“Woke” Democratic politicos zealously pro choice would suddenly become more nuanced, including NYT, regarding abortion if a test mirroring amniocentesis could determine whether fetus morphing into potential LGBTQ human.
26
Abortion is a complex issue, just as treating any one of the many medical procedures which are available today. And just as with any other procedure it must be determined by the patient, any concerned loved ones and of course her physician.
I would never dream of preventing a man from having prostatectomy surgery for cancer treatment, although that may prevent him from being able to father a child. I wouldn’t consider intervening in anyone’s medical care, although I may wish that they would treat their condition with diet and aromatherapy, or herbal treatments.
I remember when insurance companies health insurance plans directed that pregnancy wasn’t an illness and wouldn’t cover any medically necessary treatment for pregnancy. Eventually, there was enough will to change things so that pregnancy be treated the same as any other illness. It is only appropriate for any medical intervention in pregnancy be left to the patient, it is the law.
Whatever I may personally feel, whatever potential democratic candidates for president may be backed into a corner to say about what they feel, whatever republicans feel, matters not when we have no access to the decision making process of any persons medical treatment. We are all able to have feelings and thoughts about these things, but it is wrong to try to legislate what those faced with a situation may or may not do.
I don’t think that it is absolutist.
65
Why can't anti-abortion people get it through their heads that this is a question of a woman's right of self-determination? Asking someone if they support abortion -- under various or any circumstances -- presupposes that people have the right to decide this question for a pregnant woman. It presupposes that the person has the ability and power to make such a profound decision for the woman. Unfortunately, it also presupposes that the person's religious beliefs can be imposed on the woman.
If anti-abortion people can't get their heads around the idea of women determining the course of their own lives, then try thinking of this issue as a religious rights issue; including the right to be free from the imposition of others' religious beliefs on one's life.
96
Unwanted children. Unwanted Children do more harm than good. Most unwanted children are born that way. They did not not choose to be unwanted. Their parents made that choice. They were born out of and into dilemma. Dilemmas are natural. Life, real life, is full of tough choices. Governments play a role in this dilemma. Government are a part of tough choices when regulate women's body's and right's to choose. Democrats need to protect the women's right.
Trump is nothing more than a tweet smart. He's nothing more but a lost less. Democrats are policy smart. Thats what they are good at.
16
A woman's body is her own. I am certain about that. A woman's body is not something over which voters ought to have control.
104
Perhaps, instead of abortion, the woman is allowed to select any or all of the following.
1. Paid maternal leave.
2. Free public education for the child and siblings up to but not including graduate school. This would include day care.
3, Housing subsidy.
4. Guaranteed annual income.
I think this would silence the pro-lifers (or bring on a second baby boom, a lot more liberal than the first).
41
"....Democrats used to express great offense if Republicans described them as the party of “abortion on demand.” Now, Democratic candidates seem happy to leave the impression that their party is just that, often justifying their position by suggesting it’s a direct result of listening to women, communities of color and those with low incomes. Here’s the problem: They don’t speak for these communities when they appear to support abortion on demand."
Here is the REAL problem. The Democratic Party is not a party that "appears" to support abortion on demand, they do support abortion on demand--as Warren so clearly stated.
So this carefully crafted opinion piece, when you boil it down, is basically calling for Democratic candidates to lie about their position on abortion--to deny that they support abortion on demand when that is exactly their position, and that is why they are "happy to leave that impression." There is nothing nuanced about their position, but Michael Wear is suggesting that they lie tactically to win an election--as Obama did.
So Trump's ugly tactics have been effective, and very useful for America, because they have provoked a level of honesty among the Democrats that has been carefully avoided in the past. Now voters can judge.
18
Once again, let's remember that many years ago Congressman Barney Frank had it 100% correct when he said, "Conservatives believe that life begins at conception and ends at birth." And now, with good anti-abortion Christians supporting a president that has children literally ripped from their parents' arms, and placed in cages where they sleep on concrete floors, only reinforces his astoundingly accurate insight.
97
There is a lot of ignorance and misinformation surrounding the issue of abortion. We all know peoples' opinions about this issue vary. This editorial repeated, without refuting, the lies told by the President about state legislation regarding abortion. This does not help us establish shared understanding of the facts so that we can discuss this issue rationally.
26
If I am following your logic, Michael, since Trump and some other Republican opponents resort to lying about the conduct of of people who provide abortions and access abortion services (committing infanticides), it would be strategic to give up some of the access to abortion of real women who really need them (moving toward the center). Do we want to give Trump and his ilk any more temptation to lie? Do you think sacrificing the quality of life of American women and girls will discourage them from continuing to lie about them or their advocates?
43
Always great to hear a man lecturing on the “nuances” of other people’s opinion about what I should and shouldn’t be allowed to do regarding my body and my healthcare. You know what they say about opinions . .
42
I’ve been reading the (predictable) reader comments here and all I have to say is, get ready for another four years of the Trump presidency.
28
There’s nothing we can do about Trump’s lies or the gullibility of people who believe him. Democrats need to protect womens’ rights, not give credibility to Trump’s lies about infanticide by denying it. The fact remains that 75% favor maintaining Roe.
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-want-restrictions
22
Tragically, democratic candidates are carelessly wielding a sledgehammer, when the issue of abortion demands a delicate jeweler's mallet. We can't ignore and demonize more than half of the population of the United States just because they disagree with the policy of unrestricted, taxpayer supported abortion for all, and yet that's what they are doing. Unless we start paying attention, Trump won't even have to campaign that hard to win in 2020. We're handing him the perfect weapon to paint democrats as baby killers, and that's a death knell we can easily avoid, if we stop being so dogmatic about abortion.
31
I'm tired of both parties violating the Constitution's guarantee of division of Church & State. I am not a Christian and I don't want to pay for religious activities for a religion not my own - or ANY religion. I, at least, have the Constitution & founding fathers on my side. Safe, legal abortion as asserted by the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v Wade is being steadily eroded, even eliminated in some red states, because the christian bloc is fanatical about their beliefs (& their right to dictate these beliefs to others), while the pro-choice bloc, which is a majority these days, is constantly being told by spineless centrists to avoid any issue that might cost a centrist vote or two - ignoring the polls that show over 60% of the people supporting the right to abortion. When one side is fighting with every means fair or foul to eliminate the right to choice, you advise the others in this country to avoid the battle all-together. There is NO room for nuance in the right-to-life community. As a result of red state closures of women's health clinics, the US now has the highest incidence of women dying in childbirth in the advanced world. Even in Planned Parenthood, where 4% of their efforts go to abortion, the majority of their efforts have been on women's health, prenatal care, & education of expectant parents. In states like Texas & Missouri, where suppression is strongest, the percentage of women dying in childbirth is as much as 2.5 the already unacceptable national rate.
48
I object to using my taxes to pay for police, attorneys and the judiciary to compel US citizens to obey "nuanced" religious laws, whether it's laws of Marduk, Osiris, Kali, Moses, Odin, or Jesus. Although none of these gods and their spokespersons have uttered a word about abortion, the faith of some Americans informs them about a special knowledge of their particular god's true beliefs. Perhaps the knowledge was transmitted from a god to a pop televangelist and then to Fox TV viewers? What a GOP miracle!
42
About 1.3 percent of abortions take place after 22 weeks. Abortions in the third semester are under 1%. There were about 925,000 abortions last year so we are talking about a total of about 96 abortions nationwide in the second or third trimester. These abortions are so rare, and tragic, that I’m surprised this is an issue.
57
If the legal rights of women to make the most intimate possible decisions pertaining to their own bodies is left to be decided by religious doctrine, then where is the separation of Church and State?
The entire reason that the New York State legislature enacted the legal protections that it did was to prevent trigger laws from activating, should ‘Roe v. Wade’ be overturned.
29
Article says...."Mr. Wear served in the White House as part of President Obama’s faith-based initiative..."
Really? I didn't even know Obama had a 'faith based' outreach person on his staff.
Why does any American presidential candidate have to have a"faith-based initiative and on both of his presidential campaigns"?
Religion has more influence on US politics than in other modern countries, thus our ongoing abortion battles.
What about separation of church and state? Another example of how the US doesn't live up to its own constitutional principles. In the 21st century, long after abortion rights are accepted in other modern democracies, we see our basic right under serious threat.
This is able to gain adherents partly due to the outsized influence religion is given in our politics.
Not all Obama's staff went along. National Review has a sympathetic article on Wear's book--- "An Obama Insider’s Lament":
"Wear served in the WH Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in Obama’s first term, then directed faith outreach for the reelection campaign.
His memoir ....is a portrait of a unique niche in Obama-world to which many progressives grew hostile over time, representing as it did faith in general and Christianity in particular."
He recounts how a senior staffer " began a rant about the separation of church and state and what he deemed to be the impropriety of [faith-based outreach].”
For many, that 'rant' is entirely appropriate and needed, right now.
26
Another POV, mine: Women have and should have the right to govern their bodies and their health. What I will not cede is my belief -- based not on science's litmus test, but on my spiritual tenets (not Christian nor Judaic) -- that the fetus is a life. So when a decision is made, it is made between two living beings, IMO.
Abortion (and, yes, it should remain legal) dismisses existence of a nascent life. For me personally, this is sad and unsettling.
Many liberals (and I vote Democrat) will assail that with all kinds of demeaning and diminishing comments aimed at showing me how uneducated, uninformed and heartless I am. That's OK. This is my belief, it has been for decades and will continue to be.
The argument that a fetus at an early stage could not live on its own is true. But many humans, whether the disabled or the very elderly, cannot live on their own without support and nurturing.
Many women who feel this way will never speak anything but the party line because the fury that stance exacts is too terrifying. Beware: This does not mean that opinions throughout the country are absolutely split along party lines. Silence is not acquiesence.
Women who have been raped, whose lives are endangered by a pregnancy, who are for other reasons unprepared for a child, have the right to terminate. But I see it as a choice between two lives.
32
I'm a pro-abortion feminist female. I believe abortion should be available to any woman who wants one in the first trimester of pregnancy. Women should have freedom over their own bodies and we have the medical know-how to grant that. Men would want the same thing for themselves of course. Beyond the first trimester abortion should be done as medically necessary to protect the life of the mother or if the fetus has a medical issue that makes it incompatible with life outside the womb.
The reality is women don't have abortions when they have education about and access to effective birth control methods. Women don't have abortions when they are in a committed, healthy relationship, and can financially support a child.
25
@LW You are “pro-abortion?” I don’t know anyone who thinks abortion is good. Maybe favoring a woman’s right to make the difficult and wrenching choice of weighing her rights as a pregnant woman with the rights of the unborn, but being pro-abortion is completely immoral.
6
Roe v wade is the current law. Obama's politics was appeasement to O'Connell; not leadership or advancement of a basic right. Obama got reelection and the Democrats got Trump. When Obama failed to speak for Roe v. Wade, he conceded to the Religious Right and to their position as correct. The result was Trump. Never Again! The rights and liberties of anyone must not be destroyed by religion and that is the reason the the first words in the constitution to be the Establishment Clause (no establishment of religion).
3
@rose6
You have obviously not read Roe v Wade that grants many rights to the unborn later in pregnancy. Like many things, Obama’s positions were based on the very nuanced constitutional laws of woman’s rights, not some political agenda.
12
I question your reading of the poll results regarding the Hyde amendment. More than a third of men and women democrats said Biden's change made them more likely to vote for Biden. The great majority of respondents said that it made no difference.
While technically the amendment makes allowance for abortion in the case of rape, incest and the health of the mother, it is, in fact sold and implemented as a ban of federal funds for abortion. The question as posed included these statutory 'exceptions' without the crucial information about its implementation. I'd say the question as asked cannot produce useful information.
Why men carry the banner of the tarnished pederast catholic clergy on this issue is beyond me. In this instance it is not the banner you wave but the tarnish itself, women having no voice in the patriarchary's decree about women's bodies.
12
It is NOT that Democrats are PRO-abortion!
They are PRO-Women’s Rights!
Either you are for women having control of their bodies, or you are not!
I have urged the Democratic Party to rephrase this attack on women’s rights.
Opponents to women's rights to their bodies and destinies have appropriated the term 'pro-life!'
We're all pro-life! What's the opposite? Pro-death?
Anti-life?
Ridiculous!!
The use of the term provides a mantle for the nefarious activities we've witnessed over the years, such as limiting access to reproductive health care, bombing clinics and murdering doctors!!
And influencing women into making choices that can destroy their lives.
Sadly, there are institutions who are bent on bringing us back to those dark days ...
31
I want to hear from each candidate their specific plans for making abortion rare and bringing down the rate of abortion. I am not interested in legal discussions. The legal issue has been decided in roe v wade. I want to hear their plans to reduce the rate of abortion. How do we make a safe, legal operation rare?
16
@Liz Siler
Good question.
Were it up to me...
I'd pepper the country with stand-alone clinics solely set up to dole out free birth control prevention items and devices, and to offer low-cost vasectomies and tubal ligations.
I'd call them "Fun Without Fear" clinics. FWF.
14
Abortion is a matter of personal choice and only one person - the pregnant woman - is empowered to make that choice. This is a civil rights issue that was resolved in 1776.
All a woman should have to do is sign a proper document that states that her personal religion calls for abortion under any circumstances and she is exercising that right.
If doctors are excused from performing abortions because of their religious feelings, the opposite must also be true of their patients.
I feel that the anti-abortion crowd is forcing action that is in violation of he first Amendment and needs to be actively prosecuted for even suggesting that a woman be forced to go against her religious beliefs.
If necessary to insure a religion exists to give any woman that right, I'd be happy to become the first Deacon of the "Church of Feminine rights."
14
@William
The "anti-abortion crowd" -- and I am not among them -- feels this way because they believe this is a human life worth protecting with as much zeal as the life of a toddler.
You may not feel that way. This is your absolute right. But this is a diverse country and no one should be muzzled.
I used to live in a city where there was access to abortion but also, separately, a right-to-life entity that provided counseling, help with housing, diapers and food for women who had decided to continue an unexpected pregnancy.
There's always that argument that "right to life" jerks (not my words) never help with living children. Patently untrue.
There will never never ever be full agreement on this subject because human beings come from so many different backgrounds. What both sides should stop doing is lobbing vitriol at people who believe differently.
it does not change anyone's opinion. Period.
17
I must have missed it - when did the Candidates say anything about expanding Roe vs Wade? Their stance is to confront efforts to change that ruling - and to void the dubious policy that federal money may not be used to support a woman exercising a now established "right".
8
Sometimes our leaders need to take us not where we want to go but where we should go. Any laws that deny women full autonomy over their bodies are not acceptable. How could anyone think that decisions about women's bodies should be made by legislators, mostly men? Would men accept any law requiring them to submit their bodies to political or religious beliefs of others?
It should also be recognized that any laws limiting access to abortion, including the Hyde Amendment, laws requiring women to have unnecessary ultrasound tests, waiting periods, parental notification, bans after 20 weeks (or 6 weeks or 12 or whatever the male legislators decide based on unscientific beliefs) ONLY limit access for women who are not wealthy. Women of means will always be able to have abortions. That all of the Democratic candidates in this cycle recognize these truths finally is the result of the progress women have made by being in the rooms where decisions are made.
"What is unquestionable is that the kind of fully conscious life that everyone claims to prize already belongs to the woman who happens to be pregnant, and it should be her individual moral conscience that, in a society devoted to the individual, ought to rule. One reason we prize life is because it makes minds. And women, who have them, should be free to make up their own." Adam Gopnik
20
Yes, this is one of several issues that is likely to turn me into an independent. I cannot support abortion on demand or applaud stories of women published in this paper about women who had abortions because pregnancy was an inconvenience or join in chants about “my body, my choice” or “if you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.” I am a woman. There are circumstances I can imagine where abortion might qualify as self defense, regrettable but necessary to protect the mother’s life or physical or mental health, so I wouldn’t support a total ban, though I do want some restrictions. I fully support sex education and easy access to birth control and generous funding of a social safety net so parents can provide children with food, shelter, health care, education and safe and affordable child care. I oppose the death penalty for the same reasons I support some restrictions on abortion, because life is sacred. But the Democrat party does not appear to be interested in keeping my vote.
18
I am a 100 percent pro choice person.
However, a few years ago, I had an employee whose wife was pregnant with her first child. With the pregnancy, she was suffering depression and mood swings. At six months, she was telling her husband she wanted to abort the pregnancy. There was no indication that the fetus was in any way unhealthy.
Notwithstanding my full support of pro choice, my initial reaction was that nobody should be allowed to do such a thing because of temporary swings in mental attitude. But with abortion on demand, she could have done so, without the permission of anyone other than herself.
I know the slippery slope argument, but in some cases, maybe the prior approval of a judge would be desirable.
12
@RM This is actually one of the situations where I could see abortion as self defense. Of course, everything should be done to help the mother feel better first and maybe early delivery is preferable to abortion. But if the pregnancy was making the mother suicidal and anti depressants weren’t a possibility or weren’t helpful — maybe it would be necessary to save the mother. The abortion would be to save the mother and would have the unfortunate side effect of killing the unborn child.
7
This is a thoughtful explanation of a complex subject. The author’s point is well taken. Because abortion is a complicated, emotional subject it needs this kind of framing and defense. I am definitely for abortion remaining legal; when I was younger, access to abortion was always an option and should continue to be.
I too worry that Democratic candidates are oversimplifying the issue and responding to Trump’s angry, exaggerated rhetoric in like manner. The author is right that candidates need to take a more nuanced, thoughtful and inclusive stand as did President Obama.
I understand that progressive “greens” are fed up with this administration where truth is relative and reactivity reigns, but polarizing voters on this even more is not helpful. The author has experience and good advice; candidates should take it!
10
Here’s the thing. Almost any “nuance” you introduce into the abortion issue necessarily involves taking decision-making power out of a woman’s hands and giving it to a cookie-cutter legislative or bureaucratic process.
Why the author, much less small-government conservatives, consider this a better solution than simply allowing women to make their own decisions, is mysterious unless you factor in an inherent mistrust of (some? all?) women’s abilities to make morally sound choices.
Personally, I would never vote for any candidate who mistrusts women enough to argue in favor of restricting autonomy over their medical and reproductive lives. Period. Some principles are more important than polls and focus groups, despite what the author seems to be arguing in this piece.
I want to vote for a candidate who infuses their words and policy positions with the power of their convictions — and who uses that power to persuade others to their side, rather than capitulating to weathervane public opinion.
27
The Democrats would be wise to get back to the Bill Clinton formulation: Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. The Democrats, unlike the Republicans, cannot win by carrying only a minority of the electorate, not necessarily even with a small majority, so they need to move toward the center, not toward the left.
12
Republicans want to address abortion. Democratic candidates and any moderate of any party should address freedom of choice as their guideline. Most pro-life advocates base their belief on their religion beliefs which may be taught without interference from local, state or Federal government, To deny the right to choice guaranteed by our Constitution moves our government toward an authoritarian basis that manages every move we make. Every candidate should address family planning for men and women of all ages to eliminate unwanted pregnancies and growth of entitlements for divorced families as well as unwed mothers and children. Three southern states recently increased their cost of entitlements by millions of dollars by closing Planned Parenthood centers. There is little need to talk abortion when you have the right of choice supported by family planning and the opportunity for a clear expression of religious values. Well over 60% of the populace support this approach. This approach also allows the decision to made by those involved which is the cornerstone of limited government.
3
At any given time in the U.S., 250,000 "unplanned" children are awaiting adoption. Since un-socialized, for-profit, health care generates such wonderful results, why hasn't the Department of Child Protective Services been freed from its socialist shackles and given to the free market? Health care goes to the highest bidder, why not unwanted babies? Wouldn't capitalism and a free unregulated market produce better outcomes than the socialist foster care system? Why should the unborn have rights if they haven't paid for them? Freedom isn't free. Likewise a woman's right to choose - it's an opportunity to choose, and comes with a price, and perhaps we can raise that price to a level Republicans will find acceptable.
4
Support for a woman's right to choose is - checks notes - after all this brouhaha still at 57% vs 35% for the wildly misnamed 'Pro-Life' position in the most recent NPR/PBS/Newshour?Marist Poll.
9
Michael Wear's article is not about the right to abortion. It is about how to approach the issue of abortion, particularly with respect to potential Democratic voters who are concerned about abortion. The Democrats need to look at the 2018 election strategy as a model for success. In Iowa, two congressional seats were flipped by women who avoided divisive issues and stayed to the center. In Kentucky, Amy McGrath can defeat Mitch McConnell only if she avoid being labelled pro-abortion.
6
Why do people think that their personal beliefs about abortion should dictate what others do and decide? No one makes the decision to have an abortion lightly, and it is always an extremely difficult decision for everyone. With that in mind, why would so many so called "pro life" people feel it is their right to tell me what to do with my own body? It is arrogance beyond belief. The simple truth is that you can believe whatever you want. No one will make you have an abortion. But the right to have one is a human right. (If you consider grown women humans).
21
@Jacqueline Reichman
I feel the same about people who vote to prevent enactment of laws to allow Death with Dignity. Butt out. If one has ever watched a loved one suffer needlessly, it is completely arrogant and arch for anyone to say, "Oh, but there must be a reason they've been chosen to suffer" or "But we have no right to decide when our lives end."
7
One of the most powerful attributes of President Obama was his adroit and tactical use of pragmatism. Pragmatism must be applied judicially and with respect. What must be protected is is a woman's access to abortion. The position taken by the Clinton administration that abortion must be legal, safe and rare is the gold standard.
6
For Republicans, abortion and the gun-rights issues are simply a couple of ways of garnering votes. Many Catholics simply won’t vote for a pro-choice candidate. And how far do you think Republicans would get on their true platform: lower taxes on the rich, protect the property of the rich, and destroy social services for the common good? Not too far, I wouldn’t think.
9
Pro choice is just that---- if you don't want to have an abortion, then don't have one. To have, or not to have, and abortion really should not be a political/legislative decision.
21
I cannot believe we are still fighting this fight. When will this country grow up and let women have complete and utter control over their own bodies? It's no one else's business when and at what point a woman chooses to have an abortion. Most women I know (most of whom who have had abortions) weren't happy about having to have one, but the consequences of not having one were worse than the procedure itself.
To quote an old saw, if you don't like abortions, don't have one. But for Pete's sake, don't force your views on other women. And don't judge. You never know when you or a woman you love will have to have one for whatever reason.
16
Most Americans are in the middle and most of our laws reflect that. It is the Draconian laws in Southern States the thumb their nose at what most Americans believe and think about the subject.
Most if not all states progressively curtail the women's rights as the pregnancy progresses making 3 trimester abortions rare and always with extenuating circumstances.
3
America’s two political herds approach this issue from different angles. Democrats are about individual choice. Republican’s are about choice as long as the option you choose is the one I pick for you. Democrats view abortion as a personal ethical issue. Republicans make abortion into a political thing. Abortion is fund raising tornado for the GOP and when an election is in the offing, there is no easier way to get their voters to the polls. Since 1973, republicans have done their darnedest to limit access to abortion, but stop short of seeking to stop the practice entirely. If abortion is ruled illegal, the cash cow dies and their religious voting block will shrink. The game is, “lookie here what we done to stop abortion”. Keep sending them checks. Abort abortion and the one major issue the republicans have is a goner.
8
I’m confused. A child outside the womb is clearly not part of a woman’s body. How is a child inside the womb part of a woman’s body?
4
@Newt Baker
I’m afraid no one is going to be able to help you if you didn’t learn the difference between “inside” and “outside” before now.
21
Really?
Unless that “womb” is some free-floating bodily organ all on its own, that “womb” is an organ of that woman, just as her heart, liver and all other organs are.
It is part of her body. A woman’s autonomy doesn’t, and shouldn’t, end because of pregnancy.
18
"If a Democratic presidential nominee held and communicated views that reflected the median Democratic voter, that nominee would support and defend Roe v. Wade, but express moral reservations about abortion itself..."
Sounds like a pretty milk-toast position.
Rewind about 150 years and substitute "Roe v. Wade" with "Dred Scot" and "abortion" with "slavery."
7
What I am sure about is no one has the right to make a woman have a baby she doesn’t want. That’s called choice and the last person I want to hear anything else about it is from another phony Christian.
The states that restrict abortion are the states where it should mandatory.
15
Trump has already come perilously close to permanently destroying the best features of this country, and if his devoted followers have anything further to do with things, may yet succeed.
You don’t kowtow to the supporters of a man like this, you get up early in the morning and defeat them.
6
Conspicuous by its absence here, as in other 'rights' issues, is any mention of duty. Could there be any such thing as individual duty?
Instead, always pulled out to be despised is the notion of someone's else's morality.
It does not seem clear to me that anytime soon the electorate will be convinced that the answer to a growing human in someone who doesn't want it there is to have a doctor take it out.
Is the truth different today than it was in the days when men recorded wisdom? Sure, women's voices have been raised. Now we can get a better idea of what can work. Some now in the spotlight have work to do convincing the electorate that the best thing for us a whole is abortion as months after birth control. Resulting in a second term for our much detested President, though possibly a savvy career move?
Does that mean that the poor will become poorer still?
2
Rather than wax furious on this topic, I'd like to make a suggestion. But I do believe that, as definitions go, human life is cheap. We have the largest mammalian biomass, except for cattle, which we eat. The VALUE of human life is one that we agree on like a pact. It's a good idea. If we can agree that money has value, we can agree that life has value -- but everyone knows that they're really just to get things to go smoothly. (God too, might be considered a "sensible fiction" for public purposes, but I'll stick to the point.) The fact remains that religion must not be used for legislation.
That all said, I think we should have a plebiscite on the matter. I understand referenda are tough (Brexit, anyone?), but sometimes you have to do the tough thing. In this unusual case, it must only be open to people who had ovaries and no testes at birth. I realize that this "disenfranchises" 1/2 the population, but that's the way it was for every vote until 1920, so let's have one last vote for those previously denied the right -- one that affects THEM and ONLY THEM. Make sure it's in the "sanctified" privacy of the voting booth.
You can even promote the need to vote in every Ladies' church auxilliary group ("The Sisterhood" they called where I grew up.) Let them talk it up among themselves, then go vote in private. I'll be willing to accept the results (though you might want the vote to be recorded on an immutable record like a blockchain.)
4
@Alan
Interesting idea, but it is totally impractical. There is no mechanism available to do this. Each state controls the voting in their state, so a single ballot would have to be adopted by every state. I just don’t see California and Alabama agreeing on how to word the question. If the questions are worded differently, they cannot be summed together to make a uniform assessment of the entire electorate.
This ignores the idea of only letting women vote because it affects only them. Too many parts of the issue affect everyone, such as the Hyde amendment.
Also, calling on the “sisterhood” of church auxiliary groups to hold the vote tilts the playing field rather heavily to one side. I have had to vote in churches, including one with a big mural that asked “What would Jesus do?” that could not be covered adequately. Such language is inappropriate in a general election site where Jewish, Muslim, agnostics, and atheists vote.
2
There are many single-issue, anti-abortion voters - thoughtful people who believe that abortion is murder.
It is wrong-headed for Democrats to defend abortion and lose elections. Major elements of the Democratic platform suffer: The climate warms, millions go without access to affordable healthcare, Republican corruption runs rampant, and wealth disparity widens.
If Democrats simply abandon abortion as a political cause - refuse to fuel the fire - Democrats will win. The health of our planet and the health of millions of Americans without access to health care hangs in the balance.
The abortion battle is over. Move on.
6
@Kansas Patriot the "abortion battle" is a misnomer. It is a battle over reproductive rights for all women. The recent state legislatures in Alabama, Ohio, and other states would love to have those who believe women have autonomy over their own bodies to step down from this issue. Not going to happen until access to full reproductive care is the law of the land and not changeable by each state.
22
@Kansas Patriot
Good morning, at the risk of being snarky, if they are single issue anti-abortion people and vote accordingly; they are not thoughtful.
12
The author is correct in pointing out that the issue of abortion, as are many others can be used as a wedge by Trump and his minions to divide Americans. Most Americans want to hear our values of inclusion and humanity in pol's approaches, but, pragmatic solutions offered.
I would like to hear a Democrat express compassion for Americans differences of opinions, while
1. Working to reframe arguments like abortion around the values based idea of "safe, legal, and rare" which allows for the passions on both of the dialogue while supporting the painful decisions that women must make at often a critical time in their life. There is simply no law that anyone could write that could codify the medical and personal conditions that women can face. If Democrats can focus back on medical issues while heartily acknowledging the heartfelt passions on all sides, embodied in the slogan "Trust Women" and supporting women as they go through what can be a heart wrenching time of their life, sometimes without notice, we would be focusing on our values.
2. This same principle applies to other issues like immigration which Trump has managed to turn into a very effective wedge. Dems need to reframe the issue in terms of its practical realities - family separations, mixed status families, and desperation of, not only asylum seekers, but also farmers and small companies needing workers.
It's more complicated to discuss issues in terms of values, and I for one firmly believe that it is required.
12
I am an absolutist on abortion while I recognize it to be a searingly difficult decision in many cases. It should be, simply stated, legal, safe and rare.
We should not devolve into a country like Romania where repetitive abortion was used as birth control but we should be willing to ask some tough questions.
Should a mother with a pregnancy with Tay-Sachs disease. a neuro-degenerative disease with death in early infancy, be compelled to carry the child?
Should a victim of rape be compelled to carry her rapist's child?
I remember caring for one patient in a nursing home who was living a miserable life with Huntington's disease who had repetitive thrashing movements which shredded his skin and led to multiple open wounds. He was the 13th child in this family. His mother, believing each pregnancy had a 50% genetic chance of the disease, kept trying to have a normal child. She never did because her children's form of HD was from multiple genetic repeats and not the textbook case. All her children were farmed out to institutions throughout the state. Would abortion be preferable if good genetic counseling were not available?
Abortion-on-demand is wrong if you are choosing it as abortion-on-whim but foreclosing it as a option is just as wrong when genetics and circumstance can throw us such curveballs as does happen.
20
@Douglas McNeill
Genetics and circumstance will never throw you the curve ball where you'd have to consider abortion. So, please don't tell us women that abortion -- whether or not "on demand" -- is wrong. OK?
6
@Douglas McNeill "Abortion-on-demand is wrong if you are choosing it as abortion-on-whim but foreclosing it as a option"
Are you talking about foreclosing abortion on demand or foreclosing abortion?
Please do not use exceptional cases as justification for abortion on demand.
@Douglas McNeill
The word "whim" is never appropriate to use in a discussion about abortion, just to let you know.
15
" And it is in part because of Republican extremism on this issue"
But isn't Alabama an outlier? A number of other states have passed much less restrictive laws, limiting abortion to "until a heartbeat is detected."
So are you not presenting Republicans as more extreme than they really are?
Indeed a lot of countries in the world which permit abortion, limit it to the first 10-12 weeks of pregnancy.
So I submit that at the moment the Republican position is more moderate than you describe it as being and more in line with international norms.
6
@Ludwig
Heartbeat laws are extreme. Many women wouldn't know they are pregnant when a heartbeat is detectable. The Republican position is hardly moderate and is not close to international norms.
12
When I canvassed in New Hampshire the weekend before the last Presidential election, I spoke to a devout Catholic woman who hated Trump but could not abide Clinton's stance on abortion. This woman was OK with the "abortion should be legal, safe, and rare" approach which the Democratic Party had espoused for years. She was not fine with "there should be absolutely no restrictions and the taxpayers should fund abortions". If a large enough number of voters agree with this woman, Trump will win a second term. We've lived with the Hyde amendment for 50 years. Can we live with another 4 years of Trump.
