By Ezra
This is a very weird idea by Ross Douthat:
Now, if Kristof wanted to write a column advocating a grand bargain - in which, say, pro-lifers accept increased funding for contraception and over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill in exchange for stronger legal restrictions on abortion - that would be interesting. Much too interesting, I'm afraid, to ever see print in the New York Times.
Douthat, it seems, has both the pro-choicers and the pro-lifers exactly backwards. The former believe a woman's control over her own body is an inviolable right, the latter see each and every abortion as an unconscionable murder. Neither side is primarily interested or invested in the actual availability of contraception or the absolute number of abortions.
What Ross is doing, it seems, is mistaking political concessions for actual ideals. The pro-life side gives up next to nothing, and gains similarly little (depending on how weighty the restrictions are), in this deal, as only the craziest of their number make opposition to abortion contraception a central tenet, and even they tend to be more concerned about actual abortions. The pro-choicers, for their part, see next to no gains (contraception is already pretty widely available) here, and are supposed to accept further abrogation of choice for the privilege. I'd trouble seeing it go down that way. This bargain doesn't address the fundamental agendas of either side, and is thus not a grand bargain. It is what these suggestions always are, a stunt meant to isolate the other side on their weakest, least defensible grounds. And that, I'd submit, isn't terribly interesting at all.
