On abortion 2

I received this note from Doug B in reply to last nights post.

I personally would have preferred an exception for R, I, LOM.  I think if those had been included, there would be no question of the ban passing.  Listen to the opponents.  They do not say abortion should be allowed.  They say it goes too far, implying they would support it if there were exceptions.  This is not to say I believe there should be those exceptions, only I think it could pass if they were included. 

However to back off as far as you are willing to defeats much of the purpose of the law.  Part of the purpose is to confront Roe v Wade.  What you propose does very little towards that end.  If this law is voted down, it is my hope it will be brought forth with those exceptions in the next legislature.  Then, after the vote is upheld in an election, it could go on to the SCOTUS.

There is obviously a range of positions with regard to abortion.  If I recall correctly, Ronald Reagan was opposed to all abortions except in cases of rape and where necessary to save the life of the mother.  I also seem to recall that the Church in Rome opposes all abortions except in cases where the unborn cannot be saved but the mother's life can.  The latter seems to me to be the only position that makes no compromise on the issue.  Reagan justified abortions in the case of rape on grounds of self-defense, but I never thought that was a convincing argument.  I suspect that the real reason for that exception among many abolitionists is tactical rather than principled.

Once you admit the necessity of some compromise, the question becomes not how far to "back off", as Doug puts it, but what compromise offers some promise of passing and being sustained in court.  Here was my proposal:

Allow abortions in the first trimester and forbid all abortions in the third trimester.  In the second trimester, abortion would be allowed only if the life of the mother were at stake.

This proposal, compromised though it is, offers some hope in so far as it is clearly a moderate position between the extremes (total abolition and, what we have now, abortion on demand), and would thus allow proponents to cast the other side as extremists, and it builds on the trimester system of Roe.  Thus it is designed to have a chance in the political and the judicial arenas.  I argued that this would save thousands of lives each year, and would, for the first time, allow the unborn recognition under the Constitution.  That seems to me to be gaining quite a lot.

I would note that my reasoning here is not meant to indicate a preference regarding Referred Law 6.  Even if this referendum succeeds, I predict that it will be overturned in Federal Court, and that the U.S. Supreme Court will never even hear the case.  But that is not to say its a wasted effort.  An act containing only the minimum exceptions would suffer the same fate.  And this at least sets out the extreme on one side, so that compromise measures will look moderate in comparison.

On a final note, my colleague notes that Yes on 6 yard signs are ubiquitous in Aberdeen neighborhoods.  My wife noted shrewdly that No on 6 yard signs seem to be non-existent.  This does not indicate any relative political strength, but only the fact that all the Herseth and Billion voters do not seem interested in advertising their position on 6.