24
@Nana2roaw
Trump is going to win another 4 years anyway.
Democratic candidates are destroying each other and giving trump all the fodder he needs. He won't even need to spend money on digging up dirt.
4
@esp
You are so right. Trump is a certain win.
Not my wish.
But the Democrats are already so engrossed with snarky infighting that I, as a Democrat, am starting to feel uneasy and unwelcome in my own party.
I'll vote for the Democrat, whoever the nominee, but I'll know that some of my beliefs would draw scorn and ridicule from many among my own party.
I wish there was a solid third party.
6
I agree wholeheartedly with this peice. Democrats are setting themselves up for failure if they don't take a middle ground approach.
I'm from Texas and any dream of turning this state blue largely rest on this issue.
15
@Jordan If you think that just by "moderating" views on abortions the Dems can win Texas you aren't living in most of Texas. Maybe a nice city like Austin. Which could be in CA or NY except for geography. Trump will tell your fellow Texans that the Dems will take away all of their guns and let the Mexicans take over their land. Do you really think abortion will be the decision point?
7
@Jordan
What is the middle ground? Republicans are determined to overturn Roe v Wade. They want to make abortion illegal. Trump already discussed jail terms for the doctors and the women. One more Supreme court judge and this won't be a debate anymore. We will be back to the time when the rich fly overseas for their "spa" appointments and the poor goback to the ally's and hangers. Nobody likes abortion. Women don't have them for the thrill of it. And where are the Republican positions that are considered middle ground. Name me a single prominent Republican who openly states that abortion should be kept legal with improved restrictions. Most who use the late term argument also support overturning Roe v Wade and they won't vote for any judge who doesn't hold those views.
7
This is an excellent analysis of an issue that very well could rob the Democrats of a crucial victory next year. I’m convinced that a great many Americans put off by current Republican policies would vote for Democratic candidates were it not for the party’s absolute intransigence on abortion. Those with qualms about this procedure are made to feel very unwelcome in Democratic circles; these potential votes could help to create a permanent governing majority, but the party keeps pushing them away.
13
@Old Soul
Yours is a thoughtful post.
2
Mr. Wear comes to this issue in a practical and political way. I agree that if Democrats are wise, they need to do so also. Democratic positions are hardened, however, and not likely to change. Arguments about control over their bodies by women, no matter how just, will not win an election. Fear-mongering about killing babies with no restrictions is more likely to do so.
4
The author left out the other reason why the Democratic obsession with abortion has damaged them. The Democrats have protected abortion for more than 40 years by removing the issue from democratic control. Not only does this decrease the power of voters over their government, but it also creates the illusion that the current state of abortion law reflects popular opinion.
11
This post raises important points. we need to address Trump lying about abortion. But we need to establish our position is that you don't reduce abortion by criminalizing it. You do it through better sex ed, free birth control, and support for pregnant women and their families.
11
Abortion needs to be safe and legal. But the rhetoric on the issue shows how unfamiliar liberals are with their own constituents. I've worked with Evangelical Christians, the left fails to recognizes a substantial number of them are the very black and Hispanic voters they passionately claim to represent. For these Christians abortion access takes a back seat to economic issues. They are Democrat and yet certainly pro-Life.
5
The author blows FOG all over a simple issue, which he omits from his discussion of the voter support for various interpretations of abortion- that abortion is a medical procedure involving the physician,patient (and father ?) and if there is Freedom in our country the government can have nothing to say about the reproductive rights of women. It is a personal matter NOT a public matter.
10
Here's my "clear, compelling message".
Take away abortion and when do you start clammoring for forced abortions?
Never, you say?
Baloney.
I am 70. From first flow to last I had 37 years of potential birthing.
That number is 37.
So, let's say that I have 1 child per year.
At what point are you going to FORCE me to have an abortion?
When I have 10?
When I have 15?
(Now, remember: I am poor, high-school drop-out, and no "man" is sticking around.)
Now about when I have 20?
20 kids.... and we all march into church on Sunday and take up 3 pews.
How long before a committee of my fellow Christians demand that the minister give me a "little talking to" - and what does he say? "Have an abortion next time!"
Well, we all know that's not going to happen, don't we?
So, now, it's up to 25.
Is this all still okay?
Am I still some special little vessel?
26.
27.
28.
30 - only 7 more to go.....!
Now, let's get real here.
There is no one in this entire country that has borne 37 births.
Not one single woman.
There might be a MAN that has impregnated 37 women - but with DNA testing, even those days are long gone.
So, take a look around you.
Who did you vote for?
How many kids do they have?
In 95% of the cases - they have 2.
So, you need to ask them how they do that?
How is it that they are so ANTI-ABORTION, yes, and even ANTI-BIRTH-CONTROL, and yet only have 2 measly kids?
Sure, they want POOR women to pop 'em out.... but they won't, they don't.
And that's the Hyde.
Only for the poor.
9
I think of myself as a person, not a Democrat. I vote for open-minded, non-faith based candidates because I believe in Enlightenment ideas and humanitarian projects. I am fine with people who are "believers," but I do not want them to intrude, nor be intolerant of, my views. Religious people are, in my opinion, the ones who are ALWAYS certain; furthermore, according to my layman's understanding of history, religion has accounted for more death and destruction that any other force or movement. Certain I am about freedom, including the position of Pro-Choice.
7
Think of the worst, rudest imperative you can imagine and insert it here: ________ yourself to all who want to control other peoples lives. Not your body, not your decision.
11
Men need to step aside when it comes to the issue of abortion. Chastising female candidates for taking on a "steamroller" approach is disingenuous and out of sync with reality. The author sounds like little more than a surrogate for Old Joe and the Democratic establishment.
4
@LH
Strangely enough, men are involved in procreation, and everyone in this free country has a right to an opinion. That's why my father was in the Army in WWII and my husband was in the Army infantry in Vietnam. Rights.
6
A nuanced, reasonable discussion on abortion would be better. The only problem is that there is no nuance on the Republican side of the debate. They have one goal and one goal only. Overturn Roe V Wade, introduce penalties for doctors and women, pass laws that make abortion the same as murder. That where the argument begins and ends. ! month, 3 months, 6 months, it makes no difference. Make it illegal after 6 months, and they will start in on 3, Make it 3 and they will start in on conception begins when the sperm and egg make contact. There is no middle ground, there is no room for discussion on rape and incest, those are only temporary concessions that will be whittled away if you resort to them. Pro life advocates are really very open about the final end point to their crusade. And unless your ok with that preaching moderation on the left is rather naive.
7
This is so much nonsense! These bills give women who are in tragic situations the right to end pregnancies where the babies will never be viable. That only late term abortion, I personally know about, was an 8 month fetus that was in terrible pain. The Overland Park, KS OB/Gyn euthanized the baby to put him out of misery. The parents were heartbroken. They were not out to kill their child. Allowing parents to decide palliative care for a newborn, with no future, is not infanticide!
11
The Democrats represent principled advocacy for a woman's right to choose. They aren't forcing anyone to have an abortion if they don't want one or oppose it on moral grounds.
The absolutists are the Republicans. Whatever nuances distinguish them are incrementalist fig leaves for their objection to all abortion — not to mention factual, objective sex education and access to reliable birth control, without which the need for abortion won't change. Whether they object to the taking of a potential human life or resent women's sexuality, the result is the same: an outrageous intrusion of government into the most private aspects of private lives.
10
I would like to see the abortion conversation start including a discussion of the responsibility of men to prevent pregnancy. They have escaped any obligation for far too long. Women need to stop accepting the blame for unwanted pregnancy. Women don't get pregnant in a vacuum. Abortion would not be the issue if is if more men were responsible and got vasectomies. I predict the number of abortions would plummet. Insurance coverage for the procedure should be mandated, and there should be federal funding for the uninsured. Men who are already fathers should especially step up and make sure they cause no more pregnancies.
Blame for unwanted pregnancy is always put onto women, women are demonized in any abortion discussion, but it’s time that reality enter into the conversation. No woman gets pregnant without sperm. It's time for men to do their part and accept their responsibility. And, women should insist that they do.
11
it's not about a clump of cells. it's about defending people's right to self determination, you know freedom.
5
Obvious where you learned to tee up a false equivalence and then knock it down...
I think the Dems are (mistakenly) certain about a lot of things – but abortion isn't one of them...
I think the Dems are (very correctly) certain about a woman's right to choose...
18
Difficult, complex issue.
My opinion is we should reduce the problem by offering unlimited access to both birth control and Plan B.
Actually, both should be free in all healthcare options.
The other problem is there are so many zealots on so many aspects of the issue. Some people fight effective sex education .... the 'ignorance is bliss' crowd.
Sigh.
13
What does having any ' nuanced' views on abortion have to do with turning out your conservative or liberal base during primary partisan elections and beyond into general elections?
By cramping and confining female choice and control over their sexual, reproductive and health choices into a ' debate' over abortion or choice is deception and deplorable despicable duplicity on steroids
There are only two naturally biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race procreative genders. And only one has eggs, ovaries, mammary glands, a uterus, a placenta and a vagina. Until the discovery of DNA, paternity unlike maternity, was always in doubt.
While supernatural Judeo-Christian- Muslim faith imagines a motherless God creating a motherless first man and a motherless first woman from that man's rib. Misogyny and patriarchy are endemic and enduringly contrary to natural biological science
Prehistoric humans carved big breasted, big legged, big buttocks and big hipped effigies of fecund females/goddesses.
7
I agree with Mr. Wear on this complicated issue. I am a Christian woman who is a registered independent. My stand on abortion is nuanced and one that would not satisfy hard-line folks on either side. It is one that I have struggled with and I am constantly revisiting. I am opposed to abortion in most cases ( the usual mentioned exceptions of rape, incest, and health being taken into consideration) believing that decisions about having a child should be made prior to conception, not after. Abortion should not be used as a method of birth control. I also believe that there should be a first trimester limit on abortions and that federal money should not be used to perform them. I think that women should be neither encouraged to have an abortion nor demonized if they do. It should be a measured, thoughtful, private decision. In addition, I believe that being pro-life extends to caring about people for their entire lives, no matter their status. We need to worry more about our country being a better place for a child to be born in: better healthcare, childcare, education, and opportunities for success.
228
@Julie
if only the rampaging pro-life would have the sane approach you take, especially after an infant is birthed, we would have an Eden. With pitchforks and insults the sane approach seems pie in the sky. An unwanted infant does not have the same future as a wanted one. The rich have no problems to abort; the poor have no choice to birth. are there structure around after that to help? No. if sane approach is to happen this must change and there is no will to do so.
35
@Julie
I am a non-Christian man who finds Julies's view too restrictive.
First of all , the issue is not one of religion. It is primarily a matter of a woman's or girl's rights subject to reasonable restrictions
The idea that it is murder to abort a clump of cells before they are viable outside the womb is a gross exaggeration. Later on, it may be necessary for medical reasons for the mother or child.
To limit abortion to the first trimester is too soon.The woman may not even know that she is pregnant at that point. My wife and I had three children when she discovered she was pregnant. We had thought that three children were enough but mistakes happen. After discussion with my wife, we decided we would go forward, because she felt she could not have an abortion although she believed in a woman's right to choose.
Basically, Roe v. Wade had it right subject to further advances in medicine as the author of that opinion said.
55
@Julie very well said and I think most feel the way you do. Unfortunately the hard line being taken is with the Republicans especially in these red states that take the choice away completely. They have manipulated the narrative for so long now that Democrats need to defend the what appears to be indefensible but pro choice is NOT pro abortion. These same restrictive abortion laws are also in states where cuts to social services such as better healthcare, childcare and education exist. The candidate who can make the case that a strong social safety net will reduce the need for abortion will be a winner.
31
I am both a Democrat and a voter, and I assure my views about abortion as a voter are far more nuanced than my views about abortion as a Democrat.
When Trump says infanticide, the answer is simple: who do you want in charge of your pregnancy, your doctor or a judge?
Force Trump to defend heartbeat bills and abortion bans without exceptions. When he says rip the baby from the womb, remind voters that’s illegal today under Roe.
Roe v Wade *is* the compromise the author says describes majority public opinion. Abortion is largely unrestricted during the first trimester, and prohibited for viable fetuses once they can survive outside the womb.
Where Democrats are ahead of majority opinion is the Hyde amendment. Americans’ instinctive conservatism tells them the government shouldn’t pay for elective procedures, neither abortions nor nose jobs. Democrats have come to recognize the inequity in that position. A right doesn’t exist in fact if it can’t be exercised.
“The law in its majesty forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges.”
10
The thing is that being nuanced requires a bit more time than a 30 second sound bite. On the USA-Europe discussion, it varies from country to country, and regionally. In France, where I live, they distinguish between IVG, V for voluntary on the decision of the woman in the first trimester, and IMG, M for medical after that. I would say that it is easier for a teenager in France to access a first trimester abortion than for a teenager in many US states. And that it's probably no more difficult to get a later abortion for medical reasons if necessary. Also in France, abortions are done in regular hospital services that do other gynecological services, or by medication at home under supervision, not separate clinics, making them less of a target. And the first time Catholic pro-lifers tried to invade and bloc a gynecology service in a hospital, which is illegal, the police arrived, arrested them, they did a little jail time...and that hasn't really been a problem since then, though there is the occasional try, which ends in the same way.
12
People can sound off all they want in these comments about how they themselves will vote. Their civil rights, etc. But Mr. Wear is absolutely right – as all the polls show -- about how things actually stand in America. Democrats will ignore his wisdom to their peril.
8
Alternative headline: Women Shouldn't Be So Certain They Want to Control Their Own Bodies.
Because how much better to let politicians or the clergy or a survey of voters control the use of your body!
19
If some Trump supporters want to believe that Democrats actually support infanticide, there's little that can be done to counter that. Anyone who believes such a thing is way too far gone to be reached by rational argument. Some people just have to be written off as irrational and unreachable.
12
"We know that 73 percent of women believe abortion should be restricted to at least the first three months (with a large percentage of those women supporting even greater restrictions"
What "we" is that? This entire piece is non-sense. It is your opinions or guesses or wishes. By 2024 There will be 173.9 million women in the U.S. Based on my research which includes asking every woman I know about their opinion on abortion 99% say abortion is a woman's decision Period.
10
When a woman decides to end a pregnancy, it is for many reasons, and these reasons are personal. Women making this decision often consult with family, friends, clergy and others. It's just simply not a place where government belongs.
16
The first complexity is freedom to abort related to ability to pay. The Hyde amendment is insupportable even if one believes in legal restrictions for first or second trimester. It says rich women may be able to do it but we can at least coerce poor women.
Then the issue is third trimester, as close-to-or-at viability is no longer just the mother or mother-developing-life dyad. It's about possibly a person who could be sustained by the state that wants to control its fate. Then the question of WHICH bodily invasive procedure, abortion or c-section, potentially involves the public good.
So, yes, it's too complex for stridency ---- except on the issue of funding. Life and constitutional rights cannot depend on money.
2
I'm a Democrat(because there is no Socialist Party in this country) and I'm darned certain about my stance on abortion. Women's health decisions are theirs and theirs alone. It's nobody else's business.
11
This article detailed facts about what the majority of Americans feel about abortion: a nuanced view in which first trimester abortions are acceptable, later-term abortions acceptable only in certain situations. But most of the comments are as tone-deaf to this reality as the far right is. This is scary because there are many Democrats and independents who can't embrace the Democrat candidates' mantra of abortion for any reason at anytime.
"Late-term abortion is extremely rare and pretty much only for health reasons when the baby will likely not survive or be extremely disabled."
According to the very pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, that statement is false. There are about 6,000 third trimester abortions a year and most are not to save the life of the woman or that the unborn child has some horrific, incurable disease (really not a fetus anymore in the third trimester; Democrats need to cease their anti-science). For me, and I hope everyone, even one killing is too many but 6,000 is a horror. As I am very much in favor of assisting women and children in need and feel this is our moral and ethical responsibility as a nation, I am appalled at the callousness the abortion absolutists have when it comes to viable, sensory-aware babies being aborted.
I can never vote for Trump. But Democrat candidates who toe the party line because they're as afraid of NARAL as Republicans are of the NRA, demonstrate a deeply flawed set of ethics and lack of character.
5
Please give your sources for the 6,000 late term abortions with no health problems. Is that because women cannot get the money together until the third trimester? Another reason to get rid of the Hyde Amendment. I abhor the wars we have fought since Vietnam...but still have no choice but to pay my taxes that support these travesties!
10
I am a pro life woman and will never vote for a Democrat as long as they approve of abortion. At the Democratic presidential debates recently, every single candidate approved of abortion without any restrictions. They did not hide their support for a woman's right to choose. They said it was her body and the government should not make that decision.
More Americans today are leaning pro life and at least want some restrictions. Not the Democratic candidates. They will never win nor should they when they take this pro abortion stand. They care nothing for the unborn and their rights. They are catering to their left progressive voters which will not win them elections. This will benefit the Republicans greatly.
68
@KMW There is no such thing as "pro abortion." There is only "pro life," code for 'my religious beliefs should be forced on others,' and "pro choice," which seeks to acknowledge that unless the government has an overriding legitimate interest that can supersede personal liberty, abortion should remain an open medical option for women. Unfortunately, we have to go back at least a quarter century to find SCOTUS justices who cared about upholding Constitutional rights, as opposed to hewing to political extremism. Government's only legitimate interest is in preventing homicide. which means when a fetus is medically viable outside of the womb. There really is no dispute when personal religious beliefs are not attempted to be placed above the personal Constitutional rights of all Americans.
135
@KMW I have big problems with attitudes like yours in the sense that you are clearly a single issue voter, wearing blinders which prevent you from evaluating the whole of a candidate. As a man I feel I am not in the position to tell any woman what she can or cannot do. I have two children and I am glad to have them and totally respect and appreciate what pregnancy means to a woman both the good and bad. From my perspective it is a choice for the woman. Her body, her health, she deals most intimately with the consequences. Abortions should be legal safe and rare.
You need to look at the other policies of the candidates. Will they make it possible for a single mother to care for a child? Will they fund women's reproductive health, i.e. birth control, a means of making abortions rare? Will they support education of our youth? Does a candidate support a living minimum wage allowing a couple to raise a family? Does a candidate plan to support environmental protections, making the world of the future livable for our children?
Being anti abortion I can understand but ignoring all the rest of the issues that affect a woman's choice in the matter is a willfully ignorant approach. If one wants to minimize abortions then building support structures for the living and families must be a priority. No one is being forced to have abortions, nor are they forced to donate spare organs, or blood both morally equivalent involving health risks you would not impose on someone.
136
@KMW
I’m Catholic and feel the issue is far more complex than your comments say. I work as a volunteer in high poverty schools and other high poverty areas where children and people who have been born are relegated to horrible living conditions, segregated from any sources of a decent life. There are so many children who wait and wait for adoption and foster care, and not many self-proclaimed “pro-lifers” coming to adopt or to foster. I always wonder why.
I guess I’m one of the centrists described in the article, and I also feel the militant tone of many of the supporters of “choice” is often just as shrill and off-putting as the language and tactics of the other side. But when I consider the way those most vulnerable who have already been born are treated by our “winner take all” society, I fall into feelings of despair for what we have become.
89
Please tell me how a male who believes in a male dominated religion can speak about what women really believe concerning abortion? Does anyone think we would trust him, especially in the trump/evangalical world we live in???
13
I would argue that support for the reproductive rights of women has to be federally mandated and unqualified in order to scaffold whatever legitimate arguments take place within that context.
As the candidates for president would represent the federal government, it is appropriate for them to be unabashedly in favor of the right to abortion, the same way that pro life candidates are unapologetic and rigid in their desire to overturn Roe v Wade. Of course, as with most sweeping laws that affect the lives of millions, there are many, more nuanced views within the electorate and there's nothing wrong with candidates being asked questions about specifics. However, the framework of the argument has been in place since the implementation of Roe v Wade and it would be hypocritical to pretend otherwise.
The irony is that outside of very specific constituencies and their representatives, there actually is room for a wide variety of dare I say it, choices available to the citizen. Doctors are not required to perform abortions, women are not being encouraged by strangers to end pregnancies and there have been no reports of any official pressuring religious leaders or institutions to change their counsel. Perhaps that's why the majority of Americans support Roe v Wade, certainly including many who would never choose that route.
5
Because of his religious beliefs, Mr. Wear is anti-abortion. That’s all we need to know when we read this opinion piece.
18
Wear is raising an issue which many Democratic leaders, and many of your letter-writers, are not understanding : a majority of voters see abortion is a complex issue. Certainly, no compassionate person would deny care to a woman whose health is being compromised by an unwanted pregnancy. I wonder about the many hours of training undertaken by doctors to do life-saving surgery on unborn fetuses. Can anyone deny that when an abortion occurs, two bodies are involved, not just one ? Then there is the issue of a woman's right to an abortion and whether citizens who conscientiously dissent from that view can be forced to pay for abortions. Wear is making the case that this is a complex issue and those who would over-simplify it are part of the problem. The polls clearly back him up but those who write in opposition to him are ignoring that political reality. The math is not complex : if you're behind in the polls, you lose the election. ignoring the polls is politically foolhardy.
5
Excuse me, this writer has never had to make a choice to have to keep an unwanted pregnancy in HIS body before. All the polling in the world can not make me forget women who died from abortion by coat hangers, yes metal coat hangers undone and desperately inserted in desperation. Prior to legalization, that’s how it was done. An older OB/Gyn that I worked with told us that as a resident in NYC, they were stationed in the ER waiting the next backroom abortion that needed to be saved from perforation of the uterus to sepsis. Your body your rights, our bodies, our rights. As an embryologist, those cells you want to protect are just cells. Protect the born already, they actually need the protection not the unborn that are cells in someone else’s body and none of your business.
12
There is absolutely no scriptural basis for considering abortion such a crucial Christian issue that it justifies an alliance with the spectacularly un-Christian Mr. Trump. The President's view of the world-- in which the strong take what they want, and the weak are "losers"-- is antithetical to Christian thought. Yet his Christian base is willing to ignore this ongoing mockery of Christ's teaching, in order to support an issue that is not mentioned by Jesus, and is barely mentioned in the Bible at all. What's really going on here? I wish I knew.
12
Keep Roe.
Start focusing on vas deferens control, vasectomies and managing men's bodies for the next 50 years instead.
14
The bulk of America is moderate, including about abortion. I sense that most Americans have no problem with it for cases like rape, incest, and life of the mother but the reality is that the vast majority of abortions are elective birth control procedures. Moreover, it's a procedure that my tax dollars should not fund. Democrats are on the losing side of this argument.
4
Then make birth control free to all & support good sex education available to everyone plus make a living wage the law. That is the only way you are going to get rid of abortion. People disagree with s lot of things our government does. Why is abortion any different?
4
Why should birth control be free? What about personal responsibility? If a couple absolutely doesn’t want a child, abstain. Even so, birth control is cheap - condoms are, what, $0.50 each? This just isn’t cost prohibitive for anyone.
3
The author seems to think there is room for compromise on the right on abortion. There isn’t. And to compromise one’s position without quid pro quo...isn’t honorable, it is giving up. I will not give up my beliefs. To quote the Libertarian Platform....
1.5 Abortion
Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
I will not bend...I will not unilaterally compromise....never!
4
The Democrats do not really care at all about abortion.
They just want to get in power to keep implementing their socialist programs.
2
If a potential voter is willing to vote for Trump, a man known to be morals-free and a cumpulsive pathological liar, because he says the Democratic candidate will execute babies right out of the womb, then they should sit out the next and all subsequent elections. No one that ignorant, thought-free and credulous could ever make an informed decision about anything. Michael Wear’s low opinion of Democratic voters makes him sound more like a Republican than a Democrat.
11
This piece is one more example of what the real problem is for Dems. Now and always. They stink at messaging.
I'm not going to comment on the abortion aspect, except to say, at a time when we see Repubs going full-on draconian in their attempts to end access, while seeking retribution on those women...its time the Dems take a hard-line.
But whether the issue is abortion access, women's rights to complete medical advice and procedures they see fit for themselves, health care in general, rising costs of medical care, Rx drugs, public health...the list goes on.
The Dems are the worst at messaging. 1. because they are too often playing defense after being accused of some absurdity by the Repubs, Trump or Fox faux-News. 2. because they stink at messaging. And #2 is their real issue.
The DNC...stinks at it. The methods and practices of the standard Dem campaign advisors also stink at it.
"I support a women's right to choose the proper medical treatment and procedures, they see fit for their health. That includes access to safe and affordable abortion if that's their choice. I do not know of, nor have ever heard of the nonsense the President, or his sycophants at a certain non-news channel are talking about when they talk about post birth abortions. Its nonsense, non-existent, and I'm not going to go down a rabbit-hole created by those irrational minds."
Easy! Say it simply, accuse the enemy of being fools, dismiss the subject as made-up (which it is) and move on.
6
Bottom line here is that the belief that abortion is wrong stems from a religious idea about some precious commodity called the Human Soul, and that this soul is an expression of an invisible Deity in the sky (or somewhere else He, always a guy, is never seen).
The fact that the evangelicals and even Catholics have sucked all the oxygen out of the room with their demands cannot negate the FIRST Amendment to our defining document, which states that religion shall have no influence in deciding public matters.
Period.
11
Working backwards on this issue is useful. The most important right threatened is access to safe procedures. The total ban bills that criminalize both doctors and patients cannot be tolerated for many reasons, but the anti-abortion lobby may be persuaded that the total ban bills promote unsafe and unregulated alternatives, and for this shared concern, the total bans are clearly immoral. Next, the focus on reducing unwanted pregnancy is another shared concern that most Americans, including the anti-abortionists, should support. Lastly, most Americans in the anti-abortion lobby will cite their faith as guiding their fervor. Again, most Americans support the right of the individual to practice their faith, and this must apply to pregnant women. To have government decide this issue is a violation of the First Amendment. Democrats need to ask voters to support the party that promotes safe medical practices (instead of creating unsafe and illegal problems), reduce unwanted pregnancies, and freedom for religious beliefs (and opposition to state establishment of religion).
I am not so naive as to think these points will affect the strong antiabortionists, but the 'nuanced' approach does not quite do it for me. There are shared principles that are the foundation of my support for the right to choose.
5
Thank you for making this point. I would never support a law that restricted abortions before viability, and sometimes after. But I don't like the label "Pro-choice" or "Äbortion on demand."
Abortion is a very sad necessity.
I believe the fetus is a person, but not as fully as the woman. I am offended by the new Republican laws.
I am very progressive and will vote against Trump.
3
A view from a Republican.
It seems that the Democratic party has been so upset by the Trump presidency that the party is going to extreme Left positions to 'virtue signal' how strongly opposed they are to Trump. The problem is that they may actually make Trump more palatable by comparison. Please consider that the only Democrat that Trump could have won against was Hillary Clinton in 2016. It was because her 'negative' ratings were on par with his. If he had been running against a non-hated Democrat he would have lost.
It is a shame if our political system denigrates to one where the politician who alienates or scares the least wins. By being the 'abortion for any reason at any time party', and advocating for de facto open borders, the Democratic party is taking stances that are potentially unelectable.
Oh, and in case you are wondering my position on the abortion issue, it is much like Europe. Elective abortion for first trimester only, medical necessity after that. I'm sure I would be hated for that by the frenzy on the political Left (and Right).
5
The columnist writes wisely and with nuance. The initial group of respondents, at least those published, seem to reject nuance. They judge that women should have a natural and unchecked right to decide what to do with their bodies. Perhaps in a perfect libertarian world, such freedom would be allowed. But the columnist rightly argues that proclaiming a time-unlimited or a public-funded right to abortion has only aided Republicans and will continue to do so and, in fact, is not what most Democratic voters desire. Moreover, a nuanced position allows for late abortions when the mother's life is endangered or when a potential child would have devastating physical absences that would make any life brief and agonizing without remedy.
2
Of course many people have mixed feelings about abortion. We live in a society that sees woman primarily as caretakers of other people (of men, children, bosses...), not as the full and free agents that we understand men to be. It's called gender inequality. If we thought women were as human as men, we would want women to flourish as men do - as human beings, not just as caretakers or mothers. This does not mean women would stop having children but it certainly does mean we would support each individual woman in her understanding of what her life should be - whether or not that includes a child (or additional children).
10
Mr. Wear insults our emotional intelligence if he thinks we (of any stripe) think abortion is a simple affair. Yes, it's complex and nuanced. The thing is, who handles the complex and nuanced issue for me? I'll handle my own complexities, thanks.
14
Mr. Wear cites polling that asks about when an abortion is ok. There's an inherent bias in the question. What if the question was "When is it ok for government to make decisions for an individual?" I would daresay that poll would yield 100 percent "never" among both men and women, in blue and red states. The Democrats' position isn't wrong, it's the "positioning" of the argument that needs improvement.
10
Michael Wear raises a lot of points that may be difficult to accept but nonetheless must be considered (if not embraced) by the Democrats. There is no question that the abortion issue played a huge role in electing 45 and will again become a major factor in 2020. In a perfect world, women would have an unquestioned right to decide what to do with their bodies but we live in a society where choices are no longer private and everyone feels that their opinion should matter. Democrats would be wise to acknowledge the complexity of abortion and its emotional repercussions. Propose a policy that limits access to termination up to the second trimester (the first 3 months is too restrictive) with exceptions for anomalous fetuses, rape/incest and of course to save the life of the mother. This would restrict only a very small percentage of abortions that are being performed today.
Without some compromise from the Democrats, the right to abortion at the federal level will be lost - as will the 2020 election.
1
@Kate - What has been missing in this whole "debate" is the fact that Roe and Casey were the compromise position. It allowed abortion up to the point just prior to viability. Abortions in the 2nd trimester are rare but the majority occur because red states have made it so difficult to access, thus causing unnecessary delays.
Meanwhile, also never mentioned is the fact that the abortion rate in the US has fallen by 40% in the last decade, presumably in part because of greater access to contraception provided by the ACA.
5
Actually, the law you envision is the one you have. Roe allows abortion during the first trimester and protects the viable fetus.
Republicans want to “protect” the unviable fetus and commandeer the woman’s body against her will. They do that through financial coercion with the Hyde amendment, and would do it through laws such as have been passed in Georgia and Alabama.
One wonders what will happen when the chickens come home to roost. If congress outlaws abortion, women of ordinary means will suddenly be subject to the same draconian restrictions that today apply only to the poor, where abortion the only available abortion is unaffordable. If Republicans think that will be the last word on the subject, they have another think coming.
4
I’m all for nuance on complicated issues but this is not nuance:
“The candidates use similar rhetoric to argue against restrictions and requirements like mandatory ultrasounds, requiring doctors who perform abortions to have hospital admitting privileges and mandatory waiting periods, all of which have majority or near-majority support among women, communities of color and the poor.”
This is capitulation to right wing ideology. This is repudiation of medical evidence and necessity. This is using broad based polling questions to steamroll nuance. Have you considered what waiting periods mean in states with one or two abortion facilities for people without access to reliable transportation? What is the point of a forced ultrasound? What happens when the only hospital in the area is a Catholic delivery system? Nuance indeed.
9
@Reese - Exactly. And it doesn't have to be a Catholic hospital to deny admitting privileges to abortion clinic doctors. No hospital wants to face the protests and other negative publicity that the rightwing will gin up if it's know those doctors have admitting privileges.
Plus since doctors must assure a hospital that they'll admit X number of patients during the year in order to get privileges, and since abortion clinics can go a decade without ever having a complication that necessitates hospitalization, a hospital would have to violate their own practices in order to grant such privileges.
