A Thoughtful (One Might Say "Moderate") Essay on Abortion Rights

George Will has up a very thoughtful and honest essay today on the realities of abortion politics today, and where both supporters and opponents have gone wrong in times past.

That a life begins at conception is a biological fact, not a theological tenet. The agonizing question for thoughtful people concerns when, if ever, abortion is a victimless act. The increasing sophistication of prenatal medicine, and modern sonograms revealing the formation of eyes and a beating heart six weeks into the pregnancy, have a powerfully felt pertinence to the sorrow that Blustain rightly says attends abortion...

"But when, with Roe, the court overturned all state abortion laws -- 50 communities' judgments about this -- the court truncated democratic deliberations that, in the five years prior to Roe, had liberalized abortion laws in 16 states that together make up 41 percent of the population. If the case for abortion rights is as strong as its proponents think, they should welcome the 50 debates. That -- the vitality and integrity of American democracy and federalism, not abortion -- should be the subject of our deliberations about judicial nominees

It is no secret that most or all of here at Mod-Blog are extremely antiabortion in philosophy, politics, and religious thought. I feel it is murder, plain and simple. (Though I in no way support, empathize, or give even the barest comfort to abortion clinic bombers. "Do not oppose evil with evil, but oppose evil with good.") But I do realize that the other side is at least as dogmatic as I am about this, and that there is a need to find some kind of common ground before any progess can be made.