey Rosen, which offered a different view of the political machinations, but, in the end, the same outcome:

So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the activists are correct and the long-anticipated moment has finally come to pass: Roe v. Wade is no longer on the books. What happens next?

The results might not be what you expect. The day after Roe fell, of course, abortion would be neither legal nor illegal throughout the United States. Instead, the states and Congress would be free to ban, protect, or regulate abortion as they saw fit. But in many of the fifty states, and ultimately in Congress, the overturning of Roe would probably ignite one of the most explosive political battles since the civil-rights movement, if not the Civil War. A careful look at how the pieces of the Rubik’s Cube might begin to turn the day after Roe suggests that access to abortion wouldn’t necessarily become less widely available than it is now; that the Democrats could gain politically, perhaps even seizing the White House and both chambers of Congress; and that, when the dust settles, in five or ten or thirty years, early-term abortions would be protected and late-term ones restricted.

I lean towards Rosen's perspective, maybe not so much in the final conclusion, but in the scope of the political battle. It would make gay marriage look like a .