I believe you are correct that many more of us who identify as Democrats are uneasy about the Democratic stance on abortion. My personal feeling is that the longer it is the political trigger point, the longer the real issues are neglected. Although I do not have statistics, I think abortion is still viewed as birth control by some women and men, and universal free birth control for both is not talked about. When women have to use the argument that if men can have Viagra at their disposal but women cannot have abortions legally, something does not add up. My feeling is abortion should only have to be used in the most extreme cases to be decided by doctors.
4
You can be in favor of a policy without liking it, that is where abortion falls for a lot people in the US. For a lot of people they would say that yes a woman should have the right to choose, but to stand on a street corner proclaiming that right is distasteful. Abortions are, after all, not pleasant events.
Doing that tightrope act is very hard however, to say that yes I support a woman's right to choose, but hope that no woman ever has to make that choice, imposes a kind of moral imperative on the stance. The right should be that, plain and simply, without a cultural or moral take on it. There is a natural rejection of that view, whether or not it bothers someone is beside the point. That inclination to disregard the recognition of the emotional cost of the act is what also rubs a lot of people the wrong way.
This is a pronounced problem with abortion, but it is the actuality of the way people feel about a lot of other issues too. People may be worried about climate change but they are also scared of the economic cost of fixing it, people may want everyone to have good health care but don't want to give up their good health care to achieve that, people may feel that the rich should pay their fair share but don't want to feel that the dream of becoming rich is made more difficult by the government. It is OK for the parties to stake out the extremes if they can achieve the nuance.
1
Those who are in it for the righteousness high would have you believe it’s impossible, but most folks are pro-choice and pro-life. I’m happy with Roe. Aborting a pregnancy is a personal decision that should be private and possible.
5
Politically, what sense is there for Democrats running for national office criticizing, say, the recent Alabama abortion law? There's none since they have zero chance of winning the state in 2020. If that statute goes too far in restricting the practice then presumably Alabama voters will vote the restrictionists out. Not only is individual opinion wildly various on this topic but it varies by state and region so the instinct of politicians to appeal to what they sense are the views of their constituents becomes much more difficult. Open borders and unrestricted access to abortion may be a hit in Brooklyn or Palo Alto but will play less well in Peoria and the towns in the upper midwest that doomed Democrats in 2016.
2
@Frunobulax - Since no Democratic officials or candidates are calling for open borders, and since no Democrats are calling for unrestricted abortion, then obviously the issue is that Democrats have to work harder to explain that. It's not that many of them hadn't tried, but we're drowned out Fox and the GOP and especially Trump.
3
Words, words, words .. please just stop.
There has always been and always will be abortion. Our government determines how safe and legal that choice will be.
Hard to believe that in 2019 we are still having this argument.
Logically everyone should agree that this choice belongs to the woman, perhaps her partner and her doctor.
The women goes through pregnancy, childbirth, and providing care for the child. If she is fortunate she has a caring partner to share this experience with her.
How another person and their religion has any bearing whatsoever on this decision is beyond sane comprehension.
6
The constitution gives us freedom of religion and freedom from religion. Even a basic reading of religious thought reveals that different faiths view this issue differently. On the medical side, no law is likely to take all situations into account and when we try, we force inhuman things on women, like taking a fetus without a brain to term just because the condition isn't discovered "in time."
Why can't we leave these decisions to the women, their doctors, and their families?
Unless, of course, the whole point is to make women second class citizens. Note that there are NO laws governing what a man can do with their bodies.
5
Abortion is safe and legal. Access should not be limited by ability to pay (Hyde Amendment). Every pregnancy is individual and the arbitrary 3 month time limit suggested as a “nuanced view” has no real medical or moral value. The decision to terminate a pregnancy is for the woman and whomever she chooses to include in that decision-making process. I think that’s pretty morally clear and there is no need for Democrats to back away from that position.
3
Another man weighing in on an issue that will never actually affect him as he will never be pregnant. That said, there will never - NEVER - be unanimity of views regarding abortion. There will always be those who think it should never, ever be legal for any reason. And there will be those who think otherwise, and there will be others whose views will vary depending on what they see as the "facts" involved. Thus, the government should have no place here at all, and women should be free to make their own, most personal decision about what is right for them. Everywhere that abortion is mostly or wholly illegal, women die. That is a fact.
5
I vaguely remember hearing about one of my older sister's high school classmates who, returning from a doctor's visit with her mother (which confirmed the high school student's pregnancy), drove the car off a cliff on the way home with her mother in the front seat. The pregnant girl died; I believe the mother survived.
2
Do you think Trump will "exploit" Democratic candidates' attitudes, or professed attitudes, anyway, on abortion? What if he actually believes what he says, and the Democratic candidates are more political in their stances than he?
Yes, yes, to all the readers below you say that what is at stake here is nothing short of a woman's personal freedom, that abortion is none of the state's business, that the matter should be left between a woman and her doctor. I agree 100%. But please try to open your minds a little and consider this: there are, out there in the same country in which you live, verifiably sane individuals who believe deeply and passionately that their personal freedoms, their right to privacy and happiness, depend on their ability to possess a firearm to protect themselves against egregious violations of their bodily safety, violations that might be inflicted--and have been inflicted--by legal means at the order of their government. EVERYTHING is subject to the complexities of personal histories and family traumas, of individual beliefs and fears. Is it efficient or easy to elect leaders and legislate humane laws in the face of this reality? Not in the least. But self-government isn't meant to be easy. It is the faith that our founders had in the human capacity to both embrace fundamental human flourishing AND negotiate difference and complexity that formed our system of government, but we seem to have forgotten that history both in politics and in our so-called civil discourse. So don't cry "It's none of the state's business" and wash your hands of this. You're only setting yourself up for hypocrisy when it's time to save lives. Not fetal lives: living lives. Please watch your words.
Where does the intrusion in to our health issues stop? Should we be absolute about contraception? Abortion is not a moral issue for all. It is a personal health issue just as contraception is.
2
The extremist on both ends have a short easy way to describe what they are advocating, so that is what we are all hearing. Most people know there is a middle ground that needs to be stated strong and loud to override the noise from the right and the left extremes. I believe that there should be absolute private choice up to 20 weeks gestation, medical choice up until the birth. I believe most woman know and do decide by 20 weeks if they want to have a child. There will always be exceptions as there is with everything but policy can't be made on those exceptions.
I wish that women, pregnant or not, and men would realize that abortion is a non-issue when it comes to whether or not civilization can exist with a changing climate. My 21-year-old grandson recently said to me: Earth is my future. That's our bottom line now; not reproductive rights.
2
Nuance is no longer possible. The antiabortion forces have become so absolutist they have become totalitarians. No abortion in any shape or form. Even if the pregnancy will cause the death of the mother. Every abortion will be a capital crime and every miscarriage will be a suspected capital crime. Women will be reduced to non-citizen status.
When "The Handmaid's Tale" came out, I thought it was kind of a cheap shot by a Canadian novelist at Reagan-era America. Now, it seems like prophecy.
4
The same pro choice people who will tell you that it’s just a fetus when they are advocating abortion rights, will turn around and call it a baby when their friends get pregnant and post the ultrasound on Facebook. It IS complicated. I’m pro-choice; I don’t want a society where a woman who has been raped has to go through some draconian process to prove it before she can get an abortion, Nor do I want a society where we judge women for difficult choices that they may need to make for a host of reasons. But I also don’t want to live in a society where we pretend that abortions are “simply” medical procedures, as if there is no feeling or soul-searching involved. It IS complicated. As Democrats, especially liberal Democrats like myself, need to point to the fact that a society with socialized childcare and healthcare will result in a heavily reduced abortion rate. Keep it legal, but don’t lie and say it’s not complicated when it is.
2
@Jeremiah Crotser - So how does saying "it's complicated" inform our laws? Sure it's complicated. But that doesn't yield any kind of blueprint for the laws that govern it.
1
The preoccupation of the electorate with an issue that had been settled by the supreme court more than 40 years ago is in itself a dreadful waste of time and effort at the expense of other much more important issues. This is just a trick used by people who in reality care little for the welfare of their constituents. The effective strategy is to expose this lie, not to compromise on principles of freedom of choice. As long as a fetus is a part of a woman's body, no one has the right to tell women what to do.
1
I am quite certain, thank you very much, that it should be women, and not the state, who decide how to deal with their own pregnancies.
If the state arrogates to itself the power to make such deeply personal decisions for its citizens, there is no bar to the state exercising that power to compel, rather than prohibit, abortions if the state sees it to be in the state's interest.
This is not theoretical. Countries with less reverence for individual rights than we profess to honor -- notably China and India -- have done precisely that. It is conceivable that a state could, for example, find its water sources so depleted that it would move to limit population, and one of the methods it could employ would be to compel abortion.
Nobody, literally NOBODY, is "pro-abortion." I would as strongly oppose compulsory abortion (even for criminals or others the state might deem "undesirable") as I would laws that restrict abortion. It is not the state's business.
If you do not want an abortion, that is just fine -- nobody sane advocates forcing you to have one. But mind your own business when it comes to the choices of others, and keep your religious beliefs as to the definition of "personhood" out of my face. A zygote is not a person, and a fetus is not a baby.
3
Obama was so good at nuanced, thoughtful discussions on subjects that were hot buttons for conservatives like abortion and race and immigration. Sadly, things are hotter than ever. Maybe his gift to all of us could be speaking about these issues before the election. There couldn't be a starker contrast in thoughtfulness between him and the so-called president.
Abortion would not be an issue but for the relentless attack on Roe vs. Wade by the Republicans. I suggest Mr. Wear should consider the issue from this point of view rather than casting aspersions on progressives and Democrats, who simply want to preserve the law of the land as it stands.
5
I find public opinion surveys meaningless when it comes to abortion mainly because the topic is no one’s business except the women who might want or need one. I’m looking forward to the day men won’t feel such a need to legislate women’s bodies
2
Abortion is not the issue, stop writing about it as if it is .
The issue is the right of a woman, a child or a family to be able to consider and obtain an abortion as an option in their personal , private, medical decision making.
10
Thank you. This is about one segment of society with a particular set of religious or moral beliefs imposing its will on another, plain and simple. What makes it worse (and soooo Republican) is the gross imbalance of power between the two. On one side are mostly hypocritical men, and comfortable middle and upper class women, and on the other are mostly vulnerable pregnant women. If you don’t like abortion, don’t get one.
4
Presently, and hopefully, this will change, voters have a more nuanced view of almost every issue than our democratic candidates are expressing. I get it--we are in the primaries--so..getting nominated means throwing nuance out the window--WRONG...Remember who you are running against--the master of one-liner insults--do not give the Donald these one-liners.
A solid majority of Americans support unfettered access to abortion in the first 3-4 months, together with later abortions under certain specific circumstances (rape, incest, non-viable fetus).
It's an indictment of our political system that a candidate for either party who took that position would be unable to gain their party's nomination. It's the Republican and Democratic parties who are extreme, not the American people.
2
If Democrats had any sense they would be repeatedly pointing out that they are the ones making unplanned pregnancies and abortions less likely to happen which is the best possible situation for women and their partners.
5
President Clinton had exactly the right formulation: Abortion should be safe, legal and rare. The latter, however, depends on responsible, factual sex education and easy access to effective birth control — two things most of the strident anti-abortionists also oppose.
3
The Catholic vote has proven to be the best predictor of presidential election outcomes over the past 50 years.
Catholics have abortions too, but they aren't proud of it. Henry Hyde (R.-IL) authored the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. I may agree that the decision to abort should be left to the woman, but the bill for the procedure shouldn't be on my conscience.
Mr. Wear is right; the D's absolutist position will likely cost them the Catholic vote (by a slim majority) and, thus, the election. Then you can have Trump replace 2 or 3 more SCOTUS justices and kiss Roe goodbye.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
2
@ed connor - What I will never understand why the forced birthers think they and they alone are entitled to dictate what their tax dollars will pay for. I was an anti-war activist for many years, but my tax dollars still paid for the murder of millions of men, women and children who happened to live in a war zone, not to mention the deaths of our own troops. I oppose massive tax breaks and subsidies to major corporations and the wealthy, but I don't have an "opt out" box to check on my tax form.
4
The author builds a reasonable case about Democrats and how candidates should campaign around abortion issues. The problem is that he quotes several studies, saying that they reflect what "Democratic women believe" for example, but he never gives the accurate number of people who actually responded to the poll. He quoted this poll "And yet a Politico/Morning Consult poll from June showed that slightly more Democratic women support the Hyde Amendment (at 41 percent) than oppose it (at 39 percent). Overall, 49 percent of registered voters support Hyde, compared with 32 percent who oppose it." You can get the number of people who responded if you click on the poll. 1991 people! He makes it sound as though millions of Democratic women believe something when in truth, only several hundred is the real number. Mr. Wear, stop grossly exaggerating the meaning of polls when only a very small number of people responded. You can't get a few hundred responses and then claim that millions of Democratic women believe a certain way. I see this every day in articles. It's dishonest.
4
Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I will not second guess any woman ever. It's about her life, her liberty, and her pursuit of happiness. Personally I was super happy to be pregnant after years of trying.
5
A compelling argument that will fall on deaf ears, I'm sorry to say. From the comments here, it seems that even President Obama's sensible policies are now out of the Democrat mainstream.
Unfortunately, this "new" Democrat party, the one that rejects it's past by calling Pelosi and Biden racists- is too far gone to consider the reasoned approach offered here.
Safe, Legal, and Rare was sensible, easy to communicate, and now, thoroughly old fashioned and out of step.
2
I don't understand what this position really means: Democratic voters was "some" restrictions. Restrictions on whom? I don't know a single Dem friend or family member who would put any restriction on any woman who felt she had to have an abortion. So who are these people really? Anyone who claims to have a right to the bodies or lives of others is not a Democrat. And for those who claim that they don't want tax dollars to fund abortions? They don't, my friend, and beyond that (even that I think is reaching) you don't have an opinion on someone else's abortion. Feel free to never make that choice yourself. That is what the Democratic platform means.
5
The democrats, at worst, have a way of presenting their beliefs/positions as completely without ambiguity and if you don’t adhere you’re made to feel, what?, backwards. Abortion is an incredibly hard and complex decision with lots of ambiguities. “Marriage” has a historical meaning held dear by many decent people. What to do with historical monuments commemorating a horrific civil war is a complex issue. People can struggle with each of these and many other issues and be wonderful, decent people. And, please, don’t in any way think I’m suggesting there were some wonderful people marching with tiki torches. I suppose what I’m saying is democratic candidates need to take the time to “explain” how or why they hold their positions.
2
Abortion is common: 60 million sense 1973 or 120 million men and women were uniquely connected to those abortions. Toss in extremely closely related family members (mothers and fathers of the (two) that got the abortion) and that number jumps to 240 million moms and dads had children that terminated a pregnancy for a grand total of 560 million people (are family-wise directly complicit on abortion). So, the degree of separation of families that get (or condone) Abortion is 100%. Every family in America gets abortions and that includes abortion protesters, ministers, politicians and dog catchers, (Everyone). Abortion is here to stay and almost every anti-abortion loud-mouth might check at-home (Firstly) and ask: "should I lockup mom or sister" or which of you two terminated a pregnancy?
5
When will the U.S. Federal government and Canada's Federal government finally order an urgent study of the long-run effects of massive abortions on demand upon their nations, thus lifting this this so-called "moral" controversy onto the plain of "Realpolitik": "With China's and India's populations of about 1.5 billion each, if there were within the next thirty years a major war against the Unite States, would the by then aborted MISSING 100 million Americans (10 million Canadians) make any difference in our NOT LOSING that war? Just like most wars -fought for moral reasons as well as in defense of sovereignty and involving millions of KIAs most of who are drafted against their will - abortions on demand will cause wars to be lost because of the "artificial removal" of millions who had been "sacrificed" on the dubious moral altar of our women's' constitutional right to full control over their bodies. In this sense, the question of the morality or immorality of abortions on demand must be urgently lifted from its dubious quagmire state of moral philosophy, and lifted onto the highest moral-political stage, that of the survival of nation states sovereignties, by asking whether the recently acquired constitutional right to our women to abortions on demand is superior or inferior to our nations' right to survive in the long run as sovereign nation states? Respectfully submitted, Dr. Adalbert Lallier
“majority of both black and Hispanic Americans believe abortion is “morally wrong.”
Huge problem when Republicans keep passing ‘heart beat’ laws. Banning abortion after a heartbeat is detected Vs Democrat’s legislation allowing abortions up to 24 weeks gestation in the name of ‘choice’.
For those who already think abortion is morally wrong, both, if in the news during an election, will have an impact that would be unfavorable to Democrats with vital constituencies
1
Can we please just extricate religion from politics once and for all?
One person’s faith is another’s fear. Don’t want an abortion? Don’t get one. It’s a heart wrenching decision to make, and it’s not the job of the government to weaponize faith to dictate to a woman what she may or may not do with her own body.
It’s also not up to male opinion writers to mansplain this issue anywhere, especially the Times.
And why does our secular government have any faith-based initiatives? Keep your beliefs and hands to yourselves.
7
@John
Men have just as much right as women to take part in discussions of ethics, which is part of the abortion debate.
It's NOT just about women's health.
3
It's easy to be conflicted on this issue. I think it best to leave it to the states, which was part of the Roe v. Wade decision.
Some people believe human life begins at conception, and purposefully ending a pregnancy at any stage is murder. After all, what is being conceived?...A human being. This is not a silly idea. If a fertilized egg is cared for and nurtured, it will likely grow to become an adult human. The embryo is simply a very early stage in the life of a human.
Get ready for this one...I agree with this view, yet I still support abortion rights. Why bring a child into the world that is unwanted, or won't be properly cared for?
1
During the 2016 campaign, Michael Wear said that Democrats were "too in love" with abortion to appeal to Christian voters. I don't know anyone of any political stripe who is in love with abortion.
Mr. Wear does seem to have an axe to grind with regard to women's reproductive rights. Since he has never been in danger of an unwanted pregnancy, nor a wanted one that has gone horribly wrong, nor being unable to afford an abortion in such situations, I suggest he keep his nose out of women's wombs.
10
I think when discussing abortion, I think it important to figure out where one's borders or reference points lie. An extremist on the right will tell you that as soon as Sammy Sperm and Olivia Ovum do the zygote cha-cha-cha, it's a human deserved of full rights and protections. An extremist on the left will tell you that right up to the moment of labor kicking in, the mother can change her mind and decide upon abortion. Since most folks have a boundary which lies in between, it would seem a good idea to draw it prior to discussing/debating some of the murkier details (as if that particular detail wasn't necessarily murky enough).
It's only a complicated issue because people were convinced by propaganda that abortion was evil. It's not complicated unless you're the woman making the decision. Make no mistake, it is her decision to make. I'm a man, I don't have a uterus but I'm also, potentially, the other half of that pregnancy. But it's still not my uterus. We've managed to demonize, fictionalize and sensationalize what is for most women the single most gut wrenching decision they've ever made. It is not government's place to inject itself here. I'm sorry, but if you consider yourself a Democrat and still believe that government's place is in the womb and that issue alone will decide your vote then you're really not a Democrat. Democrats were not likely to get your vote either, not today, not when people like you see their holy grail of a total ban on abortion and most birth control within their grasp.
There's a reason why most of the current policies in Red states stop the moment a child takes it's first independent breath. It's because this whole controversy isn't about abortion, it's about sin and penance. That pregnancy and child are the woman's punishment for her sin of sex. That fear of sin without consequence was the core of the opposition to birth control and it's the core of the opposition against abortion too. It's because in too much of theology women are still portrayed as the source of original sin and that teaching continues to this day.
8
These categories do not make allowances for the many possibilities that arise during a pregnancy. Save the life of the woman? Does this mean only if she would absolutely die, she would be permitted to have an abortion? What if her health would be compromised seriously or permanently instead? What about mental health issues? Suppose a woman were mentally incapable. Perhaps she is in a coma. Would she be forced to have a child?
There are hundreds of these gray areas, many of them individual to the specific situation. That is why there should not be restrictions. For some time now, what can only be called the "forced birther" crowd has been narrowing the highly complex situations to a few narrow pathways.
This column is well meant, but it also acts like there are only 3 or 4 options.
Dictating to every woman and girl in the country means they are being pigeonholed and worst still: it is assuming that they do not have the intelligence, the capacity, the moral sense, and the responsibility to make the best decisions for themselves in consultation with their doctors, their trusted family members or friends.
Trust women to make their own decisions. They are adults. They have the right of free will.
7
Abortion is about autonomy. What right do you have to tell me what to do with my body, my life? Am I not an adult capable of managing my life without interference? Don’t I, a living person, deserve respect and autonomy?
The abortion “debate” is about privileging a ball of cells over the life of an adult human being. Really, how moral and respectful is that?
4
The Democrats apparently endorse the concept of using abortion as a birth control method, through delivery. Such is murder by another name. Which brings to mind my question, in this day in time what are there so many unwanted pregnancies? Birth control medications are widely available. I don’t get. More personal lack of responsibility, it seems to me.
@Truthbeknown - The abortion rate has fallen by 40% in the last decade, thanks in large part to the ACA. NO ONE uses abortion as birth control. It's expensive, it's very difficult to obtain, and it's painful.
And it's still illegal in every state in the US to have an abortion when the infant is viable, with certain crucial exceptions, such as for the mother's health. Even when the mother's health is involved, every effort is made to deliver the infant alive. If the fetus is discovered to have fatal defects, there are exceptions that allow abortion past the stage of potential viability, because it's known that fetus will die in utero and endanger the mother, or will die at birth or shortly after.
3
It isn't just abortion that most voters have a more nuanced view of. It is also "free college", "reparations", $1000 in everyone's pocket, guns, etc.
2
The current leadership of the Democratic Party has repeatedly said they will not support anyone who is Pro-Life.
While this stance is supported by the abortion lobby, most Americans are turned off by the concept of partial-birth abortion and late-term abortion not for the protection of the life of the mother.
This fanaticism on the part of the elite has cost the Party dearly: at least three elections - Bush-2 twice and Trump.
Wise up and get more in line with the great majority of Americans or lose again. Four more years of Trump and there will be no democracy left to worry about defending!
2
I have tired of centrist Democrats like Michael Wear, who caricature progressives' "tone-deaf, incoherent stridency," and insist that they move to the center. Democrats should defend women's right to obtain an abortion under the Roe and Casey decisions, which actually embody the "in the middle" views that Michael Wear claims to support. Roe and Casey allow abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy, allow states to regulate it in the second, and disallow it in the third except in cases of medical emergency. Mr. Wear's claim that Democratic supporters of abortion rights are utterly uncompromising is dishonest and wrong.
6
Candidates should answer the abortion question with:
Of course pregnant women must decide for themselves whether to carry a pregnancy to term, because otherwise America would permit reproductive slavery of females who are raped; and 2) New life is the hope of the world, so let's work for America to provide excellent healthcare and childcare for mothers and families.
3
As a Democrat who is also a Christian, Mr Wear is perfectly describing the political dilemma that I and many of my Christian friends find ourselves in. On many issues, we align with the left and often vote that way (out of Christian conviction, no less). However, on the abortion issue we generally have taken at least some exceptions to our party's stance. What's changing is that as our party's candidates push ever farther to the left on this issue, our previous exception is being described as kind of an intolerable heresy. I don't know how many of us would jump ship to join Trump for this reason, but it gets harder when the rhetoric of the party increasingly says, "if you don't believe in unrestricted abortion, you are a monster." There are plenty of real monstrosities on the right, so why do they demonize those of us who are 90% with them?
2
Abortion isn't a slam dunk for the Democrats. On a personal level I'm opposed to abortion but at the same time I'd be loathe to prevent anyone who wants to have a legal abortion the right to do so.
I believe this is the conundrum for many Democrats, half of whom don't believe in abortion personally but also don't want to prevent women from having it legally available.
Where does that leave Democrats on the abortion issue? I suspect in the Roe v Wade direction because it's better to err on the side of a woman's rights than against them.
1
The fact that a majority of Democrats might not want women to have control over their own bodies does not make that right. A majority of whites in the South thought that slavery was great, that didn't make it right. The issue is not what people think, it's what's right. Women must have control over their own bodies, end of story. In this case the old saw that says "if men got pregnant abortion would be a sacrament" is exactly correct. If Mr. Wear wants to host a baby he doesn't want for 40 weeks that's his business, it is no ones business to tell him he has no choice.
5
I am certain that doctors or formerly pregnant women should not go to jail and should not be fined or penalized.
5
The problem is that many anti-abortion people are also against contraception and sex education, which makes no sense--- unless abortion isn't the real issue.
It's the use of power, manipulation, and control.
If this suits your temperament, vote GOP.
8
Sadly, the polls you are quoting miss the point (though I guess the candidates do too). We are moving in the wrong direction largely because Americans want to compromise to shut up the strident fringe. They don't understand its never going to stop.
Clinton got it right: "safe, legal and rare." I would add "accessible" to that and say we have a good 2020 slogan.
Also, we should think carefully if we want a leader or a weather vane in the white house. Polls are a terrible way to choose positions.
So according to a man who believes that his religious beliefs trump my religious beliefs and that we should use public opinion polls to decide medical decisions Democrats need to change their position on abortion. It sounds like he is all for waiting periods, invasive vaginal ultrasounds, and hospital admitting privileges. He assumes that women who want abortions haven't thought their decision through and totally neglects the fact that the Roman Catholic church controls a large number of hospitals, which are often the only hospitals in an area and they won't even abort ectopic pregnancies that are not viable and threaten the life of the woman. He also conveniently doesn't know that many of the most psychologically and medically difficult abortions are carried out after the first 3 months (in reality the first 2 1/2 months after conception) when some of the most terrible fetal or maternal conditions become clear.
Religions of many stripes, Christianity very much among them, have a long and ugly history of misogyny and control of women's sexuality and women's bodies. Work on that before you tell me what to do with my body.
6
The Democrats could also gain votes, maybe a lot of votes, by agreeing that slavery was acceptable in certain circumstances.
A woman can't be a litlle bit pregnant, and her right to control her body is not constrained by "certain circumstances."
6
Many excellent points. But if the Democrats REALLY want to oust Trump, there’s positions beyond just abortion that they’ll need to temper:
● Health care: Medicare for all is good as a long-term aspiration. However, building on the ACA with a Medicare or public option is a far more realistic near-term solution.
● Immigration: No, we shouldn’t abolish ICE, which performs legitimate functions like dealing with drugs and human trafficking. Fix it, like stop separating babies from mothers and make detention centers more humane. Plus, restore foreign aid to the northern triangle and talk up comprehensive immigration reform.
● Climate change: It would be wise to drop the phrase “Green New Deal”. However, state that climate change IS real, and stress the need to invest in migrating to renewable energy sources.
● Impeachment: The Trump criminal investigation MUST go on, starting with Mueller’s hearings on July 24. Beyond that, play it by ear and defer to the wisdom of Speaker Pelosi.
● Race: It would behoove to drop talk about reparations – these won’t happen. Instead, focus on civil rights and equal opportunities for all.
● College tuition: Free 4-year tuition is fiscally and politically untenable. What’s more practical is free two-year tuition at public colleges, plus additional financial aid based on individual needs.
● Political reform: Back away from speaking of abolishing the electoral college and packing the Supreme Court. Instead, stress the need to REALLY “drain the swamp”.
1
Sadly the current crop of Democrats chasing the brass ring are all lemmings. They're all oblivious to their impending doom at the polls next year. If they don't answer complex issues with complex solutions they'll be labeled quickly by Trump as Socialists with a radical agenda. Tragically that agenda doesn't comport with the philosophy of the majority of voters. We're doomed unless a candidate arises from the murky swamp with some real thought provoking solutions to very thorny problems. We'll die on the alter of sloganeering.
I think that the sheer and obvious hypocrisy of the evangelical Christian right's embrace of Donald Trump should mean an end to this idea that "faith-based" voters are somehow more moral than the rest of us with their feelings due special treatment.
That these "faith-based" voters don't care about children being separated from their parents and dying at the border, they don't care about the babies of poor women once they're born, and they want to put women who have had miscarriages in prison has shown us what it's really about : control over women and perpetuation of a patriarchy based on the religions of the Fertile Crescent.
There is NO time in a woman's life when she ceases to be human and is nothing but a vessel. NONE. EVER. Period. End of discussion.
5
Here is what I think the Democrat Platform should state on Abortion.
- The life process begins at conception
- The interruption of the life process can happen anytime in an individual life
-The US, as policy, allows for the interruption in the life process of many persons globally, including, but not limited to:
— Premature death of innocent life on the battle field as “collateral” damage
__ Premature death of innocent life due to poor nutrition
__ Premature death of innocent life due to poor health care
__ Premature death of innocent life due to poor environment management
The justification for this is we need to accept “collateral” damage to innocent life on the battle field as a cost to protect what is best for us, or that the cost to eliminate poor nutrition, healthcare and environment are too great a burden for the country to bear.
These are precisely the rationals for abortion, a women as an individual has the right to self protection, just as a state has, and if a state feels threaten with its existence it can and must take steps to protect itself from that threat, so must that be the case for an individual, in this case that of a women to have an abortion.
The burden of cost is also an analog to the reasons that a women may need to exercise her choice. The allocation of scarce resources is at the heart of all policy making, whether at the macro or micro level. If these choices are acceptable for the state, and the impact on innocent life, why not the individual?
1
I supervised a postdoc some years ago, who with his wife was incredibly excited that they were going to start a family. At eight months, they learned that the baby was anencephalic - it had no chance at all of surviving birth for any meaningful time. Since the state in which we worked (not Washington, but a Southern state with typical attitudes and laws for that part of the country) absolutely prohibited late-term abortions, they were facing going through with the birth, despite the attendant danger to the life of the mother, almost always considerably greater than that from abortion. Fortunately, this couple were natives of another country with rational abortion laws, and could return home to end this episode of their lives with the support of family and friends. They now have two wonderful children.
The anti-abortion movement in the US, and its handmaiden the Republican Party, is an expression of vicious patriarchy, nothing more. It has no moral foundation, and deserves no quarter. Its proponents will lie without shame, as Trump does incessantly, and can move polls by lying, as Trump did in the SOTU. Either the only counterweight, the Democratic Party, can cut through the fog of lies sufficiently to win elections, or we will lose what claim we have to democratic governance and sink into a dismal theocracy. Compromising with the forced-birthers will not convince them to vote Democratic, but will lead many Democrats to stay home on election day out of discouragement.
13
I am pro-choice and this article resonated with me. I don't believe the government should fund abortions because there are many, many Americans who are deeply against abortion for some very sound reasons. I would support legal abortions for first trimester, late term in cases where the mother's life is at risk.a government with compromise.
That said, the real issue to me here is treating the problem of unwanted pregnancy, and with male birth control being just a $5 pit stop at a gas station, is much easier for men to prevent. I believe we need to put as much effort into the following as we do the abortion discussion 1) making condom wearing a brainless habit that happens easily and happily any time a man is about to have sex with someone he doesn't wish to have children with 2) making the much more involved, dangerous, and side effect inducing hormonal birth control much more available to women, including teenagers 3) building young girls up (continuing this effort despite our current president whose election has been a spear to the heart)so that when a potential sexual partner begs for sex without a condom she can have the courage to ensure he never wins that discussion. Condoms prevent pregnancy 99% of the time. 99%. Condoms pregnancy 99% of the time.
1
"Mr. Wear."
What business is it of yours? What business is it of "voters"? Or poliitical parties?
Any individual woman has the right to choose how her life will be spent. Full stop.
