While I was gone I barely had time to take a look at this Slate article by William Saletan--I actually only saw it because I was trying to find the link to Harajuku girls--but even though I'm a little late, I highly recommend it. Saletan analyzes a speech that Senator Clinton gave on abortion last week. Regardless of your opinion on the matter, I think if you're interested in the future of American politics, you should take a look.
She began by talking about Romania and China, two regimes that in the last two decades forced women to abort (in China's case) or not to abort (in Romania's case) pregnancies. . .It's hard for Americans to remember abortion bans here, much less imagine them today. What China and Romania illustrate is the ugly mechanics of turning anti-abortion morality into law. "Once a month, Romanian women were rounded up … taken to a government-controlled health clinic, told to disrobe while they were standing in line … [and] examined by a government doctor with a government secret police officer watching," Clinton recalled.. . .Admit the goal is zero, and people will rethink birth control. "Seven percent of American women who do not use contraception account for 53 percent of all unintended pregnancies," Clinton said. That number drew gasps from her pro-choice audience. I bet if she translated it to abortions, it would knock folks in Ohio out of their chairs. How many abortions are you willing to endure for the sake of avoiding the word "condom"? Clinton says we can cut the abortion rate through sex education, money for family planning, and requiring health insurers to cover contraceptives. What's your plan? Ban abortion and monitor everyone's womb like Romania did? Or ban it and look the other way while the pregnancies go on and the quacks take over?. . ..Abstain. Parents. Religious and moral values. The right thing. This is the way to shake up the Democratic position on abortion—not with tiny defensive concessions but with a big offensive to promote responsibility and bring down the abortion rate.
As one of the people who thought Senator Kerry's stance on abortion made perfect sense and was perfectly articulate, I'd be happy to get behind a plan that implemented Clinton's ideas. In an ideal world there would be zero abortions, zero unwanted pregnancies, and zero police-state actions. Since there is no physical reason why that isn't possible, aiming for that ideal seems like a good plan.
Eh, but first it would help if our leaders didn't drive themselves to exhaustion. Get better, Senator!
