The most common argument I hear from pro-choice women in response to most anything I write on the subject is, “this simply is no one’s business but the woman’s.” Even if there is a moral dimension to this, it’s up to the woman to make the ethical calculus.
That may be what pro-choicers believe — but it is not what Roe v. Wade says. Many of the comments assume that there is an inviolable Constitutional right to abortion at any time. But in the majority opinion Justice Harry Blackmun wrote, “Appellant and some amici argue that the woman’s right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree.”
The fact that 84% of Americans support banning abortion in the third trimester would indicate that a large chunk even of pro-choice voters believe that while the woman’s right is sacrosanct in the earlier parts of the pregnancy, as time passes, the fetus itself begins to have rights, too.
Politically, common ground efforts should steer clear of the late term abortion debate, at least in phase one. I raise it to make a simple point: Roe v. Wade did not grant women an inviolable, universal, unfettered right to choose. So discouraging debate with the assertion that pretty much no one other than the pregnant woman has any standing to offer an opinion is not only counter-productive but against the spirit of Roe.
This post was also contributed to a new area on “Common Ground” for abortion run by RH Reality Check