6
I agree with others that the author is using dubious polling data to show that large numbers of Americans supposedly oppose all forms of abortion. And if there really are focus groups that think Democrats are OK with killing babies moments after they're born -- well, that's just nutty.
We do not want to return to the days of coat hangers and back alleys, but that's exactly what would happen if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned. As for the crazy states trying to outlaw abortion -- they'll change their tune real quick if big companies start pulling out, which I think will be the case.
4
Thank you Mr Wear, for making the argument many of us concerned about Donald Trump's re-election have been waiting for. Unless Democratic candidates recognize the ethical complexity of the abortion issue they play into the hands of an incompetent, vulgar, and dishonest President. I do not know what the "right" answer to the abortion question is - but I am reasonably sure that abortion on demand is not it.
Abortion is far more complicated than anyone left or right even realize.
I recently ran the abortion numbers to find out what is happening under Trump. It was very surprising. After dropping rapidly under Obama over all of his 8 years, in 2017 (first year of Trump), the abortion rate decline almost flat-lined. This year the abortion rate is going up for the first time since Reagan. Why is this? Heck if I know and apparently no one else knows either.
The GOP has been propagating outright lies about what individual lawmakers support, and the Democratic leadership and the purportedly-left-leaning mainstream media rarely effectively challenge those lies. When Trump accused the VA governor of supporting infanticide, the message from all sources was so persistent and the correction so faint that I chose to hunt down the primary source (the law) to verify that it was mischaracterized.
In a debate during a 2018 congressional race, candidate Jay Webber blatantly mischaracterized opponent Mikie Sherill’s position on an issue. Rather than responding by spouting off some rehearsed statement of her position, Sherill responded honestly to Webber saying, to paraphrase, “that’s not what I said and you know it.” I wish more politicians would follow her example. Holding people accountable for lying would be a first step in facilitating our consideration of the issues.
5
I don't think the Democratic candidates should make the election all about abortion. I do think they should call out the misrepresentations of the anti-choice movement. Including but not limited to: "Pregnancy is always the woman's fault because she was lustful." "No woman who gets an abortion was using birth control." "Women abort on a whim, especially in the third trimester (or the day before delivery)." "Women practice a (non-existent) thing called post-birth abortion." "An ectopic pregnancy can be replanted." "There is no existing compromise so we have to hammer out a whole new one." (There is Roe vs. Wade.) Then there are the arguments about how some invisible thing called personhood/the soul is mysteriously inserted into the zygote, embryo, or the fetus at some point, even though there is no evidence of this.
2
So Trump's going to attack the Democrats as extremists and claim they want to kill babies... And why exactly is it that the Democrats can't launch their own offensive and tell people that Trump wants to enslave women and prevent them from controlling their bodies, much like the Taliban?
With that said, abortion is indeed a complicated ethical issue -- muddied by religious zealotry -- which precludes good faith discussion. If, from a philosophical perspective, you can make the case that a newborn has rights, it's not a stretch to make the case that the not-quite-born also have rights, hence the "nuanced views." However, abortion restrictions have historically been used to control women; furthermore, restricting it doesn't prevent it. Rather, it results in botched abortions in which the mother dies in a pool of her own blood. Democrats should show these images and remind Americans of what it's like to live under our version of the Taliban (religious conservatives).
4
Abortion is sadly yet another issue in which the Democrats cater to their radical base to the detriment of their chances to win.
2
Trump will win in 2020 if the Democratic nominee is, or allows themselves to be painted as in favor of 1) “open borders” - no restrictions on immigration, the more the merrier, and 2) unlimited abortion - on demand, any stage of pregnancy, government funding. There are many anti Trumpers who will nonetheless vote for him if the alternative is 1 and 2. Sad but true I fear.
2
When men start birthing children, then men will deserve a seat at the table to discuss reproductive health. Until then, it's none of their business.
As for the author's slam at both Senators Kerry and Clinton, it leads one to question not only his premise, but his beliefs. Quoting a poll from a Catholic college is just one example of a skewed message. But what can one could expect from a person who is affiliated with an organization that politically veers farther to the right than most Democrats?
The Trinity Forum, which Michael Wear is a contributor to and an employee of, is an "evangelical centered" think tank, conservative in its outlook and "Christian" in the context of something that VP Pence would be more comfortable with than Mayor Pete Buttigieg. A more balanced survey, but I'm sure that's not the point, would have been one from the Pew Center for Public Policy.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/06/06/facts-about-abortion-debate-in-america/
Men writing about abortion is one of those topics that should be left undone.
A man who works for an evangelical Christian organization that has a strong anti-Roe v Wade bias, is a bridge too far.
7
Without the author disclosing his particular feelings on abortion, readers are left to simply infer his opinion, and assume that he is concern trolling with cherry-picked polls. Granted, him disclosing his position would presumably lead to the same result. Such disclosure should be an editorial expectation nonetheless.
4
Democrats should learn from Mr. Trump’s style of politics.
For example, when the topic of abortion comes up in a debate, ask Trump how many abortions he paid for over the years while he was serving in his "own personal Viet Nam" (which he once agreed was a fair description of his sexual intemperance). If he says he paid for none, compliment him on his support for birth control--or hit him for skipping out on yet another check.
Give that morally bankrupt sorry excuse for a human being no quarter.
4
Democrats need to realize that the country is more conservative than it looks from New York or California. Their extreme position on abortion will indeed cost them votes.
1
@Long Islander
All the polling, all the public opinions and, most importantly, all the votes cast for Democrats (remember, Trump lost and Democratic Reps and Senators receive far more votes than Republicans) say you are completely wrong. That is not an opinion, it is a fact.
4
@Max Deitenbeck
Hi Max:
did you consider the possibility that Trump lost votes in the mid-term elections because he is such a disaster that it more than compensates for the Democrats' failure to recognize that abortion (and public opinion regarding it) is a more complicated problem than most of them are willing to acknowledge?
1
I am adamant that no government in the US has constitutional authority to manage the internal processes of anyone’s body.
4
This line of rhetoric is troubling. The reality is that no one is sitting on the sidelines hoping for a wave of abortions. No one is pro-abortion. The reality is that some of us are pro-choice. From where I sit, this "nuanced" notion that favoring choice would alienate religious voters who would object to abortion is foolish. Being pro choice has never infringed upon the right of anyone of religious belief to hold their view, or behave in accordance with it. In short, favoring a pro-choice position has never infringed upon the rights of someone who was pro-life, nor has it required anyone to get an abortion against their own personal beleifs. The converse is not true. Pro-life proponents seek to ensconce their religious views in law, and to require others who may not share their beliefs to live in accordance with those beliefs anyway. It is arguably a position of religious persecution.
If one is incapable of understanding that allowing others to act in accordance with their personal beleifs, which arguably is the height of personal freedom, then I don't feel particularly compelled to reward their attempts to inject dogma into law.
If they feel that allowing women the right to choose is a bridge too far, and that they would rather re-elect a serial philandering, xenophobic, hate filled misogynist, then perhaps they were never really all that Christian after all.
4
I believe that women's health care belongs to them individually and no one else can tell them how to manage their issues.
2
I think this is spot on. Because the other side has aligned behind such an appalling, amoral man, many liberals no longer feel the need to try to understand or respect different views at all. I fear that this is a fatal error and worry every day that we will reelect that monster through our callousness.
1
Dems are busy shooting themselves in the foot --abortion is one of the issues they're muddying.
Instead of supporting abortion with no limits, they need to really assess their message and keep the legal right to privacy and hegemony over their bodies as a civil liberty.
Abortion is the one issue which threatens female autonomy and freedom. The GOP's draconian new laws in Alabama and Missouri are less about protecting new life than they are about controlling women.
That's where Dems should focus: on new laws that would punish women even in the case of spontaneous miscarriage, a concept that harkening back to an era when women were chattel and viewed by some as witches.
The essential issue is female autonomy--focus on that rather than the messy details of fetal unviability or a mother's survival in the case of late term abortions, hot-button terms the Dems can't win because of Trump's ugly lies about infanticide.
1
"One reason I care about this issue is that I am a Democrat who very much hopes Mr. Trump will be defeated."
If that's true, then you and every other Democrat who feels similarly about abortion will just have to hold your peace, vote for the Democratic candidate, regardless his or her position on abortion, and defeat Donald Trump. Stop putting your obsession over one issue ahead of the overriding national interest, expecting every other Democrat and the Democratic candidate must first come to you.
5
So what you're saying is Democratic candidates should express support for the system we've had since 1973, which they all do. Perhaps they need to be more specific. After all, all you pundits insist the Democratic party "turned it's back" on the middle class and rural poor in 2016; obviously none of you bothered to read the Party Platform.
As for the "pro-life" side: they base their beliefs on one particular God's desires as they understand them, and this is a gross violation of the Establishment Clause. Justice Stevens said so 30 years ago, and he was correct. Indeed, most of the nonsense we call "the culture war" is actually an attempt to establish the tenants of one specific religion as law.
3
The anti-abortion stance is, in effect, supporting the production of unwanted children. How has a democratic society been conned into tolerating that?
2
Nuanced = a woman only loses her right to make decisions about her body part of the time.
5
I have two thoughts on this:
It speaks volumes to the low state our political discourse has fallen when the notion of accusing opponents of infanticide as a political tool scarcely raises an eyebrow;
and, any politician who takes a page out of Donald Trump's playbook loses my vote.
1
Men shouldn't be so certain about regulating women's bodies. It's not policy, it's personal, and the personal is political.
The United States fails to exist as a free nation if the state has absolute power over the bodies of women. This is the real moral issue.
5
Does the author believe that that abortion is really a nuanced issue or the presentation of one's beliefs should be halting and hedged so as not to possibly offend any who may not agree? Like being gay only on Sundays? I'm sick of belief by polls. To me limiting access to abortion is wrong. Interfering in the health needs of women is wrong. Making life-altering decisions for others without their consent is wrong. The whole late-term when term abortion is a red herring. No one has late late term abortions unless the pregnancy is not viable for mother or fetus. People making political hay out of other people's tragedies are cruel liars. Abortion is a right for women and families that needs to be maintained. And if you don't believe that, the majority of women won't vote for your. Period.
4
The focus should be on the word, “choice.” Women who think abortion is wrong don’t need to have one.
4
"Mr. Trump is going to tell the American people that his opponent supports infanticide, no matter what he or she actually believes."
The Democrats are making it very easy for Donald Trump, who never met a wedge he wan't willing to use, particularly if it's based on a lie.
The irony is, Trump used to be pro choice, and given his history of philandering, I simply have to believe that perhaps on one or more occasions, he likely encouraged a pregnant lover to have an abortion.
In fact the man least qualified to claim the moral high ground on abortion, is claiming just that. If Democrats don't stop being so absolutist, don't explain their positions with depth, not shallow sound bytes, and don't acknowlege the varieties of public opinion on this, they are going to lose, and lose big.
I'm pro choice, but still believe that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. The exceptions to late term abortions---fetal inviability and when the mother will die in childbirh--must be explained, ideally by a medical spokesperson who can help all Democratic candates negotiate this thorny issue.
3
You have it wrong. Trump can go out there and say things like women are "ripping babies out of the womb" because the Democrats (and others who are also not forced-birth extremists) have gradually ceded ground that rightfully belongs to individual women. We have let the forced-birthers define the limits of the debate. As soon as they appropriated the term "pro-life" and gave it its Orwellian twist, we should have fought back hard. We thought Roe v Wade was settled, and these extremists were irrelevant. Then they started harassing women, killing doctors, bombing clinics. Who are the hardliners in this issue? Not the people who believe that women should decide how to manage their own reproductive health. The suggestion that Democrats should back off even more is ridiculous. How about we call the rhetoric of the forced birth movement - "ripping babies out of the womb!" for what it is? Extremist, demonizing, and dangerous.
6
Here we go again, calling for "nuance" and saying we have to appeal to Trump supporters when the fact is that the Trump side lie their heads off. How are we supposed to win with nuance when the other side says we're executing babies? It's a nonsense.
Still, I think we could do better at promoting the fact that abortion was at an all-time low when Obama left office, and being clear that policies like affordable health care and paid family leave are better at preventing abortion than a ban.
The fact is that very few people who favor freedom of choice are strongly pro-abortion. I think the vast majority agree that it's better to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
4
Support for abortion is at a 20 year high today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/10/public-opinion-abortion-is-turning-away-republicans/?utm_term=.387c101aaa5d
The Hyde Amendment is not about abortion; it is about poverty. And that is how Democrats need to frame it.
I think if people actually read the original Roe decision they would be amazed at how liberal it is on abortion. In fact, I wish some journalist (or late night comedian; it's getting tough sometimes to tell the difference), would take sections of the 1973 Roe decision and read them out of context to people and ask if they agree with the statement.
When this was done with other landmark documents like the Constitution or the Bill of Rights or the Communist Manifesto the results were incredible.
2
Don't like it? Don't have one. Seems pretty simple.
5
So many polls yet not once have I ever been polled for anything.
2
Democrats must be very clear about what they mean and what they support. They have allowed Republican right wingers to equate serious medical decisions, such as the need to induce labor for a mother with a deceased fetus with infanticide. No one supports infanticide, it is illegal. There is nothing conservative about hoping that all pregnancies are planned and wanted, and that any termination would be rare. Can that please be the Democratic message? There are circumstances where a pregnancy should not be terminated as well, but leave that decision to the physician, not the legislature. It would be better for Democrats to support this message: to be in favor of health care that insures that all babies are wanted, planned for and then cared for, and say this over and over again. Family planning prevents abortions, family life prevents abortions. Tell that to Mr. Acosta. Flush the "pro-choice" label down the toilet, remarket, regroup, and become "pro-family".
1
God, I am so bored of hearing about abortion. Honestly, it is totally irrelevant to me. I am sure that it is irrelevant to most other people too. Only a small minority of women have an abortion and I don't have any problem with that. I cannot name one reason for why the government should be in any way involved in decisions related to abortion. The whole issue is just a vehicle for conservative millionaires to maintain their power base. It's really boring. Nobody in any other advanced nation talks about it. In other countries, people talk about the economy and jobs. In America, politicians just talk about sex. Something is really deeply wrong about that. Come on. It is time to stop this nonsense.
3
Agreed. Every national party has to be a big tent. The Democrats' 2004 and 2016 losses were razor-thin. A slightly more accommodating tone on abortion rights would have averted the appointments of four (count 'em: four) anti-Roe justices to the Supreme Court: Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch and Kavanagh. Roe is on life support, and at the first opportunity those four (plus Thomas) will pull the plug. Pro-choice absolutists did this to us.
Bill Clinton's (successful) line was, "Abortion should be safe, legal and rare." If Hillary had said the same thing she'd have won. Instead, when she tried to say something like, "Every abortion has a sad story behind it," the pro-choicers screamed bloody murder so she clammed up. And lost.
1
The author is selectively choosing the polls to support his position. The most recent polling by WAPost/ABC News dated June 28th-July 1st. 2019 shows: Legal in all cases 27%, Legal in most cases 33%, Total pro abortion 60%, Illegal in most cases 22%, Illegal in all cases 14%, Total anti abortion 36%,
Unsure 4%. This is a very different climate from what Mr. Wear suggests.
5
As a pro-life Democrat I say thanks, Mike.
1
Just to contextualize this to a world level: outside the US and some of the more extreme Catholic theocracies abortion isn't even an "issue" in the rest of the planet - our berserk magical thinking based delusion is pretty much ours alone. I'm pro-choice in the same way I'm pro appendectomy or pro-wisdom tooth removal, esp up to 28 wks. D.A., NYC
6
I was a third year medical student on an out of state elective in No Carolina, 1977. I will never forget that 15 year old girl in the ER with fever to 105 and shaking chills. Sepsis due to a coat hangar abortion. hysterectomy done that night. Knowing what I know now, given that she was 14 when impregnated, she was likely a rape victim. No one in the ER that night seemed to think this was a very unusual occurence. Nuance? No: Roe v. Wade must stand.
672
@Honeybluestar
I believe that Roe v Wade was settled law in 1973. Why someone would need a backyard abortion is a bit confusing. Makes me think that either I am missing something, or the story doesn't hold water.
20
@Honeybluestar - No doubt this was a heinous case and even this conservative can support the right to a legal & safe abortion in a matter like this. The reality though is that a prohibition against elective abortions of convenience would not have mattered for her, provided, she had the option for abortion due to being raped.
9
@Honeybluestar That's quite a bit of nuance right there. A coat-hangar abortion four years after Roe vs. Wade. A pregnancy forced on her by rape or incest - circumstances that even most abortion opponents would allow for. You need a much better case to argue for unrestricted abortion to the point of viability.
15
As a female Democrat, I won't vote for any candidate who does not support my civil rights--my right to control my own body and my own life. I won't vote for any candidate willing to throw women's rights under the bus just to get elected. Women are 50% of voters. Democrats need to consider what their base really is, rather than alienating it by courting Republicans, even "lite" Republicans, in the hope they will switch sides.
392
@Frances Grimble No one is interested in trampling on your rights. But I am worried about the rights of the unborn human that is being terminated. An abortion does not control the pregnant woman's body and life - it controls the life of the life inside her. These are very different things.
18
@Once From Rome You feel the "unborn" has rights that supercede those of the woman who is alive and breathing. The "unborn" has the potential to become a living, breathing person, but while in the womb, is a zygote or fetus that cannot survive outside the womb. Misstated in the poll quoted in this op ed is "abortion should be “available to a woman any time she wants one during her entire pregnancy." There are already strict requirements for a late term abortion and less than 2% of all abortions. They are always for fetal abnormalities or to save the health of the mother.
And really, what a woman chooses to do with her body is her business and not yours. What harm is she causing you if she decides to get an abortion? If you don't like abortion, don't get one but don't try to stop other women from having one if they so choose.
67
@Frances Grimble
Concerning support for civil rights to control a person's own body, would this include support for legalized prostitution?
It should, otherwise all pro-choice folks are text book examples of hypocrisy.
8
Over 30 sexually active reproductive years, I spent about $13,000 on birth control pills. I also needed them because I have a not rare medical condition called Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).
I had excellent insurance that didn't cover any of the cost nor make any attempt to help reduce that cost. Birth control is a major world issue affecting resources and climate change. It's really stupid to not address it. BC pills can be problematic because through urination hormones are getting into our water supply so we need to include all options.
My Catholic parents had 8 children. We were not poor. My dad was a naval submarine commander in WWII and an electrical engineer. He was an early radio and satellite pioneer of note, invented the first modem and other influential things. Still, it was extremely hard on their marriage, especially on my mom. The four of us younger kids suffered as a result.
It cannot be addressed sentimentally. I would never have been born but I would have wished for better, easier lives for my parents.
It surprises me that 18% think abortion should be available anytime through a pregnancy. Late-term abortion is extremely rare and pretty much only for health reasons when the baby will likely not survive or be extremely disabled. Few women do not realize they are pregnant within the first 3 months. I can see allowing it to go another month or so. I think that the seemingly high 18% any time she wants number includes the dire health reasons for it.
145
@Anne
Here we go again - polls, which do not allow for nuanced responses -- after 20 weeks (about 5 months) at which time it would seem probably that testing for various awful conditions would be complete, or after the point where a prematurely delivered baby is viable, it would seem that termination of a pregnancy should occur under only the most extreme and rare circumstances -- some fetuses do die in the womb and perhaps something awful happens to either fetus or carrier - that requires "Sophie's choice."
But this question was supposedly settled close to 50 years-- a half century ago. (and more or less along these lines.)
The larger issue, rarely discussed, is what kind of life that society propose to inflect on the new human being in its midst? (Continue dog-eat-dog?) And what kind of damage does the cumulative rising number of similar creatures inflict on the planet. It's not the 19th century: large tracts of arable land that can support farmers no longer exist, nor is society structured this way anymore. And so many see red at the notion of medical care more or less free for all -- and let those with more pay more via a progressive tax system.
17
Democrats should show up Republicans' faux concerns for women for the sham they are. Republicans have succeeded in making it seem necessary for a doctor performing abortions to have admitting privileges.If they were truly concerned about a woman's safety and not just trying to throw up another obstacle, they would require this for doctors performing many other outpatient procedures which are equally potentially risky. Making women go through mandatory wait periods is patronizing, as if women dash off to have abortions on a whim. It's also a serious logistical hurdle of time and money especially for lower income women in places where abortion clinics may be few and far between and hours away from their homes. Lastly, Democrats should make it clear that being pro-choice is not the same as being pro-abortion. Advocating for parental leave, quality childcare at a reasonable cost and access to healthcare insurance for all might make abortion a less appealing option in some cases.
268
@Mary K - Medical & suction abortions are actually among the very safest procedures practiced in medicine. They both can be done as an outpatient in a doctor's office & medication abortions can be performed at home. When a state requires hospital admitting privileges for doctors performing safe & easy abortions, but not more dangerous outpatient procedures, it is clear that the only reason behind the rule is to do an end-run around the Supreme Court's decision in Roe & deny women a Constitutionally protected right. I have been active in pro-choice politics since the 1960s & I've maybe met 3 or 4 people who approve of late-term abortion for anything but the protection of the pregnant woman or because the fetus is not viable (has no brain, for example) & women in America face far more dangers delivering even a healthy baby than they would if they aborted. I know a woman who was diagnosed with both diabetes & MS in her third trimester that would have put her life in danger, but she opted for an abortion so she could live to take care of her 3 existing children & remain with her beloved husband. She had wanted the fourth child & it was a heart-rending decision to make, but she never doubted that she made the correct choice.
20
Nobody wants an abortion but it's necessary. If the Dems want to win, they need to state facts: women and girls will die without safe and legal abortion services. Women will fall further behind economically if they are forced to carry fetuses to birth. Women should not be questioned regarding their autonomy in regard to reproductive decisions. After all, no man is questioned regarding his decisions. Will the state provide guarantees to women in job security, child care, and maternal/fetal healthcare? Will women be able to claim a fetus or embryo on their tax returns?
It's easy to see how data can be manipulated depending on how the questions are posed, therefore, Dems need to be out front in defining the debate.
244
@Sue Salvesen
The economic argument really annoys me.. and frankly, shows that we really disrespect human life. In a caring society … mothers and children should have services and rights -- otherwise it's all 0g-eat-d0g, man-beat/kill-man.
There seems to be concern that there will soon be too many old people and not enough young people to take care of them!!! -- such hooie!
BTW we'd better start worrying about the vulnerability/ precariousness of the electrical grid!
1
@Auntie Mame The "economic argument" disturbs you? Have you ever even raised a child? Paid for the child's schooling, food, clothes, college? Paid to live in a "good" school district? A woman cannot be an independent autonomous person if she cannot control her reproductive life. Period.
45
@Sue Salvesen
My views on abortion are similar to my views on divorce. If it's necessary, it should be possible, though it's hardly an "absolute good".
Does that translate into "divorce on demand" or some such? No; a crude paraphrase is not an argument.
14
I am not at all certain about abortion.
I am, however, very very certain that I should have the right to make decisions about my body, my future and my mental and physical well-being, and, really, all of the things that having a child at the wrong time can affect.
I thought all Americans had an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness. Who but the individual can determine what that means for him or her?
It seems to me the legislators in Alabama are threatening / affecting that right for half the state’s population.
And, you know what? Some women will abuse that right. That’s sad, very sad. But it should not be criminal.
348
Abortion is legal and readily available in every other advanced country. What nuance should there be? Are we a backwards country in which women's bodies are property of a theocratic State?
That said, it's not a good campaigning issue. Rally instead around healthcare for all, fair taxation of capital income, minimum wages etc. When in power, push through abortion rights.
485
@Liz
No, in fact abortion is MORE restricted in European than in American law. After three months, it's hard to get an abortion. And late-term abortion when the mother's life and health are not in serious danger, or the child unlikely to be born healthy, is nearly impossible. Only in the U.S. does the left party argue for unlimited abortion rights.
35
@Liz
Abortion is available in many countries, but is generally allowed only under a limited set of conditions after the first trimester or some other time period. Laws vary greatly from country to country.
18
@Martha, you misrepresent the availability of late-term abortions in the U.S. You also misrepresent the position of those who support Roe, which does not argue for unlimited abortion at every stage of pregnancy. Roe's treatment of late-term abortions is identical to how European countries approach them.
78
"I have heard reports from private Democratic focus groups in a Rust Belt swing state in which Democratic voters raised, unprompted, concerns that Democrats support killing babies after they are born." Really? Where did Mr. Wear here these reports? Sorry, sounds made up, kind of trumpish as a matter of fact. Also, stop using the phrase "pro-life." Nothing could be further from the truth for those on the right who claim this moniker. Finally, we don't seem to afford the same "sanctity of life" to the approximately 1.5 million dogs and cats (and who knows how many other specie's members) we euthanize each year.
2
@K. Norris Exactly. Why isn't he concderned that they are being lied to rather than pretending that the erroneous things they are hearing are "the truth" for which we should be concerned and address.
How about instead demanding to hear what the pro-criminalizers plans are for all of these children and their mothers. Are they raising taxes to support them?
The fact so many here don't recognize that the right will NEVER compromise and will ALWAYS misrepresent what their intent is which is to destroy medical privacy and to put the criminal justice system in between every woman and her doctor.
4
There are women who are pro-life who get abortions ~ “I am against abortion, but I can’t have this baby now.” (Similar denial is described in today’s article “How White Nationalists Sew What They Want to See in DNA Tests.”)
So people’s views in polls do not always jibe with what they would like their reality to be.
Other social public health movements only succeeded when people saw the behavior of others as a threat to themselves. Restricting smoking worked when the issue became the harm to you from someone else’s second hand smoke. Restricted drinking and driving became about a drunk driver hurting you.
In the same way, I believe that Democrats need to show that illegal abortion will hurt you.
2
Come on. The Democratic candidates would all sell the mother if it got them a few extra votes.
2
Excellent Column. When will they ever learn?
1
No adjustment in Democratic positions can cope with the right-wing lie machine. They are trying to simplify their positions because people have shown that they are unwilling to listen to four sentences together to get a point.
At the time the Hyde Amendment was adopted, most Protestant groups felt that abortion was all right if the woman had not consented to sex, such as in the cases of rape and incest. That is no longer the case. They merely consider it a step to an outright ban in all cases.
The woman is now merely a 'host.' Right-to-forcers hold that the zygote has a right to nine months in the host's body. The zygote's right to go to full term exceed her rights to control her body, zero consent needed. Right-to-forcers think taxpayer funding for an abortion for a 12-year-old who is pregnant because she was raped by her step-father forces them, as taxpayers, to participate in murder. (They are not concerned when those dollars are used to bomb and kill children that were already born in war zones.)
The Hyde Amendment was adopted to make peace with what was then the view of most Protestants. Today, right-to-forcers have a more extreme position and see the Hyde amendment as a step to a total ban, not a concession. You blame the change in view of right-to-forcers on right-to-chosers.
2
The Supreme Court had no Constitutional
right to take the question of Abortion away from the States.
In their naiveness they made a moral/political situation
into a legal one which the Courts cannot resolve.
Meanwhile, those who absolutely oppose any restriction
on "Abortion on Demand" often label the
Embryo,
Fetus,
35th week Babe:
Non-Human,
Parasite,
Enslaver,
Mass of Cells...
What Slavery was to the America until 1865,
Abortion is to present day America.
Some used any terms but "fellow human" to speak of those
enslaved, and used economic, sociological, psychological and
political terms to demand that "Slavery should never be ended".
Now some say the same about why
"Abortion should never be restricted."
The Times should do a story on Abortions where they examine:
What percentage of abortions occur because of:
Medical complications,
The age of the mother,
The circumstances leading to the pregnancy,
The socio-economic situations of the mother,
The failure of the mother/father to properly use contraceptives,
The failure of the contraceptives.
We, as a Nation should move toward:
Free Contraceptives
Free Pre/Post Natal Care
Maternity/Paternity Leave
Free Child Care
Free Pre-School
All of us should admit that we were once
an Embryo
a Fetus
a Babe in the Womb
and that at all stages of Life
the growing Child in the
womb has only Human DNA
and, thus, is as Human as any of us -
save she is younger than all of us.
2
Does it always need to be political?
What's right is right.
A woman should be able to control her body. That's it.
If you need justification (and you shouldn't from here): It's without question that childbirth can be dangerous for the mother.
That's all you need at least for a nuanced view of the position. (You can talk about late abortions and such later -- but as the candidates say -- it's a lot of a conversation for a problem that is statistically non-existent -- the mother who in the 30th week decides to abort her fetus -- show this mother and the doctor who does it because it's requested?!
I think the it's a woman's body and the law needs to stop telling woman what to do when it comes to their body is a more nuanced position that concentrating on the fetus. Many of the candidates echo that position.
Listen, if a baby was born in a cocoon -- then Dems like me would call terminating such a life illegal. But, that's not the way the physiology of human creations works though.
4
good recap and valid recommendations for the Dems...
and say what you will, there are Human Rights to be considered here. They do apply to the question, and should work to minimize it, and to at least untrivialize it.
1
Democrats just need to stop allowing Republicans mischaracterize abortion. Kamala Harris has started the fight by calling Republicans blatant hypocrites for touting "Pro-Life" virtues but once the baby is born, Republicans collectively thumb there nose at the baby and the mother by their many attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. Being Pro Choice is not being Pro Abortion, despite tired Republican rhetoric. Being Pro Choice is just that, fighting to keep that decision wholly in the hands of the most relevant person to make it - the woman. As with most things political, all the Democrats have to do is effectively show how hopelessly hypocritical and anti-middle class America the Republican Party is.
4
I will never understand why people think religion has a place in forming public policy. The sooner people evolve enough to not need religion as a crutch for their fear of death the sooner the world will progress.
9
If people re-elect Trump due to the abortion question, then this nation deserves all the chaos and dysfunction he will deliver.
7
Think there needs to be equal dialogue when discussing abortion issues about “birth control” and easy accessibility today. The world is no longer living in 1920. Arguments get “stuck” in repetitive muck.
3
STOP calling the anti-choice crowd pro-life. they are not pro-life they are anti-abortion, anti-choice.
10
Abortion will be legal and safe in blue states. Abortion will be illegal and unsafe in red states until their voters wise up and go blue. It will take another 20 or 30 years to finally settle the matter. In the meantime, do we want to elect a Democrat President, or not?
2
What does “nuance” mean? Legal or illegal?
If what you are saying when Trump pulls the infintacide card, at a debate the Democrat should repeat "lie" at the top of their lungs four times, quoote a couple of Docs verifying its a lie and then use Trump's favorite word of approbation 'DISGRACE" five times, followed by the Joseph Welch line he used on Trump's closest historical predecessor Joe McCarthy, I'm all for that. You can't be too rude to Trump.
6
Mr. Obama is the only successful Democrat this century.
1
@Rich Murphy
Trump has erased most of Obama's legacy, the only remaining one is the disaster of Obamacare.
Ask Obama why these promises were not kept.
1.Raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation.
2.Close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
3.Create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
4.Restrict people moving between lobbying and working in the administration.
5.Close special-interest corporate loopholes.
6.End the practice of writing legislation behind closed doors.
7.Enact a windfall profits tax on excessive oil company profits to provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to U.S. families.
8.Convene a bipartisan group of key lawmakers to foster better executive-legislative relations on foreign policy.
9.Double federal funding for basic research over 10 years (2009-2018).
10.Ensure freedom to unionize and fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.
11.Make a sustained push to support Israel and achieve the goal of two states — a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state.
12.Establish a low national carbon-fuel standard.
