The most sensible thing I've read on abortion in a long time Tom Smith

There's going to be pressure on the NYT to get rid of this guy.  Read it while he's still there.  My highest compliment:  I've been meaning to say something like Ross says for quite a while.

Comments

[dearieme]

If, instead of all the advantages of democratically elected legislatures ruling on abortion, you have SCOTUS ruling by judicial putsch, then you must expect to pay a price.

[Matt]

Well, I think that Douthat's column, like most of his writing, was a hash at best- wrong on the law and deeply confused on the moral issues. A pretty good summary of the problems can be found here, among other places.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_06/018548.php

He's really not a very good thinker- I feel sorry for the right if he's the best young hope. I guess we shouldn't feel too surprised about someone who made his name by writing about how he went to Harvard and managed not to learn anything.

[Tom Smith]

The critique of the Douthat column is confused. Two basic points. D is saying the case for unregulated abortion (which he opposes) rests on the fallacy that if you have exceptions to a rule, you can't really have a rule. D is saying, no, you can have a rule and still have reasonable exceptions to it. But the commentator in WM seems to think he is saying just the opposite, that there's no such thing as a rule with exceptions. That's a pretty basic misunderstanding. Second, it's a pretty standard point to say that making an issue a matter of constitutional law takes it out of the democratic debate. Yes, you could amend the constitution, but that is a very extraordinary step to take, compared to all the other health and safety regulation we do. It's also quite an imposition if you think Roe was wrongly decided or at least badly reasoned(as many constitutional scholars would admit)in the first place. So it is not a sound critique at all. There are probably more mistakes, but I stopped after finding these.

D's column is worthwhile because very few commentators seem to be focusing on the key point that there is all the difference in the world between an early and a late term abortion, unless you take the view that all abortions are either absolutely forbidden or permitted. The debate does seem to be fruitlessly stuck in this mode.

[Matt Lister]

But Douthat says you can't regulate abortion pre-viability, and that's clearly false. Abortion pre-viability is heavily regulated. He either is lying or else he has no idea what he's talking about. I suspect it's the later but given him it might be the former. There are other problems in his column, too, including implying that late-term abortions are much more common than they are (it's a few hundred a year), but he's never been one to let the truth get in the way of his arguments.

[Floridan]

Douthat's column is a rather shallow and misleading look at the issue. First of all, Roe v. Wade does not enshrine "a near-absolute right to abortion in the Constitution."

Moreover, Douthat's "sensible" column links to evidence gathered that charges Tiller operated outside the legal framework for late-term abortions, but failed to mention that he had recently been acquitted in a Kansas court of these charges.

While some people take an all-or-nothing approach to abortion, many are quite willing to see reasonable exceptions. The problem comes when those exceptions have to be spelled out and a method for making a determination of their applicability in specific cases is developed.