In roughly the last year, six states have passed laws to ban abortion at the 20th week after conception. The legislative approaches are different, but the goal is pretty much the same: to get around the 1973 Supreme Court decision that declared a woman’s right to abortion.
We think abortion should be a choice available to all women, paid for by the government if necessary, and without a lot of hypocritical regulations and limitations intended to make it difficult to obtain. But we respect the right-to-life movement as one of the only major interest groups in American politics that is dedicated to promoting interests other than its own.
We don’t respect those who use coercion and intimidation masquerading as legitimate protest — or worse, actual murder — to stop the work of abortion clinics. They may well be sincere in their belief that murder is going on inside those clinics. But in a democracy, where there are lawful ways to achieve change by changing people’s minds, no one has the right to short circuit that process.
Actually, that’s not quite true. Nine Supreme Court justices do have the right and the power (in fact, the duty) to short circuit the democratic process. That’s what the court did in its Roe v. Wade decision, which declared a privacy right broad enough to cover abortion.
Much of what makes people unhappy with the state of American politics can be traced back to Roe. The case energized the far right and politicized religious fundamentalists. It led many liberals to feel that the best approach to achieving their goals was through unelected judges.
We have the sense that abortion would be widely, if not completely, legal today in the United States, with far less controversy, if state legislatures had been allowed to continue the process of legalization that was picking up steam when the Supreme Court shut it down.
Now the legislative branches have returned to the fight. Too bad they’re on the other side.