13.Lead the world in college graduates by 2020.
14.Double U.S. exports over the next five years (2013-2017).
15.End the war in Afghanistan in 2014.
16.Create 1 million new manufacturing jobs between 2012 and 2016.
17.Train 2 million Americans in a community college-business partnership.
@Rich Murphy FDR?
@George Orwell
The answer is simple - Mitch McConnell.
3
If the conservatives wanted to get rid of abortion they would have done so by now. They have the votes on the court but want to keep the anti-abortionist vote in their Republican pocket.
5
I am so sick of men thinking they have the right to control our bodies. If you don't want abortions, you take the birth control pills, you find a way to make sure men are the ones held responsible for making sure they don't get women pregnant. I watched my mother almost die from an illegal abortion after my father abandoned us. This country failed her making her suffer like that. No one has the right to tell a woman or a man what to do with their body. I am sick to death of men thinking they have a say on this. You have no idea what we go through as women!
380
No wonder we are in this mess if someone described as a member of Obama’s inner circle is willing to give credence to Trump’s claim that babies are ripped from their mothers wombs or arms to be executed! Republicans accept no compromise but Democrats who are “supposed to draw hard lines” are supposed to agree to put women’s physical autonomy at risk.
One can not negotiate with a tiger when your head is it it’s mouth. This entire piece seems to say women should just shut up about bans on abortion and soon to be bans on birth control and criminal prosecutions for miscarriages and one fora woman when another person shot her and killed her fetus. This is the atmosphere in which women are supposed to find a middle ground. Just curious is that one men only put one but on our necks?
9
Embryos and fetuses aren't babies, any more than religion is a science. If most Muslims believe a fetus doesn’t become a person for four months, and if most Jews believe a fetus doesn’t become a person until it breathes on its own, don’t universal abortion restrictions conflict with their “religious freedom”, supposedly a grave concern of the Republican party?
14
@P Maris; embryos, fetuses and babies are all individual humans. 'baby' is a lay term, but is commonly used with intrauterine inhabitants. religion isn't early science, the fundamental difference is revealed wisdom vs logic; but a zygote is an early human individual.
but i agree that elective abortion, like slavery and genocide, seems to be permitted by the bible.
it's mostly science that says we're human individuals from conception, that we develop in incremental overlapping stages from then on.
@bill zorn
Science says embryos and fetuses are only "human individuals" in potentia. Just because something MAY become something else doesn't necessarily mean it WILL.
6
We get it: be centrist a la Biden. Not sure that’s a winning approach, still......Democrats shouldn’t get caught in the abortion imbroglio as a stand-alone issue. Rather, it should be addressed from the perspective of women’s rights: from reproductive rights to wage inequality to predatory crimes with Trump, Epstein and Weinstein as the poster boys.
4
Isn't it wonderful to have yet another sanctimonious man who wants to interfere in women's health care and reproductive choices because he believes that his religion entitles him to do so?
Quoting endless polls as a rationale to practice medicine without a license, Ware urges that women's autonomy be modified to accommodate his religion and the endless religions that thrive on patriarchal misogyny as an permanent agenda.
Can't we make a deal with the self-righteous, self-entitled men that if they are allowed to interfere with women's health care decisions that they consent to letting women interfere with their medical and reproduction decisions - viagra for example should be controlled by women. Dead-beat daddies would could have their health care curtailed in order to feed their children.
If you don't believe in abortion then do not have one, otherwise mind your own business.
19
@Ed Athay, how do you answer the liberal, secular humanist agnostic scientist who recognizes a unique individual is formed at conception?
if you don't believe in slavery, don't own one-perhaps logic which has as its premise denial of human rights is shaky.
fathers should be responsible. since some aren't the human rights of their offspring can be limited. this is difficult to support.
1
Gosh, I just love reading articles written by men telling Democrats how they should approach the issue of abortion; oh yeah, a white, religious man.
The real problem Mr. Wear, which you point out but never address is messaging. And President Obama was actually terrible at messaging and so are the old white people at the head of the Democratic Party (Schumer, Pelosi, Hoyer, to name an easy few).
When Democrats tell the truth about abortion in the same way the right wing tells lies about abortion we would win that debate hands down.
8
I truly believe that no men should have a say in the abortion debate.
17
Mr. Ware is part of the leadership for an organization that opposes abortion. Click the link in his bio at the bottom.
Is this like the bait and switch tactics of the fake abortion clinics?
5
I'm not certain about abortion. But I am certain of one thing: I'm opposed to government takeover of women's private parts.
15
Keep abortion legal, safe, and rare.
7
The Democratic candidates will never learn to lie as well as President Trump and will not be able to take refuge in the low I.Q.'s and moral lowness displayed by many Republican voters. The best thing for them to do is say the truth about their personal and political beliefs and tough it out.
5
My view, as an old white southerner, was shaped by finally learning that my grandmother's mysterious young death was from an illegal abortion. It's been shaped as well by learning of at least 3 "pro life, pro family values " legislators telling their mistress to have an abortion. (and another, a married man, being caught nude in a motel room with an underage boy)
17
Democrats, including Obama, seem to suffer from the idea that Americans would never believe in ridiculous lies, and therefor tend to ignore them. I think that Obama's failure to counter claims made by the Tea Party and even by McConnell that Obamacare "will kill your grandmother," resulted in 2010 loses. As to abortion, I believe the candidate should give a complete press conference on the subject and begin by debunking infanticide libels , as ridiculous as the need to do so may seem.
6
Proponents of choice are, in a way, in a position similar to the NRA. For the NRA, allow background checks or limits on high-capacity magazines, and the next thing you know, the black helicopters will be coming to confiscate your AR-15s. For many pro-choice advocates, concede on late-term abortions, and that's just a way station to Christian-right backed prohibitions on all abortions.
Most Americans, including many gun owners, are willing to accept limitations on weapons, just as Wear argues that most Americans, including some women, are willing to accept limitations on abortion. That hasn't done much to change either debate, and it's naive to expect that it will.
With respect to abortion, what matters is less one's moral view of the procedure than one's view of the appropriate powers of the state. Do you believe that it is appropriate to invoke the power of the state to enforce your moral views, or do you believe that the state should butt out of what is almost always a complex and fraught issue for individual women involved?
4
Get back to me when you can show how nuanced appeals motivated the base of the GOP to vote for Trump.
Get back to me when President Obama finds an 8 dimensional chess way to address the crimes and misdemeanors and outright treason of the current administration.
Get back to me when you can show how reasoned arguments overcame the calculated hate and disinformation spewing from FOX.
Get back to me when you can explain how people of faith are so enthusiastic about a serial adulterer, pathological liar, and sexual predator - and why we should allow their wishes to shape the debate.
12
Nice job trying to equate support for freedom of choice to the Republicans obsession with absolute control. The difference is, Democrats won’t force anyone to have an abortion. Ever. Meanwhile the republicans are more than happy to force you to have a baby.
10
Now write an essay headed “Republicans shouldn’t be so certain about god’s will”.
10
If as many people as you state are this invested in a moral question such as abortion, I'm sure their morality will keep them from voting for the most immoral man to hold any position in our government, starting with George Washington. That is unless they are Evangelicals in which case their morals seem transactional, hypocritical and irrelevant.
9
I fully understand and appreciate that abortion involves choice.
I hope all readers and commenters have thanked their mothers for choosing not to abort them.
This is about reproductive justice. Liberals have a tendency to not go far enough on this issue. Women of means have always had safe access to abortion, while the most marginalized haven't. We have gone insane by not being hyper aggressive towards those that seek to limit these women's rights.
Isn't it odd that the states screaming the loudest spend the least on their children in education and other assistance. How nuts are these clowns that their ideas towards abortion only create more citizens that they can continue to berate for the economic drag on their states. Seriously on a state by state basis let's take a look on where their priorities stand as they relate to those precious babies once they're birthed. Life is hard enough without being blinded to ourselves and our motives, then made harder when we attempt to impose our morality on others. When it comes to polling an opinion I have always found a difference between the person who bears the consequences and everyone else. Oftentimes.... as Gomer would say.... Surprise. .... Surprise .... Oh how it changes.
2
Marist poll cited more than once. I know it is respected...but is it mot emanating from a very Catholic college...maybe a little bias...
3
I know this simplistic has been made before. But looking at the forest instead of the trees can be enlightening.
The Democrats condemn the death penalty, government sanctioned murder of an adult but support abortion, in essence government sanctioned murder of a unborn child. In fact there are states with laws where if someone stabbed a pregnant women in the belly, killing the unborn baby, they would be prosecuted for a felony crime.
This is the hypocrisy I see.
Notwithstanding Democrats are entirely divided on capital punishment, thats a common but false equivalency, abortion and the death penalty. The first is about the choice an individual makes concerning her own body, the second a choice society makes (after considering the evidence of guilt or innocence) about one of its member who has committed murder. I really don’t see any similarity at all. If you want to be consistent then you’d want people be for attempting suicide. That would be a better but equally absurd, comparison.
2
@Mark
Absolutely correct - this argument IS simplistic. The question of abortion is NOT.
But this is what the Democrats are up against - the total inability to distinguish between a fetus and a baby. Even 5000 years ago our forebears knew the difference.
1
@Brian Cornelius
You do realize that committing suicide is illegal as well.
If you want to outlaw abortion then you need to get out, because you certainly can't say you support women and their choices. Maybe form your own third party? Good luck with that.
7
Let’s let doctors make medical decisions. The Time’s own editorial page just published an account by an OB/GYN explaining why legal intervention into medical decisions is a bad idea. Do you not read your own editorial page? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/20/opinion/abortion-laws.html
6
Everyone knows that abortion is creepy and wrong. Lots of folks fool themselves but deep down they know it’s wrong.
@Thomas Aquinas No, they don't. I would never presume to know what's in the hearts of those I disagree with. You shouldn't either. That's arrogance on steroids.
4
Many people are like me, against abortion personally, but recognizing that personal morals differ, giving us no central moral position to base law upon; and people's different situations in life make legal abortion necessary.
We were fine with abortion broadly available medically (pills) and early; and less available later in pregnancy, approaching and surpassing viability. We were fine with medical people making medical decisions about pregnancies later in the term of the pregnancy, and fine with mothers protecting their health. We were fine with abortions in the case of rape and incest.
We were fine with standard medical regulation - the provider must be licensed and competent, and have emergency back up through a local hospital or ER. We were fine with regulation being about safety not restriction.
And ***most all of us*** hanging out in the center support birth control and pregnancy prevention efforts.
Most of us are outraged by the maneuvering which traps women in a lot of places, even as we wish that we could focus on being more effective in preventing rather than aborting pregnancies.
But nuance, all nuance, is lost in our political discourse, as candidates for both lose primaries talking about reasonable compromises.
8
“Please don’t dominate the rap, Jack,
If you’ve got nothing new to say,
If you please don’t back up the track,
This train’s got to run today.”
New Speedway Boogie
Grateful Dead
1969
The U S has a high moral standard for women and childbirth.
If only it revered living life. Oh but that would hurt the economy that serves those people with the high standards. Rather kill the environment that nurtures my life for a specious morality in service to settler imperialism around the planet.
How do you live or grow in a place with such human stains and existential threats. You won’t dealt with your legacy, slavery, ethnic cleansing, nuclear bombs, financial manipulation, to name a few!
One of the most professed religious countries, the US, with a terrible record of abuse of life. Anti Abortion or pro life, oxymoronic, is a woman’s choice. Period.
2
If dudes would just use condoms, we could get the abortion rate in about 40 weeks. What's the hold-up.
6
It isn't the abortion stupid! It's a woman having autonomy over her body. It is a civil rights issue. Should a woman be a "vessel of fertility" managed by the State or is she entitled to the liberty and freedom America purports for all within its boundaries?
14
Abortion is the stupidest issue to take up so much political thought promoted by the Republicans to pander to the votes of the religious right. We do have a Constitutional provision for separation of church and state, and our politics should be beyond those who would have us return to a theocratic government with "Scarlet Letter" type laws.
8
Torture the data long enough, and it'll tell you anything you want to know!
Most Americans are staunchly behind Roe Vs. Wade.
Furthermore, they're tired of having the anti-abortion nuts shove their beliefs down our collective throats.
10
Making abortion an issue in the election will be a killer for Democrats.Tax hikes on the rich on the other hand...
4
Does this dude actually believe "moderation" is the key to defeating Trump?
We are SO SICK of white men in suits telling us what to do.
Hey Michael, you can chime in after you get your first period.
14
Is there any limit whatsoever to busybodies dictating to others how to live their private lives in this fatuous nation “under God”.
6
The fanatics who want to take away the right of a woman to choose to have or not to have an abortion should let a sleeping dog lie. If you wake her up, she will be in a very rotten mood and will not take kindly to some stupid ideology when it has been a woman’s choice for over 46 years.
6
This headline is something is sickening Period. End Of Sentence
1
Abortion support should be paired with rights to free birth control products.
6
Let's suppose a country in which 50% of the people believe that abortion is an evil, the equivalent of the Holocaust. The rest of the country holds a variety of views.
Guess what? 95% of the first group is going to show up at every election, no matter what, and will support their candidate, no matter how awful.
Democrats can plan on losing every election until they stand for something other than "unrestricted choice." Want Trump to be president for life? Keep it up.
4
A question for the Dem candidates: Let's say that a friend or colleague tells you that she is 2 months pregnant and you can see that she's very excited. Do you tell her "well you know that's not a human being yet". Of course you don't. So is it only recognized as a human being if the mother wants it? We women need to acknowledge our role in reproduction and that it's not the fault of men. It just is. I support access to abortion in the first trimester but limitations after that, which is the Roe vs Wade ruling. We need talk more about access to birth control. Why aren't there more charities to help poor and rural women get access? We don't need govt to provide that.
20
@Rabid Moderate: except that we clearly do need government to help poor and rural women access birth control ... as you point out: charities aren't helping.
1
The problem is (and I am not getting in to the rights or wrongs of abortion.) that this issue wasn't decided politically read consensus agreement and change through legislatures and the political process were in people can at least delude themselves their opinions were considered (Even if they aren't). It was rammed down peoples throats as a judicial decision legislated from the bench. And people were and are choking on it. It was a political decision and should have been legislated that way. Instead it was settled in 7-2 decision by 9 old men in a court no one believes puts law over politics. legislating from the bench never works very well. And in the case of Roe v Wade the decision was made before the case was heard. It was poor law and a predetermined outcome and people have been choking on it ever since. In general and not just this issue the legislatures no longer pass or create laws in many ways instead they let special interests legislate through the courts or allow the executive branch to act unilaterally so they WON'T have to take any responsibility at election time. Abortion is one of the biggest issues by hardly the only one. Legislating by Judge or handing it off to the executive isn't really representative government. Judges don't represent the people and they frequently twist the law like a pretzel ON BOTH SIDES to reach a predetermined conclusion. And rather like the Roman republic if "our" representatives abdicate their responsibility ? You tell me?
3
It was not forced down anyone’s throat. Noone was forced to have an abortion after Roe vs Wade. It was people on your side of the aisle who lost the ability to control everybody’s life.
6
The human mind has capacity to rationalize things otherwise contrary to what may naturally be perceived as right or wrong. Arguments for abortion is an intellectual exercise rationalizing individual freedom at the expense of the life of another individual (we can only assume half of whom are female).
No matter how liberating it may feel, the consequence of the practice is forever a contradiction to anyone who claims compassion for any living thing...
3
@PD Curasi: i aborted two pregnancies out of compassion for the never-born. had i brought those pregnancies to term, those children would have lived in poverty, with an abusive father.
also, the best of modern medical science cannot keep a fetus alive outside a woman's body until the third trimester. so no, it is not a life that can be in any way distinguished from my own, and i would take my own life before i brought a child into this hateful world.
4
The abortion debate is probably artificially "nuanced" by certain
taboos that I suspect may be present in the public discourse.
An obvious hard-hitting pro-choice argument would be that
to be against abortion is to be in favor of the production of unwanted children. This would be a thoroughly logical argument, yet no liberal politician has gone there.
2
Here's the message I'd like to hear from Democrats:
Abortion is terrible.
It is a terrible choice.
It is a terrible experience.
Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion.
If we truly want to stop abortion, we will be far more successful, if we prevent unplanned pregnancy with easily accessible contraception, education, and support for those who become pregnant despite these efforts.
If, after all of this, a woman still makes this agonizing choice we respect that choice, knowing that it is hers to make, and to live with.
I may be wrong, but I suspect such an approach would lower the abortion rate far more than criminalization. Shouldn't that be the goal?
28
@Mark
It seems to me that I've heard several Democrats and abortion rights advocates say just that. People just don't want to listen.
3
@Mark
Abortion is a private choice between a woman and her health care provider. The range of human experience by the women who make that choice is far more than using the word “terrible.” I get your political point, but painting the whole experience as “terrible” plays into the right’s branding of the issue.
2
@Mark agree that it may be an "agonizing choice", and a difficult choice, but not a "terrible" choice...
4
As a starter, how about if we spin the idea that abortion is 'bad' when used just for birth control...and stop speaking at that point.
This conveys the idea that careless fun loving roll in the hay episodes (which of course is one of God's gifts to humankind) and being late in the use of any sort of preventative contraception is bad. And beyond that, like being stridently against homosexual life styles all of a sudden becomes less concrete when a family member or good friend becomes known as gay, suddenly the issue is much more malleable.
The health of the mother, of course, is one of the most allowed, as is termination of a pregnancy due to rape or incest.
This gives both sides the room to claim victory by not abandoning self held morals as to abortion, but giving the decision in what seems a relatively limited set of settings back to the one person whom it will impact the most, the pregnant lady.
There has been statistical proof for decades that medical abortion is one of the safest forms of birth control. But that as a point of reference for safety reasons, only solidifies those who oppose it for any reason. Let them have that, and move on.
4
"...leaving potential Democratic voters who are sincerely concerned about abortion vulnerable."
So they're sincerely concerned...what do they think should happen? Passing a law that imposes their morality on others? A law which must necessarily have consequences like jailing or fining abortion providers? What happens when, as inevitable, women themselves become "providers" through self induced medical abortions? Jailing the women?
People like the author have not thought through the unintended consequences of their desired state of affairs.
The old Clinton era approach, "safe, legal and rare" is the only workable compromise within the Democratic Party.
13
I do think that is what the author is saying. It’s the candidates who are not.
1
I have always supported the right to choose, but I have always felt exactly as the author here states: the words used by the most to the left on the issue immediately turn off not just those most on the right (just as their language turns off the left), but also most of those in the middle.
There is a fundamental gap in each side respecting where the other side is coming from. Lack of respect of understanding why people feel the way they do on an issue so sensitive as abortion can contribute to a feeling that a candidate does not understand all sides of an issue, regardless of where he or she may land, and alienate broad swaths of voters.
11
The only faith-based initiative I would support is one that has faith in a woman to make her own decision about her body, health and reproduction. Period. Enough of those like Mr. Wear, who are so eager to urge moderation, compromise and restrictions on someone else's most fundamental right of self-determination. He and his ilk can let me know when they are willing to let others demand that they carry a pregnancy to term. Oh that's right, that's not even a possibility.
19
@ARNP
Well maybe we should decide for them the shelter and area they will live in and their occupation. I mean, those things don’t radically effect their life trajectory do they?
2
Trump may not be the brightest bulb on the tree, but he is gifted at exposing his opponents weak spots. Many Democratic candidates have moved outside of the mainstream on abortion rights, immigration, health insurance, and others. The exploitation of these positions will cost them. The first step is to recognize you're outside the mainstream. There is a vast middle ground of moderate voters on both sides that are there for the taking. This is where the election will be decided.
6
@Steve
Getting sick and tired of hearing how radical the Democrats have become. The past 2 Democratic administrations essentially governed as Republican lite. Now anything a smidge to the left of Republican Lite is considered "out of the mainstream". Please, fill me in on the Republican's "moderate" positions on abortion rights, immigration, health insurance, and others.
11
@Rex7 You made my point. Republicans don't have any moderate positions, yet most voters do. 70% are happy with their health insurance and don't want it taken away. As this article points out, abortion is not black and white. Unregulated immigration is a non-starter to a majority of Americans. Yet, Democrats risk being painted outside the mainstream on all 3.
1
@Steve
The only party I see trying to take health insurance away from people is the Republican Party. I don't need a faux Democrat to tell me that abortion is not black & white. And if we want to talk seriously about immigration, can we please shift away from the "Democrats want unregulated open borders" nonsense, and start talking about the businesses that are only too happy to have a supply of dirt cheap labor at their disposal as the true illegal immigration magnet?
1
Are Democrats so certain about abortion?
In fact Democrats are completely UNCERTAIN about abortion. They don't think the government should have a say one way or the other. They think that the answer should rest in the person seeking to continue or to terminate her pregnancy, not in the government of the state in which that person happens to reside.
"If you oppose abortion, then don't get one."
28
How about, “If you oppose murder, don’t commit one.”? Ok? Not ok?
I’m solidly pro-choice, but I do understand that abortion involves competing interests, that of the developing baby and those of the mother. In a case where those interests clash, I give the nod to the full-grown woman, but that doesn’t mean that the fetus isn’t human. Language like yours turns me off when it belittles that complexity.
1
My cousin just lost her twin babies at 20'ish weeks. She had a difficult pregnancy and had been in the hospital for several weeks fighting an infection. Our family is evenly split between Christian conservatives and liberal types. Nobody said she lost the fetus. Nobody said she lost the zygote. Everyone, even my most liberal relatives, know what they were: babies. Human life.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion on the issue of abortion, but we would do very well to admit what everyone knows: life in the womb is life. Human life. Period.
7
@Mike Human "life" is also skin cells, tissues that make up our heart, blood, and lungs, and fingernails. Nobody calls those collections of cells a human.
It's very easy for people like you to advocate for the unborn. It's a great constituency. They don't cost taxpayer $ money, they aren't fleeing poverty in Honduras, they don't talk back or disagree with you.
If your poor cousin's fetuses had had one of the many conditions that can affect them, like Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, Dandy-Walker syndrome, anancephaly, omphalocele, or any one of dozens of conditions that can cause the death of the fetus and/or the mother, your cousin would have had a much greater decision to make. And hopefully, if she chose to abort a fetus that had little to no chance of surviving, you wouldn't be there to shame her for her decision.
7
@Mike nobody may have said it, but what was lost was potential life...the coming birth of the baby, the anticipated joy, and the child's future...truly a sad and tragic event...
1
@Mike: I am so sorry for your family's loss, and I hope you will not misunderstand this response as a diminishing of that pain. As difficult as it is to hear under these circumstances, the cold, hard fact is that life in the womb is not life: even the best of modern medical science cannot keep a fetus alive outside a woman's body until the third trimester. That is precisely why miscarriages are devastating--because if that life isn't viable in the womb, it certainly isn't viable outside the womb. The reason your cousin's loss was so tragic is because your cousin and her family were already celebrating the children her unborn would become. It is that future human life that is lost to miscarriage.
3
How about shifting the conversation from who should have an abortion to providing birth control to every woman who wants it. The best way to prevent abortions is to help women avoid an unplanned pregnancy. This is a stance Republicans tend to avoid because so many of their fundamentalist supporters do not want any birth control other than abstinence promoted.
47
@Lisa I can't quite believe I'm stooping to respond to your comment--that abortion is an "easy choice"--below, but I feel it can't be left to sit there without reply. Just as many women who take a firm "pro-life" stance find themselves agreeing to an abortion when they're faced with painful circumstances, so do many committed pro-choice women suffer heartbreak and, indeed, trauma when they make the choice to end an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. It need not contradict their stance. I am one of the latter group, a supporter of women's choice who became pregnant from a rape. The decision to abort was the only one I could make, but it was not in any way, as you claim "easy." Do I agree the choice should be left to women? Absolutely. But if we do not as a culture and as a nation acknowledge that this matter is a deeply painful one--a trauma to potential mothers who make the choice to end a pregnancy, to potential fathers in the position to make that choice with a woman they love, AND to communities whose cultures and beliefs compel them to feel abortion is as tragic a circumstance as the shooting death of a black child or a baby drowned crossing the border--if we do not dialogue about this pain and collectively work to heal it--we will forever rip each other and ourselves apart on the political stage, on our streets, and within our own souls. Sorry. Yes: leave the choice to women. No: do not dismiss the potential agony of this matter, for anyone. Please.
20
@e.
Thank you! Republicans have tried to portray abortion as a life-style choice, and it rarely is. The pregnant mother who has fast-developing cancer that will kill her without chemo that will either kill the fetus or severely damage it is never discussed by the anti-abortion group. What a difficult choice such women face—abort a wanted baby or reject treatment and die and leave her other children motherless.
Nor do the anti-abortionists consider the options of a woman whose fetus is severely deformed, perhaps without a brain or a vital organ, that will mean either a painful death upon birth or many years of home care requiring constant attention and preventing the mother from working to help support other children. Poor parents especially would be hard hit, having to choose between feeding and clothing existing children or depriving them of necessities for a child who will require extraordinary care. Late term abortions are for these reasons—not because a woman just suddenly decided she didn’t want a child, as so many anti-abortion advocates claim. Easy access to birth control would be good, but that will not prevent the need for all abortions, and we need to recognize that women should be allowed to make their own medical decisions without radical politicians telling them what is best for them.
2
Michael Wear reaches the right conclusions with the wrong arguments. Obama's policy on abortion is the correct approach for Democrats to take. However, his path is not correct because Americans are deeply conflicted and nuanced about abortion. Most Americans don't spend too much time thinking about abortion.
At any given moment, abortion is only an immediate issue for a very small percentage of Americans. With over the counter abortion medication and better access to more birth control, that percentage is shrinking as well. For most people, abortion is merely a hypothetical. We only think about the issue when prompted by a question. If you reframed the question to ask, "what topic do you wish Democratic nominees would talk more about," you're not likely to find abortion very high on the list.
Obama was smart because he created a policy environment that treated abortion with the non-attention it deserves. You don't need to examine the moral complexity of abortion until you're considering an abortion. If the need arises, you have the assurance the option will be there for at least some amount of time without undue burden. For most Americans, that's enough. Move on.
16
Good vs evil. Which side are you on? This is why the issue is explosive and so divisive. There can be no compromise for those on the extremes. The other side is just wrong and evil. As surveys show a majority (me included) are for some regulation, not an all or nothing approach. Who appointed Sen. Gillibrand the morals czar? This from someone for gun rights when it suited her western NY district but has an anti-gun position now. Does she have any true beliefs (except abortion) or are her positions poll driven?
4
Candidates need to be willing to discuss what a society should do when a practice that is morally objectionable to most is nevertheless sought out by many, often reluctantly and with sadness. The real question is not the morality of abortion but what steps, if any, the government should take to restrict, or protect, a procedure that many people want to have access to.
4
Thank you so much for weighing in. It's good to have a Christian man's perspective for a change.
But not everyone votes solely on abortion. Some who decry the practice may also be uncomfortable with our new authoritarian tendencies, with our inhumane treatment of refugees, with our president kowtowing to all the wrong leaders while alienating our allies, and with watching our country go down the toilet.
If a voter votes abortion only - not seeing the forest for the trees - then so be it. They are in the minority and would probably vote Republican no matter what, just like 2016.
8
@Jennifer Based on personal experience alone--not any kind of statistic--I suspect what you say here is patently untrue. I know quite a few religious people, many of them underserved people of color, who abhorred Trump in 2016 but were advised by their pastors and their conscience to vote against Clinton, whom they felt had, in her approach to the abortion question, callously dismissed their concerns about what they believe is a deeply moral issue. As Mr. Wear's column argues, the Trump presidency has stripped us of nuance--Trump himself is utterly unfamiliar with the notion, and those laboring desperately to counter him are forced to abandon complexity in turn. What Mr. Wear doesn't entirely address is the fact that our systems of campaigns, media coverage, and elections--and legislation as well--are also fundamentally disinclined to embrace or negotiate complexity. So a Latina voter, for instance, who has every reason to strike down Trump, may be repulsed by any Trump opponent who inflexibly denies the complexity of abortion rights. I'm not going to take a stand here on Mr. Wear's suggestions, but I do want to say to Jennifer that in my experience, I have dialogued with MANY good people who have voted solely on the matter of abortion. Whether they should or shouldn't do so is another matter: it happens. Quite a bit. When it comes down to a simple "yes" or "no," people are pushed to their limits. I for one wish we could find ways to bring them back into a welcoming fold.
4
@Jennifer I believe this is the same way so called poison pill amendments get added to critical laws that need to be passed, yet somone wishing to torpedo the whole thing, inserts a completely unrelated aspect into the law. One cannot then vote for the whole with such a terrible outcome wrapped up in the same package.
I have yet, in the nearly 5 decades of voting, found a candidate who's platform has every plank that I agree with wholeheartedly.
Unlike congress today, the path to moving forward is compromise.
4
The question is not your personal views.
The question is whether to force those views upon your neighbor’s pregnancy and the sometimes super complicated decisions that need to be made.
Best way to handle:
It’s none of my business.
It’s none of your business.
It’s none of the state’s business.
As it’s been for all time.
75
The incapacity to respect constitutional limitations to government in the US boggles the mind.
3
Women need someone to be certain about reproductive rights. Frankly, far too many "men of faith" -- emphasis on "men" -- are involved in advocating and legislating against abortion. For instance, I would suggest that no one who is celibate should have a voice in this issue, particularly no man who is. And secular law should never be based in "faith," given that there is no consensus on belief anywhere in the world. Given that Republicans have allowed their party to be captured by conservative Christianity, I'm glad that Democrats officially trust women to choose for themselves.
32
The writer cites polls showing support for limitations on abortion, but those polls may actually show only hesitation based on electability in a nation that doesn't appear to fully respect womens rights.
8
The author condemns Gillibrand for saying she'd only nominate judges who support Roe v. Wade, in his call for moderation on abortion. But RvW is actually moderate: abortion on demand is only available in the first trimester, and severe restrictions are allowed in the last trimester. That's probably a view held by 70%+ of voters.
I'm not sure that an answer to a debate question based on "raising your hand" allows enough room for anyone with a nuanced view to express it, so using that moment to describe candidates' positions may just be a mistake.
14
While I don't think any woman "wants" an abortion, as a man I believe any woman, every woman, has the rights and responsibilities to make a thoughtful decision about her body, and about the implications of having an unwanted child.
Democrats need to defeat Trump -- and other Republicans -- on whatever platform and issue that arises. Abortion has become, above all, an emotional, virtually irrational issue guaranteed to be twisted by both parties. Candidly, I will not select a Democratic candidate based on this criterion. But I would definitely reject one who believed, however rational the argument appeared, to curtail a woman's right to choose how her life unfolds -- especially if it were a male taking that position.
22
Here's the problem with allowing early abortions and restricting later ones. Early abortions tend to be "elective" in the sense that they're sought because the woman, for whatever reason, doesn't want to have a child.
Later abortions tend to be performed for medical reasons, and the later the abortion, the more medically necessary it tends to be. It's a no-brainer that most women don't seek late abortions because they just didn't get around to it earlier when it would have been quick and easy.
So while severely restricting late term abortions might be good politics, it isn't good medicine, and so it isn't good policy. Is there no effective way to communicate that reality to the public?
The problem with judging "medical necessity" is that should we attempt to gauge and regulate it as a matter of law, religiously motivated persons will insert themselves into the process and hijack it.
The only truly workable approach is to tell the theists to butt out entirely and leave the matter to the woman and her physician. We should be willing to defer to her judgement on the grounds that nobody seeks a late term abortion eagerly or casually, and nobody can better discern the its appropriateness.
