Abortion: Is Compromise Possible?

Every survey appears to show that about one third of Americans believe that abortion should always be legal, one third that it should never be legal, and one third that it should sometimes be legal. Most of Europe and the rest of western civilization has adopted some version of the compromise position, with abortion legal but restricted.

The de facto situation in the US is that abortion is always legal. This is a bit strange because the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade clearly opened the door to some regulation of abortion, but the courts have consistently thrown out laws criminalizing any abortions.

Naturally enough, abortion rights supporters want to maintain this situation, while abortion foes want to overthrow it. The survey statistics mentioned above give each some aid and comfort, since abortions rights people can claim that a large majority supports legal abortions and abortion opponents can claim that a large majority favor some prohibition of abortion. The natural way of resolving such disputes in a democracy is through legislation and compromise, but that way was cutoff by the Supremes.

The current situation is unstable, and, while I rarely agree with conservatives, I think they have a point here in saying that Roe vs. Wade was a judicial overreach. This is a situation very different from the segregation and civil rights cases, since the constitution specifically speaks to these questions in the amendments. It seems likely that President Bush will have an opportunity to appoint a justice who will overturn Roe vs. Wade, and that will probably be better for liberalism in the long run even if it makes abortion somewhat less available.

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