Will Saletan at Slate responded to my latest “Safe, Legal, Early” defense:

“Morally, my feelings differ from Steve’s. I’m more uncomfortable with early abortions than he is. At the same time, I’m more uncomfortable with government interference in late abortions than he is. Steve is right that earlier is better. But pointing out that truth, or even preaching it, is very different from criminalizing, investigating, and prosecuting abortions. My wager is that such laws would create a nightmare of moral crudity, hypocrisy, deceit, interrogations, and amateur surgery. Women make these decisions better than cops, judges, and lawmakers do.”

Yes, one logical conclusion from my original “Safe, Legal, Early” essay is the possible criminalization of more third trimester abortions.
But when we evoke that scary scenario let’s at least acknowledge that Roe v. Wade said regulating third trimester abotions was fine.
More important, we’re accustomed to looking at abortion only in terms of sticks. But the key to “safe, legal, early” would be a proper set of carrots. To wit…
Instead of requiring parental notification for all pregnant teens, you’d say notification wouldn’t be required if the abortion took place in the first few weeks but would be later on. That would give the pregnant teen an incentive to decide quickly.
Instead of providing government funding for all abortion, provide it just for those in the first trimester. That would prod a pregnant woman to decide quickly.
And at the end the pregnancy, offer a different set of incentives. If the woman is eight months pregnant and doesn’t want the baby, provide her financial support to give birth and put the baby up for adoption.