That might be a political loser, but I don't see politicians working very hard to educate the public about such distinctions. Demagoguing late term abortion as infanticide ought to be a liability, but the public needs to be brought to that realization by thoughtful politicians.
54
An educated public would dump almost all the politicians in the US, because very few of them are competent at anything.
2
While some view abortion as taking a life while others view it as a reproductive rights issue, whether or not to have an abortion is probably the single most personal decision a woman can make, hopefully with her partner or family, but her decision in the end. The constitution is silent on the issue and had our founders addressed it they may have not approved. However they were wise enough not to try to address all of societies future issues with hard to change rules and gave us a framework to make our own rules.
This is a personal decision based on personal beliefs. The government would have no say in it until when a fetus can survive outside the womb on its own.
17
Instead of "My Body, My Choice" we should phrase it as "My Body, My Responsibility."
On the highly "nuanced" and complex issue of deciding whether a woman should have an abortion, who is best equipped to decide? The woman in consultation with her doctor? Or politicians creating complicated sets of rules which have to be enforced?
And those rules in themselves create problems. Set a rule that says, for example, that 20 weeks is the limit, and you'll have people accusing the doctor or the pregnant woman of falsifying the date of conception.
Ultimately, this is an issue of woman's rights and religious freedom. Putting aside all the pretended concern for pregnant women, this is about religious groups trying to make the law the instrument of enforcing their belief in a theological doctrine - ensoulment at conception.
Religious conservatives do not have the moral high ground. Rather, it is highly immoral to prioritize the rights of an organism that does not as yet have a functioning brain over the rights and liberties and health of a woman. People who believe otherwise are free to live by their beliefs.
"Late term" abortions of convenience are a problem created by religious conservatives to facilitate taking the decision away from the woman and her doctor.
Instead of "choice", we should talk about "responsibility" and who is best equipped to exercise it. This is about trusting women to make their own decisions, free of the interference of preachers and politicians.
22
I will continue to write this until I am blue in the face: Lose the "Pro-Choice vs the Pro-Life" terminology, since the easy inference is if you are "Pro-Choice," you are "Against Life."
12
@Jim
How about "Pro-Choice" vs "The Harper Valley PTA," and you need look no further than Jane Roe to see why HVPTA fits.
@Mike James "Pro-life" is a misnomer. "Pro-forced birth" is the correct term.
3
I think the decision whether bear a child should rest with women and abortion should be a decision made by a woman and her doctor. That being said, Democrats and Republicans alike need to focus on economic issues that will help women and men who do wish to expand their families see their way clear to do so. Issues like child care, health insurance, a living wage, and college costs weigh on people as they decide whether to bear a child. Republicans seem to want to economically abuse a large segment of society and force them to bear children at the same time. Democrats are for some unknown reason completely unwilling to talk about family building and the abortion option in economic terms. Yes, there are many other good reasons such as rape, the mental or physical health of the mother, or the viability of the pregnancy for the choice not to have a child and I am certainly not speaking to those. However, let's begin to talk more frankly and freely about economic insecurity and family building. When you read women's stories about why they had an abortion, very often their reasons relate to their fear of not being able to materially provide for their child. Why can't Democrats and Republicans work together to make abortions for financial reasons rare?
12
Women have an absolute right to control their bodies but no one has a right to a family. Certainly not if it must be unwillingly supported by taxpayers or employers.
I respect any woman who chooses not to abort a fetus. I respect any woman who chooses abortion as a option. I do not respect politicians, or the religious right or anyone else who would deny freedom of choice to any woman. What gives them permission to do so? Certainly not our Founding Fathers who advocated a separation of Church and State.
In the matter of abortion, NO ONE has the right to impose their beliefs on another. Freedom of choice is an inherent right as is the right to control one's body.
26
@bill zorn
I gather you assume the fetus is a living thing. At what point did it start to live? I consider a fetus viable when it can live separate from the Mother. I do not believe in late-term elective abortion, but I do not want to see it restricted by laws.
9
@bill zorn I've been thinking about your statement, and so far haven't been able to come up with any non-religious arguments against elective abortion.
Rather than making this into a guessing game, please enumerate some for us to consider for your argument.
2
@ClayB, be aware there are non-religious arguments against elective abortion; a secular humanist sees experience in this world as all.
i agree that no one should have the right to impose beliefs on another. but science tells us that an abortion involves two bodies. none of us has the right to end another's life. elective abortion imposes the belief via action of one person onto another.
it has always been difficult to recognize human rights of those different from us; for the more powerful to recognize rights of the less powerful, especially when self-interest intrudes.
2
In the 50 years since we went to the moon the world's human population has doubled. We are in the process of overrunning the planet. Global warming, and nuclear war, are likely results. I am disgusted with anyone who uses religion to justify the pro life position. We have a fiduciary responsibility to the planet, and to future generations. What this article seems to be saying is that beating Donald Trump is more important than not destroying the planet. We need less babies now! Have you been on the freeway lately? Do you want to be like China, with four times the population on a similar size land mass? Is economic growth more important than quality of life? The world's great religions do not address these issues because they were not issues when these religions began.
12
Most of the commenters already stated what I thought as I read this piece. Men should not be making authoritative statements on women's bodies. People should not impose their moral rectitudes on any other person. All is open to rational discussion though I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why a man should have a say in this matter, particularly a man with no vested interest in the fetus, much less the government.
28
How about we simply let a woman make necessary medical decisions in the privacy of her doctor's office?
40
I'd be inclined to read this column if the author were a woman whose life might be or has been affected by the serious decision. That a man writes it, completely invalidates any points he might make except that it's a decision that should be reserved for a woman and her healthcare provider.
To opine otherwise is to invalidate the autonomy of 50% of the population.
19
@Leslie "To opine otherwise is to invalidate the autonomy of 50% of the population."
Is the irony of you making that statement, while you invalidate the opinions of 50% of the population just completely lost on you?
The idea that simply by having an opinion on the subject, I am undermining your autonomy as a woman, is pretty obnoxious. If, with regards to ANY subject (such as circumcision of male infants, perhaps) a man tried to suggest that any woman who even voices an opinion on the subject is undermining male autonomy, you would be having a conniption fit right now and you know it.
2
@Leslie
Telling men they have no right to reason in public about abortion is sexist. They are half of the voting public and have a right to free speech on this issue, too..
2
Senator Kamala Harris's sound bite on this matter best captures the reason why many Democratic candidates won't express any restrictions to abortion. It is the question Senator Harris she posed during the Kavanaugh hearing: are there any laws “that the government has power to make over the male body?” Mr Kavanaugh could not name any. Center right Democrats have finessed this issue for a long time claiming some nuanced middle ground so that they can avoid dealing with the uncomfortable truth that the politicization of abortion has made women second class citizens who are not allowed to make informed moral, ethical or health decisions with their doctor, their priest, and their loved ones.
22
Okay. I couldn't get past the first sentence.
First, there is no need to listen to anyone who bases arguments on something that is a matter of faith. I am not trying to be offensive, simply think about it. Faith is illogical. Any argument derived from faith is also illogical.
Second, there is no need to call the Democratic positions on abortion "incoherent." That word is often misinterpreted to fit the readers bias and will cause many anti-abortion readers to feel they can simply disregard any argument with which they disagree.
20
I agree with everything piece of advice the author offers, with one qualification. I do not believe he fully or accurately describes the current political climate of the abortion issue. It is not just Trump's tone or political style, but the danger -- real or ultimately not -- that the Supreme Court will end the current national right to an abortion as decided in Roe v. Wade. Perhaps this threat goes without saying, but does any one doubt that this danger is the driving force for the Democrats' very vocal and uncompromising approach in this election season?
7
This tends to be a " issue of great moral complexity" in political sloganing when it applies to other people. But when it applies to yourself, or you rown wife or daughter, all of a sudden it becomes a personal, not political, issue of great moral complexity. The same people who are against abortion in theory often become more, shall we say, flexible when it comes home. The so called "not nuanced view" of the candidates is simply the assertion that the people whose lives and health are directly affected should be the ones to make the decisions, not the state.
20
@Ludwig the situation you speak of, abortion of a late term healthy fetus, happens SO rarely it should not even be part of the discussion. This is a tactic of the religious right.
1
@Ludwig Honest question: how would a woman give herself a late-term abortion?
I would think that would be extraordinarily risky yet it is the only way an abortion could be left ENTIRELY up to the woman involved.
An abortion performed by a doctor would be one where the medical professional agrees with the outcome and would be for medical reasons. Otherwise the doctor is violating their oath to do no harm.
2
@Lee Hartmann That is the wrong issue that you are addressing. The issue is not "should abortion ever be permitted?" to which a majority of Americans say yes.
The issue really is "should abortion of a late term healthy fetus be ENTIRELY up to whatever the woman wants?" and a majority of Americans say no,.
3
Politics and the media have turned this into such a circus that most people have no idea what their actual position on abortion would be if a family member was in need. This is why we keep finding out about anti-abortion advocates seeking abortions when an accidental pregnancy threatens their own future. Most people would choose their own health and career over raising an unwanted child, but until they are in that position, it makes them feel good about themselves to tell other people how sacred life is. It’s a personal decision. Government and other people should stay out of it.
27
@Peter
This is the time when Democrats need to point out that many in the GOP oppose any sex education in schools. Comprehensive family planning includes not only learning the plumbing of human bodies but the economic, educational and emotional consequences of producing children who are totally unplanned. And for heavens sake, emphasize that a fertilized egg is not yet human, anymore than a fertilized egg is a chicken.
1
@Beverly
Thank you for the reply. You are totally correct about the "the economic, educational and emotional consequences of producing children who are totally unplanned"
Considering those issues is something that doesn't seem to take place until it becomes a personal issue - it's all talk up until it's personal, then it's "do as I say, not as I do."
1
The most important point in this piece is that the termination of a pregnancy is a very complex matter. That is why most progressives believe that the choice should remain with the woman and not with the government, which by and large is run by older white men. Thankfully the Democratic candidates for President understand and support this position. And although perhaps not articulated in the debates, there are no laws that place no restrictions on abortion. The model legislation on this issue is New York’s RHA, which recognizes that late term abortion may be necessary for medical reasons. In those cases the decision is between the woman and her doctor. As far as the Hyde Amendment is concerned, it unfairly (in the opinion of many if not the majority) creates a disadvantage for lower income women who seek healthcare options that are available to other American women. The struggle for freedom and equality is often not well aligned with public opinion in its earlier stages. That does not justify abandoning the principles we fight for. Let us not forget, for example, that marriage equality has been opposed on “moral” grounds.
11
@Andrea I just don't get why people call the decision to have an abortion "complex" or "difficult." Most abortions happen in the first trimester because women know immediately whether they want to be a parent or not. When it's a simple matter of "do I want to devote my life to raising another human being for two decades" or "do I want to continue my life as it is/take advantage of opportunities to realize my dreams," the answer is quite easy.
9
@Lisa I can't quite believe I'm stooping to respond to your comment, but I feel it cannot be left to sit here without reply. Just as (as another reader mentioned above) many women who take a firm "pro-life" stance find themselves agreeing to an abortion when they're faced with painful circumstances, so do many staunch pro-choice women suffer heartbreak and, indeed, trauma when they make the choice to end an unwanted or dangerous pregnancy. I am one of the latter group, a supporter of women's choice who became pregnant after non-consensual sex. The decision to abort was the only one I could make, but it was not in any way, as you claim "easy." Do I agree the choice should be left to women? Absolutely. But if we do not as a culture and as a nation acknowledge that this matter is a deeply painful one--a trauma to potential mothers who make the choice to end a pregnancy, to potential fathers who are in the position to make that position with a woman they love, AND to communities whose cultures and beliefs compel them to feel abortion is as tragic a circumstance as the shooting death of a black child or a baby drowned crossing the border--if we do not dialogue about this pain and collectively work to heal it--we will forever rip each other and ourselves apart on the political stage, on our streets, and within our own souls. Sorry. Yes, leave the choice to women. No--do not dismiss the agony of this matter, for anyone. Please.
5
@e. Sigh. Just because something caused you pain does not mean it causes everyone pain. From personal experience, talking to friends and reading of other womens' experiences, the emotion felt by most women following a first trimester abortion is relief.
3
Some things are simply non negotiable in a free society. The right of a woman to choose medical treatment, including abortion, free of religious dogma, is one of them. If the issue is viability outside the womb, it deserves discussion. If not, it is of no public business. Pandering for votes is a fool's errand in the long run.
17
@dennob I think the right to be to live would be considered a "non negotiable" in most free societies as well. The question is: is the right to be alive more or less basic than the right to choose ones own medical treatment. Honest question.
I might frame it as: which right precedes which? Can a person without full health care options (including abortion) still be alive? Or can a person who is not alive choose health care options?
1
@keith
Where is the full "right to be alive" directive written? Can't find it. Are you sure about this?
@keith If your next door neighbor needs a kidney, and you are compatible with his blood type, etc., should you be forced to donate a kidney in order to save his life? Even if doing so might endanger your life?
2
I agree with everything posited in this article except the claim that Hillary Clinton got it wrong with the overall American public's views on this issue. All men seem to be incapable of remembering that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a clear plurality. She did not get it wrong with the voter. Trump's was an electoral college victory.
Mr. Reporter, respect for women's achievements begins with you. Just once, I would like to see a male reporter or the New York Times refer to Hillary Clinton as the first woman to win the popular vote for the presidency.
31
Here's a line Democrats might use:
I support the two policies that are most effective in reducing the number of abortions in America; open, free access to all birth control methods and greater economic opportunity for all communities. Those two things would prevent more abortions that all the conservative state laws restricting access.
29
Excellent ideas but I seriously doubt the majority of republicans would accept open access to birth control.
1
This is sensible. I have been involved in six "crises" both as a Family Member or as a close fiend and the first thing I have learned is that the woman involved needs love and support in a very difficult time. These particular crises resulted in both abortions and in babies and the latter were variously raised by the Mother and other Family Members or adopted by another Family. Legal issues played little part but personal ethical considerations did which suggests to me that the law has little practical effect and is best kept out of all this.
From all this if I was a DEM candidate I would do the following:
1. Admit that theses crises occur quite frequently and the State has a supportive not a determinative role.
2. That individuals have to make decisions and that they should have help from the private sector in doing that. That help can be offered but not insisted upon.
4
More opinion on the "abortion crisis". This time coming from a Democrat. With Planned Parenthood funded and left alone to do their job, birth control covered, free and accessible to those who need it, and sex education in schools, abortion rates lower. This allows every woman and girl to make an informed decision about her reproduction. It is a medical, not a moral decision.
As for late term abortions these are already heavily vetted by doctors who perform them. They are not available to anyone. The author was wrong to assume and share the opinion they are.
So no crisis, just populist game playing, vote chasing and compromise. No thank you. There are no problems with having reproductive rights mandated and fully supported by government, and it's a regressive and sad nation for women that concurs with the pro life movement or doubts progress gained.
30
“The majority of Americans want to see abortion restricted to either the first three months of pregnancy (23 percent) or allowed only in the cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother (29 percent)”.
I don’t know if these are valid statistics or not. But I ask this of everyone: who gets to decide if it was a case of rape? The pregnant woman? The rapist? A doctor? The police? A court?
If you think about it, none of these is practically viable during a pregnancy other than the pregnant woman.
What we really need to hear are better statistics about when during pregnancies abortions actually occur and why late term abortions happen in the rare cases they do.
14
@James, as long as we're thinking about it; if rape is a valid reason for abortion, it must not matter who decides? if the offspring of a criminal can be terminated for its father's action, why can't it be terminated for any reason at all? either there's logic that denies human rights to some due to the actions of others (i can't see it), or it has none anyway.
'late-term' vs early has no essential difference other than age of the individual in question. viability is subject to technology, etc.
4
Democrats who advocate any abortion restrictions mandated by a legislature on a one-size-fits-all basis do not actually support a woman's right to make that decision for herself.
The fact that most people would shun an abortion under lots of specific circumstances has nothing to do with the legal and ethical question of who is authorized to make this choice.
In fact, most people don't even want to engage in a debate about the acceptability of a practice which does not concern them, and does not relate to any specific human situation they have ever faced. Because radicals choose to do so doesn't mean the rest of the population accepts their specious premise.
5
@Sequel; a woman cannot make a decision for herself regarding abortion; it always involves another.
elective abortion supporters stumble on this premise:
'all humans deserve human rights'.
The shift away from supporting pro choice is a tragedy that is nothing more than populus hatred of liberalism. Feminism is one of the far right's particular enemies. The author may berate today's Democrats for standing clearly and firmly for the right to abortion but isn't that a case of standing by your principles even if they're unpopular? Leaders are supposed to lead and Democratic traditions such as progressivism must remain the party platform.
The populist battle is making extremists and compromisers out of too many. Please leave those who are neither alone and hopefully America will one day return to sense and see uncompromised and necessary progress as the only and better way forward.
8
@Una, be aware that recognizing human rights is also a liberal tradition, along with speaking for the voiceless and standing for the powerless. elective abortion is to the right of some of us.
Long before Trump came along, I held the view that women, not governments, should make their own reproductive choices. I still hold that view, no matter if it is good politics, or if it may be a minority view. Abortion is an individual moral issue, not subject to the moral opinions of people of different religions or political views, who have no connection to the individual making such a decision. It's none of my business, nor should it be any of Trump's or his opponents, or any one but the woman's.
20
@John E. Mangan
You should be knighted for this comment. Thank you for expressing it; thank you for caring to say it.
1
@John E. Mangan
I suspect that you (and I agree with you) actually represent the majority opinion, but that politicians and the media love fighting about this so much nobody cares. People who mind their own business are boring. People who claim that they have a direct line to heaven, and were told by God that abortion is a sin, are easy to argue with and entertaining.
2
Whether or not a woman decides to have an abortion is a PRIVATE and MEDICAL decision not a POLITICAL one or one that should be subject to the whims of popular opinion.
Pregnancy has profound PHYSICAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL effects on a woman and it should be up to that woman alone whether she continues through with an unwanted or MEDICALLY DANGEROUS pregnancy.
This should NEVER have become a political issue. Before obstetrics became a male dominated field in the 1800s it wasn't one. It has always been about money and controlling women.
45
Most people i know do not answer there phone if the caller is not known. Most polls ask questions that can be slanted in one direction or another (asdesired)by the choice of answers provided to the questions and the questions and wording. So i dont accept most polls as representing all voters in the usa. I do believe that the most vocal groups may or may not represent the majority of voters. I also know that many dont vote in elections. So i am always skeptical of polls. If you actually printed out poll questions and possible answers offered to polltakers I wonder what we would see.
I am well educated. I do vote. Most impt issues get highest weight in choosing the candidate that will do the least damage to country and world so I am always voting against the worst(imo). Wish there was a candidate worthy of voting for.
10
@Sandy this is fr sandy who didnt reread to catch mistakes nor catch edit function on my phone. The first “there” should be “their”😳
1
Regardless of this author's assertions and offerings of polls of dubious shapes and sizes, I am not convinced.
This country, outside of the "outsized" political rhetoric, is pro choice... not anti-choice. Most of us are bone tired of having this issue used as a political cudgel. The Democratic party should make sure they are seen as the party that does not interfere in family planning matters.
47
There is an obvious need for more public education on this issue. Take late-term abortion, for example. Abortions after the 24th month are rare, totaling just 1% of all procedures. Of that 1%, nearly all are performed on women who were looking forward to becoming a mother but were forced to make the heart-breaking decision to terminate their pregnancy in order to protect their own health or to prevent the fetus from unnecessarily suffering from severe congenital birth defects once born.
The notion that women wait until the last minute (or week, or month, or, as the president claims, after birth... ) to decide if they wish to keep their baby or abort it is perplexing, even more so if we consider the polls cited. That there are enough to warrant subjecting grief-stricken women to endure another ultrasound or, worse yet, carrying to term, is, frankly, inhumane.
51
@Andrew Trezise; rather than objecting to the rate of late abortions for elective purposes, some see the legality of this option as as wrong as having extremely rarely utilized elective infanticide laws on the books would be.
but education is key. it takes education to appreciate the rights of those unlike ourselves, of those less powerful than ourselves, as our long history of denial of human rights shows.
@Andrew Trezise you must mean 24th "week"?
1
2 years is a long time to be pregnant
These are the bounds within which reasonable majorities should agree:
Roe v Wade was rightly decided and those feeling otherwise are not obliged to terminate their own pregnancies.
Terminations should be safe, legal, and rare.
They should generally be restricted to a period before viability as the the Supreme Court has ruled.
The ultimate decision is the woman's, within the bounds of the law.
Termination should also be considered an integral aspect of family planning and women's healthcare. As such it should be covered by all medical insurance including plans funded by government.
There are plenty of immoral activities funded by government, but I'm still forced to pay taxes that support them (kids in cages, the war in Yemen, etc). Last I checked there's no a la carte option outside of the egregious Hyde provision.
Terminations after the onset of viability should only be performed to preserve the life of the woman or for serious fetal anomalies. Hospital ethics committees and faith leaders, as requested, can weigh in on difficult cases.
Euthanasia for seriously ill children or newborns is generally not acceptable. When there's no reasonable curative option, comfort care takes preeminence in the face of terminal suffering. The idea that any parent, doctor or nurse would ever countenance ripping a normal, viable child from its parent and then putting it to death is utter dystopian nonsense.
33
@Michael Tyndall, viability is key to roe, and is not able to be determined for individuals precisely. this means non-viable feti continue, viable feti are terminated.
further, the date of viability has moved during my medical career, and will go to zero (already has in sheep).
roe therefore says that our most basic human right is dependent not on ourselves, but on the latest gizmo? i disagree with this notion. a human individual is formed at conception, and develops in incremental overlapping stages until death.
@Michael Tyndall I am an abortion rights supporter, but I find your reasonable bounds not very reasonable:
1) Many believe that Roe v Wade was a terrible legal decision. They supported the right it granted, but as a legal decision it is not a very good one.
2) Viability. Right now the shortest pregnancy was just under 22 weeks. What happens when viability is 18 weeks, or 15 weeks, or maybe eventually from the moment of conception? Should the legal length of time for women to access an abortion change with the latest record for shortest pregnancy?
3) Preserve the life of the woman? Meaning she should carry to term only if the pregnancy would kill her?
4) What will be considered "serious fetal anomalies"?
5) And this is the part most pro-choice people have a difficult time with... There are people that simply see taking the life of fetus as killing. I don't think that is too hard to understand, whether you agree or not. And for them killing is killing. With the exception of self-defense and war, killing is illegal, so why should abortion be legal? I don't agree with this viewpoint, but it isn't hard to understand why some people would.
For me, I think we should have a limit of something like 22 weeks, after which a doctor must approve. Funding should come from the private sector as well as from a voluntary tax we can choose to pay on our tax returns, just like contributing to the election fund.
@Michael M., is your 22 weeks an arbitrary point, or is there some rationale?
I have counseled hundreds of women who faced unwanted pregnancies. Exactly 0% wanted politicians to intrude into what must be one of the most intensely personal decisions a person is ever called upon to make. Anyone who does not believe in abortion has the right to not have one. Anyone who believes abortion is permissible should have the right to choose to have one if it becomes necessary, without the unwanted interference of government.
There is no greater hypocrisy than for opponents of abortion to call themselves "pro-life." Respect for life is shown by supporting gun control, expanding Medicaid, providing universal Head Start & Pre-K, freezing nuclear weapons, protecting our environment from polluters, making college
affordable for all, guaranteeing a minimum wage that affords a comfortable lifestyle, rejecting the enforced separation of immigrant families, & banning the death penalty.
Democrats should have an explicit platform which compasses these commonsense measures. This can justifiably be called a "pro-Life" platform. Then, contrast this with the anti-choice platform of the Republican extremists who believe that the right to life ends at birth. Call the anti-choice extremists what they really are- domestic terrorists who inspire the cold blooded murder of doctors such as Drs. Gunn, Slepian, & Tiller.
Pro-choice IS Pro-Life.
98
@Doctor B AMEN! And I could add that supporting research that finds treatments and cures for genetic disorders is also pro-life. :)
8
@Katrin
Right! Opposition to the use of fetal tissue for research impedes our efforts to find cures for a host of illnesses. Indeed, ending an unwanted pregnancy can give medical pioneers a chance for the next big breakthrough. That means saving countless lives.
10
@Doctor B
If, as you say, women should have the right to choose to have an abortion "if it becomes necessary," then who gets to determine whether or not an abortion is necessary? Is there a list of people we should consult?
1
The abortion issue has become a litmus test on the left as well as on the right. If Wear's statistics are accurate, however, the American people approach this question with far more ambivalence than do the base of either party. For Democratic leaders and candidates, the acceptable mantra focuses on a woman's right to control her own body.
Phrased in such absolute terms, the Democratic approach would appear to reject any limits on a woman's right to choose. This point of view requires progressives to spurn the belief, widespread among Americans, to judge by the cited polls, that a fetus is a life form. Whatever scientists and doctors may assert, the public unease over abortion arises from the conviction of millions of Americans that, at some point in the gestation process, a fetus becomes a human being.
This issue cannot be settled through an appeal to logic. Philosophy as well as empirical science helps determine an individual's view of when life begins. If Democrats deny that both the fetus and the pregnant woman have a stake in the abortion decision, they will alienate a significant portion of the electorate. On this issue, as on most others, a willingness to compromise offers the best path to political success. That flexibility does not require progressives to abandon their own beliefs, but just to recognize that, in a democracy, they can't win unless they represent a broad sector of the electorate.
2
@James Lee I would suggest that those that claim a fetus is a "person" with rights equal or even higher than the mother are already in the GOP base. Or Catholic. Still, they live in a country where the law of the land is clear. Thinking that they should use political might to deprive others of their rights means they are even leaning fascist.
2
@James Lee
Roe v. Wade IS a compromise.
2
If there is no abortion, how about making men responsible for the babies that are born? The discussions all assume that only the mothers are responsible for conceptions and for births. Where are the fathers? The fathers can be identified using DNA testing. They should be providing at least financial support to the children they conceive.
17
@lsl This is already the law, probably in all the states. The problem is getting fathers to comply (assuming they have the means) or dealing with the fact that many of them don't have the means.
It is interesting that all my adult life, doctors ridiculed my desire to have a tubal ligation with a superior smirk, informing me in that inane sing-song voice "Oh, you'll change your mind." I never did. I never wanted children and have never regretting not having them. Many of my friends admit that had they been able to do it over, they would not have had children. Considering that every day one reads several stories of women killing their children or parenting them so negligently that someone else does, it would be better to allow abortion on demand and to use government funds. I would rather have my tax dollars spent on preventing unwanted children being born than on Iraq. Yes, I wish women would prevent pregnancy as a first choice, but when the horse is out of the barn, it is too late to close that door. If men were forced to suffer pregnancy, abortions would be performed at drive through facilities.
24
@Eli
I'd myself support a law that limited any woman from having more than two live children. Don't care that it didn't work in China; we should do it and do it better.
1
@Eli
If men were the ones to get pregnant, abortion wouldn't be a right, it would be a sacrament.
If men were the ones to get pregnant, females would be required to use contraception at all times.
If men were the ones to get pregnant, there would be very few families with more than one child.
5
@Rea Tarr
I would love to see people make better rational choices about reproduction. If I told a reputable animal adoption agency - much less a human one - that I was financially and/or emotionally unable to care for myself, much less a dependent, I would be shown the door.
2
Abortion rights should be defined by science, not religion. No one is forcing someone to have an abortion they do not want. But where to draw the line on when it is too late in development to abort should be informed by science, not religion. It does not matter where the majority are. What matters are the rights of the individual to make the decision for her family to the extent that science says a human being with rights and consciousness has not yet developed. We do not differ on whether it is okay to murder. We differ on when there is a murder. When are we going to start talking about the immorality of the outcomes when we deny women the right to abort? Every time a society bans abortion, they find the results are horrific.
15
The author is correct that the abortion issue has the power to hand the election to Trump. But there is no rational way to resolve the issue. For some, moving beyond the Hyde Amendment represents social and ethical progress. For others it only confirms the view that anti-Hyde Amendment voters and radical feminists are morally depraved. Votes, not moral enquirer, will determine the winner.
I am convinced that most people all over the world think that abortion is not the best method of family planning. Sometimes it can be necessary for reasons e.g. incest, rape, saving mother's life, the fetus's fatal illness.
In some cultures (I have understood) there is (or was) a code that in saving somebody's life you take the responsibility for that life. If no more practiced, it still is a good principle.
What is the responsibility of the US society for the children who are born against the will of the mother? Are children taken care of, are the mothers and families supported? If there is a right to rule that a woman must give birth (no matter what) there also should be a rule to give all possible support.
To prevent abortions, do you have sex education, education in birth control with info about prevention methods - young people, even school-age surely have sexual relations also in the USA? Do you have (free) clinics for family planning, with nurses and doctors?
Children have a right to be born wanted.
15
@R.Skara No to all those questions. In most public schools we teach abstinence. There is scant help for medical care for children after they are born. The US currently has the highest infant/pregnancy death rate. There are not measures in place to support really poor people. The big problem is - how American's are lied to daily. I am fortunate enough to be married to a British and we travel a lot. Compared to Europe - poor people in the US are much sicker and hungrier.
17
I recently discovered that different religions have different definitions of when life begins. For example (and I'm not Jewish), it appears that the Talmud has a different definition of the beginning of life from that espoused by some Christians. If that is accurate, then any statute or judicial ruling that defines life at conception, and bans abortions thereafter at any time on any grounds, is a choice by an agency of government to elevate one religion over another, which contradicts the spirit, if not the words, of the First Amendment. Restrictions on abortion, including the Hyde Amendment, are therefore unconstitutional. Abortion should be a personal and religious choice, and any institution of government that believes otherwise should be firmly and repeatedly reminded of the limits imposed by the First Amendment. We are not, yet, a theocracy.
22
I support Hyde. Abortion is not only uniquely complicated but also justifiably visceral. No individual should feel compelled to have their tax dollars support this heart wrenching choice. Pro choice advocates should step up with their own private funding to fill gaps. I'm deeply disappointed in Biden's cave on Hyde, which was an excellent example of bipartisan compromise, and moreso in the party's insensitivity and uncompromising attitude that drove his reversal.
2
@Keith I don't want my tax dollars going to the seemingly endless wars the US is waging, which kill a great many people, including children. But none of us gets a line-item budget approval.
42
There is a difference in tax dollars being used, in theory, to benefit the country as a whole, such as military spending (you may strongly disagree on whether it will have that outcome, but the principle is sound) versus tax money to fund what, even the most ardent feminist would argue, is a profoundly individual choice.
3
@Keith The Hyde Amendment gives poor women fewer rights than those with money to pay for their own healthcare. Women are uniquely equipped to bear children, and the physiology that supports that function is also the primary focus of most women's healthcare spending for much of their lives. Yes, the whole thing is visceral. Sometimes things go wrong and a pregnancy cannot, should not continue. But the remedy is not available to poor women because of some people's religious beliefs. How is that right? As many have said, we don't individually, get a line item veto on how our taxes are spent. I object to mine being used to put migrant children in cages, for example.
17
It's really great to read someone who understands ambiguity. The idea that one can believe that a fetus is a human life and that abortion is in many case something that one regrets having done sooner or later in life. It's also important to remember reality and to understand that when abortion was illegal that created an untenable situation in this country where poor girls died from botched, illegal abortions and woman with means went to other countries to have it done by a doctor. We really really need a leader with some courage and wisdom, hopefully a Democrat who doesn't buy into one-dimensional answers and speaks for the majority of sane people in this country.
