I was asked by John Meacham of Newsweek, what I thought about John McCain and Sarah Palin’s desire to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion. Here is my response.
If John McCain and Sarah Palin believe that human life begins at conception, then they should not only support overturning Roe, but contrary to their stated position, should oppose individual states having the right to permit abortion as well. Do they believe that states should have the right to permit citizens to execute defenseless children or old people at will? Given their stated beliefs, that would be no worse than abortion. In fact, it might be less objectionable because the unborn fetus is utterly without sin or guilt of any kind.
Consistency demands that McCain and Palin admit that as soon as Roe is overturned, they will look for legal means to assure that no abortion is ever permitted in this country for any reason. That’s pretty scary to me. But having said that, I loathe the legal logic behind Roe and think it has done a great deal of harm.
Roe may have gotten us to a better place in many ways, but it enshrined a notion of privacy that is as morally empty as the alternative is coercive. By focusing on the notion that “it’s my body and I’ll cut if I want to”, Roe turned this complex issue into a battleground about personal autonomy, and complex psychological issues that would be summarized by my kids as “you’re not the boss of me”. That may be less immediately upsetting than the McCain/Palin position, but it’s not any healthier.
Years ago I participated in a public forum on this issue, which included a national leader from Planned Parenthood. She gave a powerful presentation about the right to choose. The problem for me was that I when I asked her if she had ever counseled a young women to keep the pregnancy/baby, she could not recall having ever given that advice! It wasn’t about choice for her at all. It was about power – the need to demonstrate that each of us can do whatever we want. And that understanding of choice is as dangerous as the choicelessness which the pro-life community celebrates.

But most Americans know that these polarized positions are off. Whether they are correct or not, people in this nation have largely agreed on that one for years. Time and again, individuals tell pollsters that they are opposed to abortion but believe that women should have the right to choose whether or not to have one. And unlike the activists on both sides of this issue, they demonstrate a sensitivity and sophistication which is rarely seen on the cultural battlefield over which this issue is fought. The real issue is how the law could reflect the position of most Americans.
Most people in this country sense that abortion should not happen, that it is sad when it does, and that they wish there were far fewer of them –a rough re-statement of the Democratic Party’s position on this issue and one with which I agree. But they do not regard abortions as murder. That is why they are not prepared to take away from women the right to make a bad, or at least undesirable, decision.
What we need are people who are willing to stop politicking this issue on either the left or the right. We need people who are willing to enact laws that reflect the collective wisdom of the American people, not the religious dogmas or the psychological dramas of small segments of the population.