I can't say I was looking forward to reading Will Saletan on Ross Douthat, but once (and I admit, it's a big "once") you get beyond Saletan's arrogant moralizing, his points are actually quite reasonable. I continue to have less than no use for discussing the merits of imaginary women having abortions under particular abstract circumstances, and I see little basis for most of Douthat's "objective moral distinctions."
But when Saletan gets to the law, he improves. It's nice, in particular, to see a high-placed pundit note the absurdity of Douthat's repeated claims that the Supreme Court forbids virtually all regulation of abortion in a context in which the Supreme Court has upheld almost every common regulation of the procedure. (Given that abortion seems to be one of his specialties, Douthat's apparent ignorance of the state of the law is an embarrassment both to him and to the editors who gave him prestigious editorial real estate.) More importantly, his point that criminal law is the crudest kind of regulation is worth elaboration. Even if we were to accept Douthat's assertions as legitimate moral objectives, would this be a good argument in favor of more abortion regulation? Not at all, for more reasons than Saletan mentions:
- As Saletan implies, Douthat's attempt to bootstrap various burdens on a woman's right to choose an abortion from his moral pronouncements fails for an obvious reason: "Regulations of this sort don't discourage abortion in any targeted way." Even if we were to assume that Douthat and Saletan are better positioned to make moral judgments about abortion than women obtaining abortions -- and, to me, to state the proposition is to refute it -- their position on the morality of different abortions is beside the point, since these moral pronouncements can't actually be inscribed in legislative enactments.
- And it's worse than that. Most common abortion regulations aren't merely irrelevant to the kinds of objections Douthat raises but are actually counterproductive. If we accept that "abortions for 20-year-olds are worse than abortions for 10-year-olds," then why on earth would we (as Douthat would argue we should) favor regulations that make it harder for a 10-year-old to obtain an abortion? If later pre-viability abortions are worse than earlier ones, then why on earth would it be a good idea to set up a bewildering regulatory obstacle course that makes it harder for women to obtain first trimester abortions?
- And, finally, the moral questions aren't are on one side. Most (if not all) abortion regulations place a disproportionate burden on women based not on their reasons for needing an abortion but on their class and geographic status. These gross inequities need a very good reason to be justifiable. "Flattering the tender moral sensibilities of privileged male pundits" rather conspicuously fails to qualify. And, at the very least, they need to be taken into account. Douthat never does, which makes it hard for me to give him much credit for his moral judgments.