8
@Babydave24 Some people regret having had a child, or children. Given the divorce rate, many people clearly regret their choice of spouse. But people need to make their own decisions in life, regarding abortion and all other important matters. Women should not have their reproductive choices taken away just because they may (or may not) regret them.
21
Elizabeth Warren favors "Medicare for All," which means replacing private health insurance (which under most employers in most states currently covers abortion) with a single-payer government plan. Passing Medicare for All without repealing the Hyde amendment would mean taking away abortion coverage from millions of Americans.
But the Hyde amendment already denies abortion coverage to millions of federal employees, servicewomen, and women on Medicaid, many of whom can't afford to pay out of pocket. For poor women in many red states, their right to an abortion these days is purely theoretical.
If Republicans were willing to return abortion restrictions at the state level to what they were in 1994 in exchange for keeping the Hyde Amendment, then sure, Democrats should take that deal. But they're not, and restoring abortion rights will require federal action.
1
The problem is that most voters have never lived in a country where abortion was illegal. Maybe we need to live in a pre Roe vs. Wade country for awhile just to show people what exactly that will mean for them. You can bet that minds will change swiftly.
15
@Sandi They could also read about women in El Salvador who are sent to prison for murder should they miscarry. That's not miscarriage intent either.
1
Anybody who has tried to get the numbers regarding public opinion on abortion knows that it is pretty much impossible. Virtually all the information comes from one side or the other and these numbers have nothing in common. As for the few who survey in good faith, everything depends on how they ask the question. . If you ask someone whether choice for a woman is a good thing you'll get high numbers who will say yes. If you ask whether a woman should be able to choose whatever she wants, you'll get totally different results.
As for the Hyde Amendment, I'd guess that a tiny percentage of the population knows what it says. Throwing around numbers regarding who is for and who is against it is almost certainly spreading misleading information.
The argument here is based on numbers and the numbers are mostly meaningless.
13
The author makes the argument that Obama was some sort of moderate on abortion. Please. I can't think of a single restriction of which he approved. He always received a high rating from NARAL and, unless I'm mistaken, he didn't oppose abortion even after the child was born. The present Democratic candidates reflect his extremism.
2
@KMurphy There is no such thing as a post-birth abortion. That is a myth.
4
I disagree. There has probably been no better time in which Democrats for once can claim the higher moral ground for promoting CHOICE rather than the punitive measures put forth conservative lawmakers, often against the majority of their own voters.
NO LONGER can conservatives claim higher moral standing by co-opting the term, "pro-life," certainly NOT as they often stand against:
1) providing simple birth control in the first place;
2) expanding Medicaid (even for basic medical care), children's insurance and WIC or other such benefits;
THEN
4) support punishing abortion seekers with jail time, even if other children end up in foster care
5) lack concern for the well-being of those LIVING WOMEN who were raped who might have to remain connected to rapists
6) place a fetus at a higher level than a mother who may die without considering the needs of her other children; and if the mother dies and the fetus has a major deformity, how will the needs of the other children and a preterm infant now be met?
7 a woman who has a miscarriage may be investigated for trying to have an illegal abortion and even jailed in some states.
Pro-choice was NEVER "pro-abortion" (the idea that every woman should have an abortion). It was ALWAYS about recognizing the varied needs--RIGHTS--of different women--those so-called nuances.
Wear's position is too passive to prevent conservatives from eroding women's rights, and is more about the status quo as it were... but he is male after all.
42
What i always find strange : A sad woman on her way to the abortion clinic gets attacked and injured.
“ Pregnant woman attacked, escapes. Baby unhurt”.
The same woman makes it to the clinic: “ Foetus aborted” ?
@Abacus I don't see that usage. Women in the US are only able to obtain an abortion "after viability" (late second trimester through third--the point in which if delivered, preterm infants without severe deformities can usually survive in NICU) in some states if and only if her health is at risk, and usually by women who want desperately to carry a fetus to term and give birth to a healthy baby.
If a woman DOES get into an accident (typically like a car accident), sometimes a woman has to have an emergency c-section at which point she has given birth to a baby.
The woman who arrives at a clinic who has an abortion is said to have "had an abortion," not "aborted a fetus," but the terminology used is partly legal in context. For instance, research is done on "aborted fetal tissue," but not "dead babies." Also, woman who "feel a baby kick" are not saying "I felt my fetus kick." Often they are envisioning birth, have already bought some baby gear and may have a name picked out.
1
No American can be forced to donate blood, bone marrow, organs to another person - including their minor child - even if they are the only available match and the other person will die without the donation.
This is true even if the would be donor recklessly caused the would be recipient's precarious medical state (such as driving drunk, running a red light and causing an accident). Note that a corpse cannot be forced to donate or have its body used in any way to support another without consent.
Additional inconsistencies - the exclusion of embryos created in IVF clinics from the recent abortion legislation (it's ok to flush them) and the strong opposition of the anti abortion groups to contraception and factual sex ed.
25
First, believe that most of those with an opposing view are sincere.
Next, listen to what is being said and explain sincerely how you feel.
Look for ways to make the problem better from both perspectives.
Finally, fully embrace the beauty of democracy and compromise.
17
@Carol Dirahoui People who call themselves "pro-life" (who are actually "pro-forced birth") should not be considered sincere. They don't care about "life" - note that they are the folks who will be horrified at the thought of using their tax dollars to provide health care (including pre-natal care) to pregnant women or babies, and who think that babies born in poor circumstances should rise about those circumstances by "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." Also note that if you talk to one for very long, it will come out that what he/she is really after is making sure that women are punished for having sex. That's what all that talk about 'personal responsibility" is - punish the sl-ts.
1
Michael Wear observes that abortion is “considered by most Americans to be an issue of great moral complexity that our politics has not settled satisfactorily.”
Precisely! Nor is it ever likely to do so. Since abortion is indeed an essentially contestable philosophical, not a religious or even a scientific, conundrum, the possible answers regarding its moral status and justification, as well as the relevant questions, must remain the human right and privilege of each pregnant woman to resolve within her own mind and heart — rather than an issue for state legal disposition or religious diktat.
21
Why has this person with supposed expertise on political messaging eliminated the connection between other public policy and abortion? Namely bills or policies on abortion should include:
- paternal responsibility - all fathers / impregnators must bear their full share of time and effort. Pay up the money, and put in the time from birth to age 18 and beyond.
- state responsibility - the state should support full and free care including prenatal care, health care, food assistance, preschool, special education and therapies for disabled, free K-12 and highly subsidized higher education.
Childbearing doesn't end with the birth. Parenting is lifelong. Restriction abortion spills over to supporting a human life long.
11
I don't think it is wise to adjust one's political views to polling.
Polls are not necessarily accurate, have wide margins of error,
are subject to volatility/change, and do not reflect either a wise or informed electorate.
Substitute "control over one's body" or "equal rights for women" for "abortion" and re-run your polls. Would a Democratic candidate adjust his or her position according
to poll results? Maybe so, but if so, I would not vote for that person.
Abortion is a human rights issue. It is a moral issue. It is a life and death issue. It is a privacy issue. It is a religious issue. Should we legislate access to it according to the latest polls? This absolves us of thinking through the issue and providing the best approach to it. Incentivizing motherhood is probably the best way to reduce abortion. Abortion is seldom the first choice of any pregnant woman. What is holding her back from motherhood? Provide what she needs.
Access to education, a job, a living wage, day care, maternity leave, child tax credit, in a word--support.
Abortion is also a medical procedure for those who need a medical solution.
Politicians should not touch the issue of abortion. They should re-think how to reduce abortions by providing what women need, without taking control over their bodies, decision-making, and futures away from them.
20
If only candidates during the presidential debates would refuse to raise their hands to binary questions, and refuse the to answer questions intended to evoke what may be taken as extreme views. They should collude on this strategy.
17
@M Caplow
The Republicans did something like that in the 2008 primaries.
John King of CNN asked Newt Gingrich about his having an affair with a House aide while he was prosecuting Clinton's impeachment for lying about same.
By the time Gingrich got done tearing King apart the audience was cheering.
Here, finally, is a moderate, nuanced opinion from a progressive that addresses a concern of independent voters like me. It's rare that progressives will understand that reservations about their positions is not mean spiritedness but views of fellow citizens that need to be thoughtfully considered. As a former Democrat, a huge failing of the party is taking the position that you're either with us or against us on all important issues. No in between. It's that kind of extremism that led to the election of Donald Trump.
16
@Alex Indeed, Trump's greatest advantage in running for re-election, aside from the economy, is the prevalence of what I call Henry Clay Democrats - they'd rather be right than be president.
9
Why even buy into the propaganda on the right? Dem. candidates need to change the conversation. Roe v. Wade is under attack, with an endgame of criminalizing abortion in all states. Democrats must challenge conservatives to outline their plan for women in respect to abortion. The reality is that online abortifacient medication is available to women in states where abortion is restricted. There are long term birth control methods, like IUDs, that are considered abortive by religious conservatives. There are morning after pills. There are fertilized eggs in fertility clinics that are regularly destroyed intentionally or accidently. What is the conservative plan in respect to these facts? The abortion issue is nuanced, but the Republican solution doesn't even allow a discussion of the issue.
26
Simply put, it is between the woman and her doctor. There is only other opinions to support partiarchal power; often expressed as religious, ethical, or moral means. There is no "forced birth" option that should not be considered slavery.
26
I don't see any difference between Obama's position on abortion and that of today's Democratic candidates. Obama supported Roe; all of the candidates support Roe. And Roe is a nuanced decision on abortion, balancing the rights of the woman against the rights of the fetus.
I think the author misrepresented Elizabeth Warren's answer--she said that she would leave the decision to the woman and her doctor. Warren supports Roe. She doesn't support abortion on demand throughout pregnancy, nor does Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, or any other candidate.
I think the problem is that late-term abortions have been grossly mischaracterized by the right, as have state laws to protect Roe in Virginia and New York. Some Americans are under the impression that Democrats support aborting a viable fetus, which is obviously false. When a fetus is viable, it is delivered, not aborted. Infanticide is illegal, and it always will be.
The author proposes that Democrats stop opposing TRAP laws intended to close clinics and laws like mandatory ultrasounds and waiting periods designed to put obstacles in the way of abortion. These laws put women in danger by making safe, legal abortions unavailable in many places.
I don't think Democrats have to retreat on abortion, but they can't allow anti-choice propaganda to define them. They need to break through the noise and make their nuanced position clear.
102
This is a profoundly important statement which I would qualify this way: I think the polling data on abortion shows that the American people don't have highly nuanced so much as highly conflicting opinions on abortion. The nuances to me show the conflicts. Most Americans are very fair-minded even eager to support individual rights but have very deep doubts about whether such a right extends to the taking of human life at most or any stages.
And although I worked very hard in several states for the election of Barack Obama I just do not think he and other pro-choice candidates did anything serious to convey the belief that they, too, shared the doubts about Roe v. Wade and its implications and consequences.
The arrogant elitists in the party who defend or straddle the party's obsequious obeisance to its radicals on this issue are someday going to have to realize that the party lost millions of voters a long time ago on this issue. It is just that simple. If Trump wins the next election it will almost certainly wrong to say that the abortion issue was the only cause, but it will be one of the enduring causes of partisan differences that will have given us this result.
8
@David A. Lee
Except that the great majority of Americans support abortion rights. This is not a radical position. Abortion was not criminalized during most earlier American history. That only happened later on in the 19th century, and it was to protect women from botched abortions.
Forcing your own religious views on anyone else, especially about something as personal as abortion, is not very American. While I respect your views, they should only apply to yourself.
11
@SMB I'm sorry, but I just don't agree. And even if a majority of Americans could be brought to wholehearted and fanatical agreement, that wouldn't make abortion moral or legitimate. Our Bill of Rights was established precisely to protect individuals from the wrongs of a majority and to educate the American people against the establishment of a totalitarian state or ideology. The great paradox of all of this is that in ignoring the legitimacy of pre-natal human life, our legal system and our public morality is in profound contradiction with itself. That, at least, is my belief.
1
@David A. Lee
Sorry, but I'm afraid that I've been an "arrogant elitist" for far too long to switch sides to the humble dregs by the next election.
3
Abortion needs to be reframed. Claiming, as Obama did, that it's above his pay-grade, doesn't work. The author quotes many polls, but none show how Obama gained from his abortion stance.
For over two millennia, abortion debates have oscillated between two views. Reasonable abortion discussion centering on how developed an embryo is, and unreasonable opinion of abortion foes driven by patriarchal norms.
It's time to support the reasonable view, not just attack the unreasonable one.
The reasonable view has every reason to rise again. We now know that for at least 10 weeks, the embryo is made of undifferentiated stem cells, that are shunted into place along chemical gradients, without any neurons. At this point this embryonic growth is no different from many other mammal embryos at similar stages. When women get 3-month sonograms that show a large shape, its a magnification of something the size of bean. Rarely is that explained.
Between 15 and 27 weeks neurogenesis occurs. It's reasonable to assume human-ness begins at some point therein. Reasonable people can argue over whether to start restrictions at 10, 15, 25 weeks, or later. Over how limited at first.
Let the patriarchal mob bury their head. Knowledge is on our side. Let's get a hold of this argument.
12
It is ALREADY law that viability which is about 20 weeks is what has been determined to be the most reasonable place. Since until that point the only person who suffers or rejoices in their body of the pregnancy is the woman, And only she and her medical care provider who would be making medical decisions for her that will have lifelong obligations and repercussions.
There isn’t a “reasonable” compromise. We are forcing women to wait for three days and to have invasive unnecessary procedures to shame women who want to access abortion in conservative states. What other public policy are we allowed to say we won’t pay taxes.
The most recent law in Ohio requires that women who are in the middle of ectopic pregnancy crisis not be given priority, but rather focus be given to saving the fertilized egg that is threatening the women’s life and fertility. Even though no such surgery exists, the law states that emergency room doctors are to attempt to implant the egg in the uterus. And because these laws now come with criminal penalties, it will make doctors hesitate in giving women a legal standard of care when they are in emergencies.
The party that wants to strip women of their medical privacy. And think about how such laws would be enforced? Would women have to submit to tests if they leave a state and have a miscarriage? That it’s the liberals who are being presented as the “unreasonable” people is laughable.
31
@Brian Why not just use viability as the standard, except in cases where abortion is medically necessary? Medicine already knows when viability is.
I don’t really understand why people feel so strongly about the contents of somebody else’s womb. To me, the abortion debate is a curious and perplexing aspect of the American psyche. As far as I am concerned, a fetus is a fetus. It has to rights, definitely none that supersede mine. Abortion is contraception by other means; that’s all. I am willing to accept that for some people this is a moral issue, just as I am willing to accept that for pious Hindus eating beef is akin to cannibalism. I understand it intellectually but not emotionally. What I am not willing to accept is the notion that this is the fulcrum of American politics. We are debating fetal “rights” while the planet is burning. In one day of civil war in some place most Americans have never heard about, more actual human dreams and desires are brought to an end than in the work of Planned Parenthood in fifty years. Why do you care about an entity that has the neural capacity of a tadpole and not about real children who are hungry, homeless or abused? Political debates are complicated enough. But it is insulting to the rest of the world to think that their future may be decided by a bunch of small-town American voters affected by a fetus-worshipping religious mania.
164
@Mor -- "I don’t really understand why people feel so strongly about the contents of somebody else’s womb."
They don't.
They think they care about murder, and murder of the helpless.
To resolve this, we must understand what each side is thinking, not just characterize it as how our side sees it.
On this one, a substantial majority does not see it as murder when it is early in the pregnancy. A minority does, and won't change, but enough will compromise on the line of when it becomes murder to get a compromise.
Compromise is the best you're going to get on this. Feelings run too high, about genuine concerns.
You most likely agree about murder. You just don't think all abortions are murders. Well, they do. Find enough who will say, "except when" and call it a win.
17
We HAVE a compromise. Don’t believe in taking birth control. Don’t. Don’t believe in abortion, don’t get one. Only have an abortion after viability in rare medical need. Those are reasonable medical laws of the land. What the right is asking for is unreasonable. Given their supposed loathing of “regulation” think for a moment about the regulatory and police state required to enforce the criminal penalties attached. How would any women prove that she hadn’t terminated a pregnancy? When would the state be allowed to demand private medical information to harm a doctor? How will this limiting of an actual medical tool harm women? And why isn’t that considered “unreasonable” that these people feel that they can enter these women’s lives for the rest of their lives by insisting that any and all pregnancies must be carried to term. That’s an extremely unreasonable standard. And, that IS the standard.
The only “compromise” they’ll accept as is evidenced by the laws in Ohio, Georgia, Louisiana and too many more to name, is when women are not able to access either abortion or birth control.
Note in Texas they said their TRAP laws were necessary to improve the lives and health of women as they doubled the maternal death rate in Texas while it has been declining in the rest of the world. Why isn’t that considered public policy malpractice? If a law acts in complete contravention to what it purported to be: “pro-life.”How can it be successful if it kills women?
52
@Mor
"Contents of somebody else's womb" - surely you do recognize though that pro-lifers believe those "contents" are a human person with the right to life?
"What I am not willing to accept is the notion that this is the fulcrum of American politics."
Well, for better or for worse, it isn't exactly up to you to decide whether this is acceptable. If 40-50% of the country believes there is, in effect, a mass genocide happening, then that's going to be a major political issue no matter what you personally think about it.
"In one day of civil war in some place most Americans have never heard about, more actual human dreams and desires are brought to an end than in the work of Planned Parenthood in fifty years."
Wow, I guess I haven't been following the news very closely - did 50,000,000+ people recently die in a single day somewhere? Surprised I didn't hear about that!
I'd urge you to try to empathize with the pro-life position, and to begin with supposing for a moment that the fetus does have a right to life. If you operate from that premise, everything else about the pro-life movement makes perfect sense. You may disagree with the premise, but surely you can't deny that it's a reasonable line of thinking and that it is genuinely held by many, many millions of Americans.
16
So much has to do with how a position on an issue is phrased. We can support Roe v. Wade, but acknowledge the issue's moral complexity and partial validity of the other side's concern with ending life. Allowing abortion until viability is the right position because the alternative causes more damage to individual women and to society. But, if Mr. Wear's statistics are correct, the public seems to seek a middle ground in recognition of principles espoused by both sides.
3
How about a rule that after the first trimester, the mother must apply to a panel for permission for an abortion. Give guidance as to what criteria the panel should use to make its decision, but early in the second trimester should be routine to grant permission while later in the pregnancy should require a more compelling justification.
As to the polls, has anyone conducted a poll that presents circumstances under which women have had abortions in the third trimester and asked if those abortions should have been permitted by circumstance?
1
@Scott Panels could easily be rigged just like juries. Who gets to make that decision? Who gets to choose those who get to make that decision? Two panels of different compositions could have opposing results.
I'm unaware of a single state that allows abortion unless there exists danger to the mother or if the fetus is expected not to survive outside the womb.
11
@Rhonda A definite risk, but so is the current political situation.
@Scott
No woman needs this. How about you and the government respect women’s autonomy and stay out of this decision?
5
Agree. One hundred percent. What is wrong with saying, I am not pro-abortion or anti-abortion. I am pro-life but unwilling to take or endanger one life to assure the viability of another life in situations that I am unqualified to judge. Within the bounds originally set by Roe v Wade a woman must have the right to decide the fate of her pregnancy.
7
Mr. Wear is correct. Democratic absolutism on this issue will lose votes that the party needs to unseat President Trump. Yes, of course, Republicans are absolutists on this issue but they own the White House and the Senate. Democrats cannot afford to lose voters on this issue by appearing callous toward the unborn. Add this to Democratic absolutism on immigration and the party's seeming lack of interest on issues like China and trade, what you end up with is four more years of Trump. The Supreme Court resulting from four more years of Trump will nullify many Democratic initiatives even if the Dems manage to win the Presidency and both houses of Congress in subsequent elections.
13
@Norm Weaver
I don't think the Republicans are absolutists, as there is a mixture of elected officials who support the status quo, those who want the aggressive new restrictions, and so on, with of course more on the pro-life side. Do the Democratic candidates really want it to be ok for a woman to have an abortion the day before the baby is due just because they feel like it? People like me who are ok with the status quo with its existing limitations find that hard to believe, along with the so-called "partial birth abortions".
3
@Boomer I really wish the myth of the partial birth abortion would simply go away. It does not exist. Late term abortions only happen in the most dire of circumstances and then it effects what is most likely a totally wanted baby. It usually boils down to a decision starting with "both mother and child will die", it's not a "might", it's a will. I would never want to be in that position. But it does happen and is that really where we want government to inject itself? Ever.
73
@Norm Weaver Republicans are absolutists, except when it's their mistress who is pregnant.
3
Michael Wear is forgetting something here. Roe v Wade made abortion legal. It was legal until fetal viability which, in many cases doesn't truly begin until the 7th or even 8th month of pregnancy. Even then the fetus, if delivered, will not survive without some technological interventions. In addition, most doctors will not perform abortions after the 6th month unless there is a compelling argument for one to be done. There are several and none of them are casual.
Roe v Wade doesn't force any woman to have an abortion if she doesn't want to. However, the various laws being enacted and restrictions put in place are forcing women to delay abortions they want or need until they can't have them or have them without spending more money than they can afford. I fail to understand why something that is so private has become everyone's business. And I further fail to understand why this country is so interested in prohibiting abortion while simultaneously making it harder for people to raise children, receive medical care they need, and have decent lives.
It seems that the only thing most anti abortion people are concerned with is the completion of the pregnancy and not what comes later. That is hypocritical in the extreme.
155
@hen3ry If the pro-life were for universal child care and freely available birth control would you then be anti-abortion?
1
@Dr B, no I would not be. It's not your choice or anyone else's choice or decision. It's her body and her decision.
14
What we need is freedom of choice: For every woman to be able to make the choice that best suits her own situation right now, without undue hindrance. No one with a moral objection to abortion is ever forced to have one.
39
@Dr B, forced gestation to full term against the woman's will is slavery.
1
Abortion has bee legal in the Country from 1607 to around 1875 and then from 1973 to present under the Constitution. Even in those years 1875 to 1973 abortion was widely available but too may times unsafely used. The Catholic Church had no doctrine of life begins at conception before 1869.
70% of Americans have religious beliefs that differ from Catholic or ]evangelical beliefs. the SCOTUS has recently held that the "life begins at conception is a "Religious" belief. this should b=mean that religious beliefs should not be part of law under the "Establishment " clause of the First Amendment.
The focus of law should and must be on secular issues which are safety and viability. "Personhood laws are unconstitutional under Roe v Wade and the First Amendment.
Morality differs from person to person and issue to issue. Racism, Inequality, reproductive rights, sexuality issues, war, are all "moral issues" that people have First amendment rights to disagree with others and have their right guaranteed by the First Amendment even if the majority disagrees.
25
Using the author's statistics, over 90% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances--but almost half of registered voters say they support the Hyde Amendment.
Hyde outlaws federal funding for abortion, making the choice of safe, legal abortion available only to those who have private insurance or can afford to pay out of pocket. Like so many other laws, intentionally or not, it discriminates against low-income people, punishing them for the very fact of being poor.
I'm not confident that all voters realize the disparate impact of the Hyde Amendment. Do all its supporters really intend to force poor women seeking abortions to choose between unwanted pregnancies and unsafe abortions--depriving them of the safe abortions available to more affluent women? That question should clarify why Democrats, who champion women's right to choose, must oppose the Hyde Amendment.
18
@Lois I'm not sure everyone knows exactly what the Hyde Amendment is. I only recently found out that it applies to all federal workers, regardless of their income.
14
Well, prior to viability of the fetus outside it's host (the mother), it's a cut and dry issue of obvious moral clarity. After the point of viability, things definitely get murky. This is properly-reflected in the Roe v Wade decision. So I propose we stick with that.
21
The challenge with that approach is that the age of viability outside the mom keeps moving earlier, with infants born at 22 weeks routinely surviving. Further, the fetus is clearly human at 12 weeks (https://www.google.com/search?q=fetus+at+12+weeks&client=safari&rls=en&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=46GGHwcMAtVhZM%253A%252CMk5zgTEmBkN3qM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kQVKhm7mhXpxXLYTB8kOqqmTVbM4g&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj4wK2UrbPjAhVDgp4KHa12CYkQ9QEwDHoECAUQBg#imgrc=5haivu90sVIbjM:&vet=1) and many feel at that point that abortion is repugnant. I suspect the majority of people could accept abortion if performed in the first trimester, but event then the human form is fairly distinct (https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week-9.aspx). The fetus is only an unrecognizable formation of cells for a very short time.
The author says,
"Democrats need to learn from Mr. Trump’s style of politics and name enemies, draw harder lines and callously stoke the animosities that roil Americans’ lives for partisan advantage."
But not when it comes to the abortion issue?
Democratic candidates need to take Obama's approach?
From campaigns in 2007-8 and 2011-12?
A lot has changed since then, including red states emboldened by Trump now changing state laws, eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood facilities and shutting down healthcare facilities that meet women's needs (among other things).
Obama's nuanced approach would be completely lost today, in the echoes of Trump's repetitive, loud lies. That's why the Democratic candidates are going to extremes; they are trying "to learn from Trump's style of politics."
6
There are some things about which one cannot compromise.
As a retired physician I can remember the the young women coming to the hospital with sepsis and kidney failure from a septic abortions, chidren being born to poor mothers with severe anomalies of brain heart and eyes from congenital rubella while well placed women were able to terminate such a pregnancy and innumerable young single lives ruined by an unwanted pregnancy.
I do not care what the polls may or may not say for anyone with a brain knows the answers to polls completely depend on how the questions are phrased.
If I thought that those opposed to women having the absolute right to choose what happens to her body actually cared about a blob of tissue in a uterus I might have some sympathy for their view point.
But the issuer them is not an embryo but terror of female sexuality. Women must be controlled by the fear and risk of pregnancy.
660
@Edward B. Blau You make a point that is rarely made in political discussions about abortion. In our society, the abortion is not made in a vacuum. It is made after women consult with their physicians. Abortion is a healthcare choice even more than a moral choice. Politicians do not have your training and experience, but they are willing to write a prescription for woman.
The Alabama politicians who recently passed their anti-abortion law have made a statement that media refuse to discuss. Their law proudly declares that doctors cannot be trusted to use their training and experience wisely.
52
@Edward B. Blau Abortion is the leading cause of death in the US (estimates vary from 650,000 to 800,000 per year). That number of deaths so greatly exceeds the number of maternal deaths from abortion as to make the comparison non-sensical. Abortion should be safe, legal and very rare, but unfortunately has become the leading method of birth control. It is this cavalier attitude towards human life that the pro-life camp objects to, not women. And as a physician you should know that by 9 weeks the fetus is no longer a blob of tissue in the uterus but a clearly human form (https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/week-by-week/week-9.aspx)
2
@Edward B. Blau
'But the issuer them is not an embryo but terror of female sexuality. Women must be controlled by the fear and risk of pregnancy.'
Let's hope your other diagnoses are more clearly evidence based, less speculative, and possibly more generous.
4
Would any sane woman want to spend an entire day at an abortion clinic if she could use a simple and safe means of birth control to prevent pregnancy in the first place? Abortion, in other western countries, is only employed when contraception fails.
The problem is that the advocates of criminalizing abortion even when the mother's life is in danger, such as the Catholic Church and the Evangelicals, are also advocates of denying women birth-control measures, or making them less accessible by means such as preventing health insurance from covering the same. So we are much closer to the Atwoodian "Handmaid's Tale" nightmare than this article pretends. Apparently in Mr. Wear's case, polling data substitutes for a conscience.
65
@PMN
There is no 100% effective means of birth control. (PS where are the males in the birth control discussion.)
Pregnancy termination may occur after testing discovers major problems with the fetus.
Fear of the future may promote many a termination.
Does it sound better to call it pregnancy termination thereof -- ??!!
The person responsible for the draconian new laws-- should be ostracized and certainly not voted back into office. Public identification of such persons please. One cannot blame Trump for everything. rather sure he doesn't care about abortion except as it serves as a smoke screen for some other scheme.
1
@PMN I don't see the point in attacking Mr. Wear. He simply is the bearer of bad news.
@PMN If birth control was freely and easily available to all, would that change the opinion of any who are pro-abortion?
Rather than the daily opinion pieces fretting about how the Republicans are going to paint our candidates as extremists - which they will do in any event, how about some real support for them instead?
None of the Democratic candidates is "pro abortion." Not one. So, write about that. Also write about how the Democratic candidates' policies will reduce unplanned pregnancies, and improve the safety and health of all Americans - even those who can't afford to travel abroad for an abortion.
The reality is that late-term abortions are rare. Democratic voters and millions of Americans who are not yet registered to vote understand that abortion is a decision that involves their own values and best judgment; if they don't want an abortion, they won't have one.
Democrats will not win by waffling on access to abortion, throwing LGBT people under the bus, going small on taxing the ultra-rich, or anything else that happens to displease Republicans. The one-issue voter who has a problem with other people's reproductive decisions is far outnumbered by voters who expect Democrats to support reproductive choice, as small but important part of comprehensive, affordable health care.
And given that so many Americans do not currently have comprehensive, affordable health care, it is beyond ridiculous for anyone in the media outside Fox News to focus late-term abortions.
58
I am 57 years old. I haven’t gone through menopause. My husband has Lewy Body Dementia. I’m the CEO of a company that I founded that supports about 200 people 90% of whom are from marginalized, underserved communities or whom rate very high on the children of adverse child experiences scale. I’m a black woman who suffers from C-PTSD due to having my body being evidence of a felony until I was 5 years old. Said laws being promulgated by the very forces who want to deny me access to a patient doctor privacy and a legal standard of healthcare.
If I were to get pregnant there is no way that my body could handle the strain of carrying to term and most likely I'd miscarry anyway, which would be harder on my body than terminating an unwanted potential fetus.
Despite the false narrative, women rarely use abortion for birth control. We use it ONLY if birth control or something else goes wrong. 92% of abortions are in the first 12 weeks. The remaining 8% are when women are in the medical distress of their lives.
You are asking me to give up my right to control my body, my health, my life, my relationship with my doctor. You believe you have the right to destroy my ability to meet my obligations because of someone else’s anti-scientific beliefs that I do not share and believe to be silly and immoral. Why again should I compromise? They have NOTHING TO LOSE by our position and I have EVERYTHING TO LOSE with theirs.
559
@WordsonfireGreat comment. Thank you.
20
@Wordsonfire Abortion is the leading cause of death in the US, with estimates varying from 650,000 to 800,000 per year (Planned Parenthood). Women use abortion frequently and repeatedly for birth control, which is what the pro-life crowd finds so repugnant. But the pro-life crowd does believe women should have the right to control their body, and that control includes avoiding intercourse, as such method of birth control has failed only once in the last 2000 years (according to Christians).
2
@Dr B Since you have to lie to make your point, isn't it obvious, even to you, that you don't have a point at all?
38
Considering the age we are living in, it's more than a little disconcerting to hear someone from the Obama administration advise Democrats to start compromising on the issue of women's rights, which is truly, in the end, what he is talking about.
Almost as bad, writer Michael Wear starts with the idea that we should be more "nuanced" about the issue, equating the declaration that all people get to do what they choose with their own bodies to be a Trump-like "tone-deaf, incoherent stridency."
He seems to be unaware that Duakais, Gore, Kerry and Hillary tried explain complex ideas in a ninety-second debate format and they all lost.
