One More Thing About Abortion...
...but it doesn't come from me. Here's William Saletan on how Obama (and McCain) dealt with the abortion issue:
Yes; I think it would be great.
The issues that have dominated this election are fundamentally technical: How do we stabilize the financial system and revive the economy? How do we get out of Iraq without triggering a collapse? How do we get affordable energy fast? The surge, the bailout, offshore drilling—they're all technical. They're not about opposing values. They're about what will or won't work.
Obama's doing quite nicely in this environment. He's steady, practical, poised, boring. He's a technician. So Schieffer pops a question about abortion, probably hoping to start a fight. McCain does his part. What does Obama do? He technifies it.
Will a technical approach to abortion satisfy the country? The election hardly hangs on that question. But in the long run, the abortion debate itself probably does. Look at the home page of the National Right to Life Committee, and you'll see the kind of character-focused, us-or-them rhetoric that has pervaded the McCain campaign and the pro-life movement. Meanwhile, I've been reading a booklet issued by NARAL Pro-Choice America. It's a handbook for politicians and activists on how to talk about abortion. The last time I wrote about one of these pro-choice message booklets, it was called "Who Decides," and the remainder of the phrase was "us or them." This one is different. Its message is "Prevention First." Look at the Democratic platform, and you'll see the same language, aimed at reducing unintended pregnancies—and therefore abortions—by voluntary means. The pro-life movement is betting on McCain-style combat. The pro-choice movement is betting on Obama-style
pragmatism.
I think the pro-choicers have picked the wiser course. We're a pragmatic country. What disgusts most people about abortion as a political issue is that on that topic, unlike economics or foreign policy, nothing ever seems to be accomplished. It's the same damned debate, election after election, with each side trying to scare you about the other. If only it were more like economics, where you can actually have growth—or maybe like energy, where you can develop a new source or a new technology. If Obama can make abortion more like those issues and couple it with a record of material progress in the form of fewer procedures, he'll take much of the political heat out of it. He might even make it boring. Wouldn't that be great?
Yes; I think it would be great.
Comments