One Sided Discussion

For John, BLUF:  Democrat writer doesn't give us the limits.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

---

Over at The New Yorker Columnist Adam Gopnik has a column, "Arguing Abortion".  Don't be mistaken.  This is a one-sided look at the issue, even putting down the Clintonesque “Safe, legal, and rare” formulation.

This is actually a puff-piece for Ms Katha Pollitt.

In the midst of this, Katha Pollitt, an old friend of this magazine (and of this writer) has written a bracing, unapologetic polemic in favor of abortion rights. “Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights” has two major originalities. First is its lack of bowing or scraping for its pro-woman position. Abortion, in Pollitt’s view, must be seen not as a moral compromise requested by poor, weak women—we’re sorry, and we promise we’ll make it rare, but please, forgive us, we’ll still need it in extremis— but as a positive doctrine of women’s control over their own bodies, and of their own lives and destinies. Abortion, she insists, is a right integral to women’s own autonomy, not a privilege to be used as infrequently as possible. The Clintons’ shrewd formula—“Safe, legal, and rare”—may have been born of political necessity, but it misstates the truth. Abortion need not promise to be rare to be secured as safe and legal. One of the greatest moral achievements of human history—the full emancipation of women—should not be seconded to a metaphysical intuition, one with no scientific support or even coherent meaning: that a fertilized egg makes the same moral claims as an entire person. In a memorable moment in the book, Pollitt points out that the use of sonograms of embryos and fetuses to promote the anti-abortion case—with good reason, since any parent can recall their excitement at first seeing them—is intrinsically misleading:

Sonograms distort reality in another, more subtle way: you can only take a picture of the embryo/fetus if you erase the body of the pregnant woman. As with the famous optical illusion of the duck-rabbit, you can’t see them both at the same time: either you see a rabbit or you see a duck. In a sonogram the fetus is the subject, the woman is the background; the case for its personhood is made by turning her into gray-and-white wallpaper.

The second virtue of Pollitt’s book is that—with the help of some arguments from the late Ronald Dworkin, in particular—it takes seriously, and seriously refutes, the metaphysical arguments that claim some ethical seriousness in the view that a fertilized egg is equivalent to a human being. First, Pollitt sees, and insists, that for a “pro-life” argument to make sense it has to make sense; that it follows from a spiritual instinct, or from religious dogma, however deeply held, is not something that rational people have to pretend to respect.

This article talks about the "slippery slope", but it doesn't tell us where the acceptable stopping point is today with the Progressives.  When does this thing created by a man and a woman become a person?♠  That is the thing about Progressivism.  Where does it end?

Then there is this little item.

It is not absolutely impossible to imagine a world in which contraception, and post-conception medication, are so widely available that abortion indeed is safe, legal, and rare.

No mention of the Republicans putting forward a bill for over the counter sales.  Didn't pass.  One wonders why.  That would have been a good move.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  There is always the approach of philosopher Peter Singer from Princeton.  Weeks after birth.