Barack Obama let American voters know he would protect a women's right to choose and left it at that. The result is history.
So, we'll keep our pro-choice talking points simple and in keeping with the same principles we have held onto for the five decades since this was decided in the Supreme Court.
48
It never ceases to amaze me that some males have the hubris to try to tell us women what needs to be done about abortion.
My personal views on abortion are none of anyone else's business, and other women’s views are none of mine. Pro or con is a religious question, and therefore there should be no government stance whatsoever.
This is a medical issue between a woman and her doctor, period. I think most Americans feel this way. To accuse Democrats of being or appearing to be « pro-abortion » in a simplistic manner is insulting at best.
If you wish to help Democrats, try listening instead of offering unwanted advice, and keep your religious opinions to yourself.
90
@Terro O’Brien
Do you believe that only men should be able to make political decisions related to issues that primarily affect men, such as issues of war (whether to have a draft)? Should female Vietnam War protesters have stayed home because they didn't have the right to an opinion on that topic? More broadly, should people only have the right to hold opinions on issues that directly affect them? Significant portions of the populace would not be able to vote on matters of taxation, or on immigration, or on Medicare or Medicaid.
Do you recognize that the pro-life argument is that there is another person involved in all of this? If they're right, then abortion is a situation much like murder, in which the government plays a clear role in defending the right of its citizen to live. It is not enough to say that the government shouldn't have a role in such a situation, without disproving the premise that there is a victim whose rights are violated.
To say that "this is a medical issue between a woman and her doctor, period" is to say that there ought to be no restrictions at all on abortion, outside of the woman's decision with the guidance of her doctor. Most Americans do not support unrestricted abortion up until birth, which is what this implies.
6
@Terro O’Brien Slave owners made the same argument to citizens in the free states.
3
I may remember this incorrectly, but as I recall when Elizabeth Warren was asked about abortion restrictions she did not say she could not name one. She said something to the effect that it should be between a woman and her doctor. As it should be.
Why should the state intervene between a woman and her doctor when it comes to making a medical decision?
According to the times, Joe Biden earlier has said that he did not believe abortion is a choice or a right. Indeed, earlier than that he said that a woman shouldn’t have the “sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
No one is making anyone end a pregnancy, but a woman and her doctor should have the right to make that personal medical decision, just as Warren said.
This is not a decision that should be left to Donald Trump, Joe Biden or others such as Michael Wear.
49
Re: "If a Democratic presidential nominee held and communicated views that reflected the median Democratic voter, that nominee would support and defend Roe v. Wade, but express moral reservations about abortion itself."
John Kerry tried that approach, in the second of the debates with George W. Bush. The unilateral response was, "That is not possible." The anti-choice movement is utterly unable to consider nuance in what is definitively a nuanced situation. Now that they are making headway with abortion, the leaders are already making noises about birth control.
Perhaps the real problem is not the Democratic response, but the Republican/Conservative/Religious Right's inability to consider anything but complete adherence to their political/religious philosophy of enslaving women.
22
@Alle C. Hall
Dems should defend a womans' right to chose.They should also then state that they support programs that lower abortion rates.Examples would be easier access to all forms of BC for women and men.They should also state their continuing support for programs like Pre K,better pre and post natal care,paid parental leave for when a woman has a child,an improvement in WIC,food stamps,etc,etc.
The dems have let repubs define the issue and dems should work hard on changing this.Nobody wants a woman to have an abortion all sane people want is for a woman to have the choice and ultimate control of her body.
I don't really have anything to add to the discussion about abortion, as such, except that everyone who thinks it's an easy question should read _The Cider House Rules_.
But I have a strong opinion about campaigning by opinion poll and focus group. I believe that's part of what helped Hillary Clinton lose the election. Politicians should have nuanced opinions, but more important, they should /have/ opinions. Not just, "vote for me because I'm likeable."
"Safe, legal, and rare," which other commenters have mentioned, strikes me as a good minimal standard for Democratic candidates. (I guess that's ambiguous. What I mean is, a Democratic presidential candidate should support women's right to choose unconditionally, and may, perhaps, also offer personal opinions about when, if ever, he thinks abortion is a /wise/ choice. For example, a candidate might say "I'm Catholic and, as such, I think abortion is always wrong -- but it should still be safe and legal." If I were running, though, I'd stop at "safe, legal, and rare.")
It's easy to make up hypothetical hard choices, like the ones philosophy professors enjoy, on this subject. Imagine a debilitating birth defect that will lead to a child's death within a year, that's not discoverable in the fetus until the day before birth. Candidates should not try to split such hairs; they should say "if I were pregnant and that case arose, it would be a hard choice for me. But it should be my choice."
16
@Brian Harvey
Supposedly Hillary lost the election because more people in the decisive marginal states e.g. OH voted for Jill Stein than Hillary.. I don't know if that assertion is true. Trump was very surprised.. Oh those polls!
Right-wing evangelical voters will vote for Trump and his Republican colleagues regardless of what the Democrats say or do. They are not persuadable, no matter what particular language is used by Democrats, and in the absence of catastrophe they are not open to changing their allegiances. Voters who claim to be agnostic regarding Republicans or Democrats, but will always vote against a candidate who supports ANY abortion, will also vote for the Republicans. How many people does that leave? The fact that the author of this article adopts Republican 'framing' of the abortion issue while aiming an appeal to Democrats suggests to me that his concerns will never be satisfied completely by any Democratic candidate, including President Obama. Also, please stop blaming the Democrats for electing Trump. We can all come up with imaginary scenarios where Democrats fail to pull off the correct 11-dimensional chess maneuver and lose a victory that was assured, based on any number of issues aside from abortion on down the line, but the author's assumption re Trump's 'best chance' is unwarranted. I know of no evidence that proves any presidential election was ever decided by votes over abortion. And if you want to play hypotheticals, how about the likely effects of a Republican Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade? If abortion rhetoric makes you vote for Trump, then you were never really against Trump.
19
Unfortunately, this article chides Democrats for not campaigning according to polling, rather than facts.
Thy Hyde amendment was passed knowing it would specifically deny a medical service to poor women. I’ve seen polls that show support drops when asked about the Hyde amendment based in discrimination by denying medical services to poor people.
Waiting periods and hospital privileges may be supported when asked the simple question but education on these obstacles decreases their support.
Democrats need to educate the public and change the messaging. Republicans are experts at framing the message with sound bites and rhetoric (often misleading). We need to do the same, not just kowtow to poll results based in their messaging.
14
Unwanted pregnancies should be prevented. If the GOP was sincere about abortion, they would promote family planning and sex education. Instead, the topics are a lightening rod. Abortion use declines with contraceptives and knowledge. Women can make good choices without public or government intervention.
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@FreedomRocks76 If birth control was freely and easily available to all, would that change the opinion of any who are pro-abortion?
@FreedomRocks76 "... Abortion use declines with contraceptives and knowledge..."
And even more, pregnancies (surely including unwanted ones!), decline with economic opportunity for women.
4
I’m reminded of RBG’s very clear statement in her confirmation hearing that she would not indicate in any manner, not a wink nor a nod, how she might rule on a case that would come before the court. That would be unacceptable to Democrats today. So, they would reject her. Imagine that. Supporters of President Trump pray fervently that each Democratic candidate for president stays very strong on their extreme party of death position on abortion. From legal, safe and rare to just another outpatient procedure. Let the voters be heard.
7
@Reader In SC
Nonsense. The Republicans since Reagan have been consistently vetting their federal court nominations for right-wing views, before hearings, so they don't have to ask about specific decisions, and when their candidates are asked, e.g., whether they respect precedent, they lie.
1
"Make sure you don't believe in anything that doesn't have majority support in the polls," is the advice of this writer to our presidential candidates. Maybe the lesson of the polls is that the Democratic Party has not yet done a sufficiently good job of arguing for a woman's ownership of her own body, even if she's pregnant. There would seem to be work to be done. Every man in this country would, I should think, insist that he owns his own body, and the government has no business telling him what to do with it. The only exceptions we approve of are when you're in prison, and when you're in uniformed service. Otherwise, we likely all agree that each of us is sovereign over our own bodies. To say that government has the right to limit the right to an abortion is to say that the moment a woman conceives her body becomes government property, as if she were in prison or in uniform. Democrats should make the case as strongly as possible that this is unacceptable. And surely there are conservatives who also believe in bodily autonomy who would agree.
29
@AW Except not all Democrats agree with this position. The fact that a woman can get pregnant and usher a wholly separate, independent life into this world, while an imposition on her bodily autonomy, is also a reality for women of reproductive age capable of getting pregnant. The question of when you believe that separate life becomes independent is a matter for debate, but what this article indicates, is that most people believe it becomes independent, a "life" of its own, at some point in utero. The bodily autonomy argument has as much integrity as the 'life begins at conception' argument - both are flawed, and its the nuance in between that we all need to discuss concretely to find a ground we can all, ideally, imperfectly, stand on. I am absolutely pro-choice, and I would absolutely support restrictions. I would also like to see free birth control, free reproductive, maternal and infant care, free pregnancy tests, and a host of other policies that could prevent pregnancy, make early discovery possible, and make reproductive care - including for unwanted but necessary late term abortions - available across the full spectrum of choices.
13
@Jessica There are several questions: when do you believe human life begins? do you believe that there's something immoral about aborting either a fetus or a human life (assuming you differentiate between these two, based on when you think viability occurs)? and should the government decide how a woman uses her body? As Wittgenstein said, any chronological explanation is essentially arbitrary in the point at which it begins, so the question of when human life begins is essentially undecidable. You can assert that it begins at conception, at some level of neural development, at viability, at birth -- it's a definitional question (what is the definition of the term "human life?") rather than a scientific or even philosophical debate. But it is separate from whether you think the government should take ownership over a woman's body at some point during pregnancy. When you say you would support restrictions, you are saying you think it appropriate that at some point in a pregnancy the government take ownership of a woman's body. Why do you think so?
@Jessica The time of viability is well known and hasn't changed since Roe vs. Wade. Which, BTW, has restrictions. "Life" is just another word for "the soul," and many people don't even believe the soul exists. Let's stick to known medical facts.
1
"express moral reservations about abortion itself; offer openness to additional restrictions on abortion, including a ban on late-term abortions with limited exceptions; and call for a set of policies with the purpose of reducing the abortion rate in America" The Democratic candidates should copy and paste this quote into their speeches the way I just did if they want to demonstrate their openness for a discussion with the voters about abortion. That discussion is a very important marker on the path to gaining victory in 2020.
13
Women do not have late term abortions for kicks and giggles. They have them because their babies will be born with no kidneys, brains or other organs so they will suffer and die within hours or days of birth.
They don’t want to watch their babies die.
If they didn’t want the baby, they would have aborted early on. All late term bans do is make sure babies and their parents suffer.
Then there are the women whose babies die in the womb and would be forced by these laws to carry a corpse for weeks. That isn’t good for the women or any children they might have in the future. But conservatives believe women’s lives should be sacrificed for their religious beliefs. A woman’s life is always less valuable than the career of a male politician.
6
It would help a great deal if the polls were not simplistic. When one's choice is YES or NO, there is no room for nuance in answering. One can hold have the a nuanced view, such as:
1. Not wanting more abortions than medically necessary. It's a lousy form of birth control.
2. Not being willing to restrict other women's autonomy to do what they feel is right for their situation.
I'd be thrilled to celebrate the end for the need for abortion, but it is also a perfectly normal part of the gestation process. Not usual after the first trimester, but normal. We're not going to legislate ourselves away from that reality.
In practice, third-trimester abortions happen rarely, and as with the whopping yearly 7 or so very-late-term ones, are almost always from death inside the womb, or non-viable development of some kind.
Not my place to decide for other people. They should have the option, even over my concerns .
174
Regarding abortion, as well as other key issues, Republicans are much more united and disciplined than are the Democrats. Their messaging tends to be simple with little variations among candidates, whereas Democrats tend to drift into long explanations with considerable variations among candidates. It seems that the more the Democrats talk about abortion, the less chance they have of winning.
10
@William
Pretty easy when the singular goal is to punish the poor and transfer money upward to the super rich. And that is all the anti-choice laws do. The rich can do anything, the poorer will have their abortion, legal or not, and pay economic penalties the rich never have to think about.
46
@gratis
"Single" goal. But that's two goals. I propose there are three: empower the repressive apparatus both domestically (police, ICE) and abroad (our military).
5
@William Perhaps you cannot fathom what it's like to be told you have no control over your body. To me, this issue is about civil rights. Deciding not to talk about it will not make the issue go away. I want my vote to go to the person who respects my decisions and will not equivocate on this extremely important issue of autonomy.
29
So, at least for the moment, a woman's right to choose an abortion, despite some narrowing by Supreme Court rulings, is protected under the Constitution. The author seems to be saying that because sizeable segments of the population favor restricting that right, the Democratic candidates should follow suit and advocate such things? Suppose, instead, that sizeable segments of the population favored some kind of segregation? Would the author be advocating that the Democratic candidates take a nuanced view of this right, a view that might result in it getting narrowed? When the Democratic Party starts advocating narrowing existing constitutional rights because people can't think enough on their own to fact check our compulsively lying President, I fear the country is already past the point of saving.
75
President Obama had Cecile Richards, Planned Parenthood's president at the time, sitting in public view during his presidential convention. Planned Parenthood was and still is the largest abortion provider in the country. I would question that he was moderate on the issue. The lowering of abortion rates was due to the active participation of pro life groups campaigning against abortion. They were successful in their endeavors of seeing fewer abortions take place.
The Democratic presidential candidates are playing to their liberal base who want abortion to be readily available with no restrictions. Remember they have all said it is a woman's choice and her body. They also mentioned she is the one to make the decision on whether she should abort her baby and not the government's. These candidates do not want to disappoint their base and possibly lose support.
What these Democratic candidates are doing is turning away more moderate and conservative voters who want some restrictions and even those who are against abortion. More people are in this camp than are those who want abortion for any reason and at any time. If they do not change this message, they are very likely not to win the presidency. They had better make up their minds as to what is more important to them. Is it to appease the progressives or to alienate the more middle of the road voters and lose?
7
Obama allowed an office of faith based initiatives in the White House. And pretty sure almost all of those "faith based initiatives really weren't 'faith based' but rather CHRISTIAN BASED.
That you don't know that this is a very conservative position says that you don't really know where the "center" is and expect everyone to be as extreme about denying women access to medical privacy.
18
@KMW There are already HUGE RESTRICTIONs on abortions. All over the country, it's the law that you can't have one after viability unless there is a medical reason.
It's a complete fiction that there aren't already very rational restrictions backed up by science that limit access to abortiton.
This is about one group of people restricting access to ALL abortions and ALL birth control. Nothing more and nothing less. Any compromise just results in another demand.
That a woman can't leave the state to go to another state where it is legal. That you have 3 day waiting periods and to be sexually assaulted for no medical reason at all and to pay for the expense of a vaginal ultrasound that is just a state sanctioned rape.
There is no ability to compromise with those who want to punish women and their doctors.
It is not a "middle of the road" position to say that if a women is in distress that it isn't up to her and her doctor to make a decision but rather the police or someone outside the room who gets to determine if they "committed a crime."
37
@KMW
Abortion rates have been declining due to improved contraception methods (implants and IUDs) and plan B. As you appear to be anti abortion I would hope you support women's access to reliable and affordable birth control.
6
"Safe, legal, and rare."
And as somebody named Howard, I point out to the author of this column whose name is Michael, that "safe, legal" cannot be compromised.
Support for birth control is one of two key moves if you want to make abortion "rare." Being willing to support parents after a pregnancy is carried to term and a baby has been born is the other key move.
I'd gladly vote for any Democrat who makes these points in this way. But not for "let's make some exceptions and enforce them, especially against poor women and women of color."
98
Neither for nor against abortion but I am vehemently opposed to POLITICIANS having anything to do with this highly personal question. It would be nice if society provided support (medical, financial and psychological) for all people in difficult situations.
174
@Larry Oswald
Substitute "abortion" for any other activity there, and you'd recognize that your position is indeed support for it.
"I'm neither for nor against marijuana use but I am vehemently opposed to POLITICIANS having anything to do with this highly personal question." - Okay, so you support marijuana legalization!
"I'm neither for nor against prostitution but I am vehemently opposed to POLITICIANS having anything to do with this highly personal question." - Okay, so you support legalizing prostitution!
"I'm neither for nor against gun ownership but I am vehemently opposed to POLITICIANS having anything to do with this highly personal question." - Okay, so you are in favor of legal gun ownership!
Stating this "politicians should stay out of this issue" position effectively means "this activity should be legal."
@Alex
False equivalency, much?
Abortion directly effects only ONE member of society; every example you list effects ALL of society.
5
I believe in a woman’s right to control her own body. Absolutely!
But, I also can not come to grips with the notion that a human life only exists after the arbitrary moment that it exits the womb.
So... it’s complicated and nuanced. Perhaps it is my weakness of moral thinking that I can not reconcile these two powerful ideas. But neither has our moral leadership done so.
I’m a man and to many women that makes my opinion less legitimate. I do make a lifelong commitment to the humans who are conceived of my sperm as well as several others whose fathers could not make that commitment. It’s the best I can do. 33 years so far and loving every minute of it.
So... with a certain degree of uncertainty, I feel the law should permit women to have early abortions as a last resort without interference. Late abortions where the mother’s life is endangered or where the fetus is no longer viable should be legally available subject to normal medical ethics review. But most important, as a society we need to destigmatize sex, sex education, birth control, and adoption, all being simple and effective alternatives to abortion.
But to the author’s point, I vote. I’d like to find a Democratic candidate with a plan for this.
12
@Tone This is exactly what the law states now. No one is allowed to have an abortion after fetal viability.
https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-policies-later-abortions
1
@Tone, you evidently support Roe v Wade (no restrictions in the early months, state-imposed restrictions after 20 weeks, abortion under limited circumstances after 24 weeks). I think your position lines up with that of the Democratic candidates. Several Democratic candidates have plans to make long-term reversible contraception (IUDs) affordable to every woman. Please read the plans of Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and John Hickenlooper.
4
True it is that abortion is a decision of "great moral complexity", which is exactly why it is such an abomination to advocate that the state take that decision out of the hands of individual women, except at the point that no one even disputes it, when the fetus becomes viable.
What is personal freedom if it does not include the uncontested right to make difficult choices on the basis of one's conscience and beliefs?
The real question is not subtle: should pregnancy immediately turn a woman into a second-class citizen with fewer rights than she had before she became pregnant, or is her moral agency a basic right that deserves to be protected?
305
@Bill Levine Evangelicals argue that--at the moment of conception--a human being is created. And that new being has rights.
Whether they're right or wrong, evangelicals will vote on the basis of that belief every time. It trumps economics, and most other issues. If Democrats want to guarantee some version of Trump/McConnell indefinitely, keep doing what they have been doing.
15
@vermontague But do Evangelicals think the solution is for women to die in illegal abortions, for doctors and women seeking abortion to go to prison? One can make moral decisions for oneself, but to impose those philosophies on others on pain of prison? I just doubt there will be fewer abortions if they get their way. Less safe, for sure. I remember the fifties and sixties.
26
@vermontague Are you advocating for Dem candidates to state they are against abortions at any time or circumstance in order to gain evangelical votes?
6
All nice, manly points. But until YOU have been pregnant, and especially nearly Died from complications, YOU have NO skin in this game. I’m tired of having to defend the absolute right for any Woman to save her own life, by having an Abortion. It’s really simple: Are we Livestock, or actual living, breathing Humans ?
THAT is the question.
773
@Phyliss Dalmatian
There's broad support for legal abortion to save the life of the mother, over 80%, as surveys show.
.
The question that the author asked was whether it is wise for all of the Democrats to support unfettered abortion on demand, with taxpayer funding, throughout a pregnancy. There's only 18% support for that position, but that seems to be the litmus test for Democratic presidential candidates.
.
It's not a question of my experience, your experience, or the author's experience. It's a question of balancing the rights of the mother to control her body vs. the rights of the fetus before birth. Most Americans don't regard that as an easy question, and favor some limited rights for the fetus. That includes most women.
62
@Phyliss Dalmatian
I was once subject to a military draft during a problematic war and you were not. Should American foreign policy have been decided solely by a committee elected only by people subject to the draft during those days?
If I read Roe v. Wade correctly, the court thought that early in a pregnancy society did not have a sufficient interest in the welfare of the fetus to overcome the interests and choices of the pregnant woman; but as the fetus developed further society’s interest became substantial enough to take into account. Do you agree that this fairly describes the court’s analysis in Roe v Wade and, if it does, do you disagree with the court’s analysis?
Under Roe v Wade, if I’ve described it correctly, there are many arguments on the prochoice side that I find convincing when directed towards the question whether a woman and her doctor should be able to decide an abortion is in order after the first trimester because of an articulated concern about the woman’s health or a significant birth defect. I’m persuaded it’s rare for a woman to seek an abortion after the first trimester for reasons unrelated to her health or the health of the fetus, and see no reason not to generally presume the woman and the doctor are telling the truth when they articulate the concern.
But I don’t agree that society has no interest whatsoever in the welfare of the fetus until the moment of viability.
40
@Tom Meadowcroft, but the author misrepresents the positions of Democratic candidates. I can't think of a single candidate who believes in unfettered abortion on demand throughout pregnancy. All candidates support Roe, which is a nuanced position.
Trump and the right will try to paint Democrats as supporting abortion on demand right up until birth, but this is a red herring, very similar to Trump's misrepresentation of Democrats as supporting open borders.
153
It's one thing to be strongly pro-choice and quite another to be 'pro-abortion.' It's easy to persuade oneself and others that it's the absolute right of the woman to manage her pregnancy, perhaps with the advice of her physician. It's quite another thing, and more difficult to accept that a person can trivialize a pregnancy to the point where an abortion is treated with the same flippancy as getting a hair-cut. Perhaps, the 'pro-abortionists' are a small but significantly vocal group. But Democrats and progressives would be wise not to associate with such militant language.
16
@Cynical I just clicked "Recommend" on your comment, because "pro-choice" shouldn't be confused with "pro-abortion." But you go on to say that Democrats shouldn't associate with pro-abortion militant language. I have never heard "pro-abortion" language from /anyone/, certainly not from any of the Democratic candidates for president. That word "pro-abortion" is used only by Republicans trying to smear Democrats. Some people, including me, are "pro-abortion-rights," which is the same as "pro-choice." Even to say "abortion should always be legal up to the moment of birth," which none of the candidates has said, is not the same as "abortion should be ENCOURAGED up to the moment of birth," or the same as "abortion IS A GOOD IDEA up to the moment of birth." Nobody says those things.
25
@Cynical If a person makes any difficult decision according to her needs, whether it is related to abortion or not, I don't believe she should then spend years agonizing over an action that is now a done deal. It's healthier to move on.
6
@Cynical
You might be surprised how militant it is likely to get when district attorneys begin prosecuting women and gynecologists for the homicide of a fetus.
4
This old Democrat, one that has been voting for president since John Kennedy squared off against Richard Nixon, thinks you have provided some very prudent advice for the candidates. Hope they are listening.
However, I wish candidates and commentators would quit identifying opposition to abortion as the ONLY pro-life issue. It is not. Health care is a pro-life issue; protecting the environment is a pro-life issue; the death penalty is a pro-life issue; a living wage and unemployment are a pro-life issues; affordable housing is a pro-life issue; gun violence is a pro-life issue; treatment of refugees and immigrant children and their parents at our borders is a pro-life issue; maintaining peace is a pro-life issue.
We have structures in society that are the antithesis of pro-life that need to be addressed by the Democratic candidates. Democrats, I fear, have let the Republicans define pro-life, and that, in my opinion, is a fatal flaw, one that can give Trump another four years and imperil the "government of the people, by the people, for the people."
310
@Robert Stewart
A wonderful idea to have Democrats expicitly enumerate all the pro-life issues you pose and have them run on those.
13
@Robert Stewart
Absolutely! When someone says they are “pro life” l want to know where they stand on capital punishment, war, homelessness, gun control and access to health care. If they don’t stand up on those life threatening things, they are not pro life, they are for control of women.
25
@Robert Stewart
So well stated Robert. Nobody is "pro-abortion"! But yes, the right to choose! For women too.
Why is the demand for "pro-life" so limited to women -when dismissing all the problems you pointed out are never found on a GOP platform? Or shown as a concern by “pro-birthers”?
Apparently, some people can look at a father and daughter, drowned in a river and the tears of a devastated mother and proclaim: Their fault, they should not have come...!! Send ICE!! How cruel can these mendacious, righteous, hypocrites get?
12
I am a little uncomfortable with the polling data cited by Mr. Wear. While I'm not personally familiar with the methodology of the polls he references, I do know that polling questions can be subtly slanted to influence respondents' answers.
Once Mr. Wear's piece is digested, a two things seem clear.
Democrats' position on abortion should be carefully calibrated to avoid attack by their political opponents. I see nothing inherently moral or admirable in this stance.
While not calling for an end to legal abortion, Democrats should support restricting the right of women to make the decision that is best for them in order that other people may be made comfortable with decisions that are none of their business.
Doesn't sound appealing to me.
80
In my state, Missouri, the Democratic party has made it clear that those who oppose abortion are not welcome in their party. As most of my political contribution budget goes to Democrats for Life, that leaves me in a difficult position. I can imagine compromise positions on abortion that would be—let’s say less intolerable than what the Democratic candidates demand. But even those views aren’t to be expressed if you’re a Missouri Democrat. This extreme position hasn’t done the party any good electorally. Democrats could win elections all across the state when I moved here 30-some years ago. They can’t now.
13
@Brian Abel Ragen: In your state women can now more easily win a lottery than they can have an abortion. I guess that means that pro-choice Americans are not welcome there. Democrats aren't looking to force anyone to share their views on reproductive choice: if a woman wants to carry a fetus to term that's just fine. So why are Republicans trying to impose THEIR views on those women who don't- or can't? And, by the way, if that one last abortion clinic in St. Louis is ultimately closed down, where are your state's women to go if their own lives are imperiled by continuing on with the pregnancy?
159
@Brian Abel Ragen I somehow doubt that the inability of Democrats to win elections in Missouri can be solely attributed to the party's position on abortion.
4
@Brian Abel Ragen: Why do you think any Democrat is "pro-abortion?" or is not "pro-life?" I'm all for healthy children who are wanted and loved being brought into this world. What I am against is someone trying to tell me what to do with my body just because I have a fertilized egg gestating inside of me. If more Americans were more knowledgeable about science in general and female reproduction in specific, with the GOP's push for 46 years to politicize and weaponize a most private medical issue, and how rare abortions are beyond three months, this wouldn't even be an article in any news media.
Also, if you were told, as a man, that you had to have a mandatory vasectomy until you are ready to have children because some religious people and certain government types insist that it become law, how would you feel about that?
6
I agree with the basic thrust of your op-ed.
Our messaging is becoming ever more strident (in any number of areas), and this stridency could well work against us electorally going forward (even if we do manage to defeat the worst President in modern American history). For instance, voters who wish to dump Trump but also hedge their bets could choose to split their tickets, electing a Democratic President but keeping the Senate in GOP hands.
I argue that Democrats need to exhibit greater emotional moderation in this campaign - which involves acknowledging the nuances of every complicated issue, and thus allowing to Americans to feel as if their concerns are being heard.
I fully support a woman's right to choose - but also believe that men need to do a better job keeping women from being put into situations where a later-term abortion is the only feasible option (inasmuch as no woman can get pregnant in the ordinary course of events without the participation of a man).
We win electorally on this issue by emphasizing the mantra "rare but legal' - and then doing everything in our power to turn that mantra into a reality, through dramatically enhanced access to contraception, expanded parental leave, etc.
I would go so far as to argue that if we're going to become strident on any issue, it should be on expanded access to contraception - even if that requires clubbing the Catholic Church over the head with the mantra that Freedom of Religion requires Freedom from Religion.
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@Matthew Carnicelli Considering how increasingly strident the Republicans have become on this issue (and others) why is it the Democrats' job to be moderate?
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@Matthew Carnicelli
'...but also believe that men need to do a better job keeping women from being put into situations where a later-term abortion is the only feasible option...'
Late term abortions are never an 'option.' They are always medically necessary.
While I agree that men need to take more responsibility to ensure against an unintended pregnancy, no woman needs a man to tell her what she can and cannot do with her body.
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@Frances Grimble
Perhaps because our political messaging is not working?
If the Supreme Court allows it, women could lose access to legal abortion in a bunch of states - and this Court could become even more conservative between now and the end of Trump's term.
We're not winning the war of ideas on this issue, at least not on a national basis.
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I don’t think there are very many people who think there is no moral complexity about abortion—least of all women who need or have or consider abortions. But that’s a moral, not a political issue. The political question is this: why is there a political issue? Do you honestly believe there are that many women who feel they need Mr. Trump to decide whether they should, in whatever situation they might find themselves, have an abortion? Once you, or your pollsters, start asking when the government should overrule the woman's decision, you've created a false dilemma for people, tricking them into putting their nose in other people's business when they would never accept other people doing the same to them.
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@Martin
Yes, that's the privacy argument. Most Americans feel that's only part of the story.
A few feel that a fetus has full rights from the moment of fertilization, but many more feel that a fetus has rights that gradually grow from nothing at the moment of conception to full rights at the moment of birth.
Most Americans do not view a fetus as an appendage with no rights until the moment it emerges from the birth canal and instantly changes into a baby with full rights.
If the fetus has rights which grow over the period of gestation, those rights have be be balanced with the mother's right to autonomy.
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@Martin absolutely and well said.
I am definitely PRO-LIFE in any practical and REAL ethical sense!
That is a to say I firmly believe in and support a person's almost supreme right to live life as they choose.
To protect themselves, seek their happiness, correct their mistakes, have control over their relationships and own bodies!
Real PERSONS have "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted".
And that means Government has an obligation to protect a person's sovereignty of person-hood, their privacy, autonomy, and freedom to act and make choices.
OF COURSE THEIR ARE BOUNDS! Any sane person would recognize and accept the major ones. I do!
But here is what this loving grandparent knows:
Fetuses when 90+% of abortions are done are NOT equivalent to persons. Do the "fire in factory dilemma" - choice: save 1M fertilized growing embryos or ONE 5 year old.
Abortions as normally done are not as dangerous to a woman as carrying to term and delivery. Denying Choice forces a woman into less safe states.
Almost every cell we have could given the right environment/nurturing form into a human. We're not technologically there but maybe someday. What rules against "life" will we impose them?
Maybe someday medical science can as safely as abortion extract any fetus live and then society nurture it womb to tomb - sans the woman - go for it over today's abortion. Not there yet!
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@Tom Meadowcroft. as they are with Roe.
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It is one thing to respectfully acknowledge discomfort with abortion, but entirely another to allow the criminalization of the procedure.
Democrats would do well to address that ambivalence first by advocating strategies which reduce unwanted pregnancies, including family planning and thorough sex ed, secondly by reminding voters that access to safe, legal abortion is in itself a matter of protecting women’s lives.
Reducing the abortion rate by reducing the need for abortion is something we should all be able to support. And if Democrats don’t speak to the unease with abortion, the long term result may well be more lifetime Supreme Court appointments of anti-choice judges, more anti-choice legislators in Congress and in state capitals. That would be a travesty.
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If yesterday's opinion piece on how politicians don't care what constituents think is true, the arguments stated here however clearly are largely irrelevant. Mr. Trump wants to appeal to his base, who represent a minority point of view on abortion, while Democrats are largely advocates of choice (it is always a misnomer to call this position "pro-abortion").
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