The Democrats' abortion fanaticism

I've cited the Gallup organization's annual polls on the subject of abortion many times before. They're an invaluable resource in this age of partisan echo-chambers and non-stop spin. They tell us in some detail not only how Americans as a nation see abortion now, but how they have seen it every year since Roe v. Wade was first handed down.

If you look at those numbers for any length of time, two things will jump out at you.  The first is that ever since Roe was first handed down, large majorities of Americans have thought that abortion laws should be stricter than they are. At first glance, this might seem to conflict with the equally stable majorities supporting Roe and opposing its reversal. But Roe does allow some leeway to the state legislatures in the second and especially the third trimesters, and in any case, the vast majority of Americans (thank God!) are not lawyers. For most of us, Roe v. Wade is less a detailed legal decision than a symbol for the legality of abortion in principle.

Comparatively few of us know that Roe forbids states to outlaw abortion even in the third trimester if the mother's life or health is deemed by a doctor to be at risk. And the "health" loophole is a large one since it includes psychological health and could easily be understood to include anxiety or mild depression. In theory, a woman determined enough to abort even a viable fetus might only need a physician willing to certify that bringing the child to term would cause her psychological distress.

But in practice, third-trimester abortions are extremely rare. For one thing, many obstetricians argue that they are never necessary because a third-trimester abortion and a Caesarian differ only in that the former ends with the child's death.  I use the term "child" intentionally here since while the technical term while it is still in the mother's womb would still be "fetus," comparatively few of us (including, one suspects from their logic, the Supreme Court justices who issued Roe) would see much ethical difference between a viable third-trimester fetus and a baby who has already been born. In fact, even before viability, the logic of Roe would argue that the abortion of a fetus in the third trimester is an entirely different and graver matter than a first-trimester abortion.

Which brings us to the second interesting fact about the Gallup findings: not only do the overwhelming majority of us both now and in the past emphatically agree that there is a vast ethical difference between abortions in the first and third trimesters (the large majority support a right to abortion under almost any circumstances in the first trimester), but that there ought to be a vast legal difference as well. Ever since Gallup has been polling on the matter, not fewer than eighty percent of Americans asked have said that abortion should be flat-out illegal in the third trimester.

Democrats often describe the characteristic Republican opposition to all abortion except in cases in which the mother's life is in danger as "extreme." It is, of course, logically and philosophically the only possible position if one accepts the premise that from the moment of conception we are dealing with human life (an unavoidable conclusion since the fetus and even zygote is a human fetus or zygote, and is by any scientific definition alive), and that all human life is worthy of protection (the point at which the actual disagreement exists in the abortion debate). In practice, even if we can't defend it logically, most of us would want to allow more leeway for abortion than that, for example in cases of rape or incest or gross fetal abnormality incompatible with survival to term even if we can't justify it ethically. Sometimes the heart and the brain send conflicting messages.

But that being the case it's worth noting that, if we take the position of the American people as measured by Gallup as our baseline for what is "middle-of-the-road," the Democratic position is every bit as extreme. That point is driven home by a news item this morning.

It seems that Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) has made a few waves by becoming the only Democratic candidate for president to side with over eighty percent of the American people in saying that third-trimester abortions ought, in principle, to be illegal.  It should be noted that another of the Democrats running, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), says that “Of course, there are limits there in the third trimester that are very important.” But it's interesting that even though upwards of eighty percent of the voters support essentially outlawing abortion in the third trimester, and even though Roe v. Wade (at least if the "emotional distress" loophole were closed) would permit precisely what Rep. Gabbard proposes, only two of the Democratic candidates are on record as agreeing.

Why should all but two of the Democratic candidates be so reluctant to go on record as supporting a position not only favored by over 80% of the American people but completely consistent with the intent of Roe v. Wade?

We really have become a nation of ideologically rigid extremes, and the problem is made worse by the fact that those of us in the middle have no voice. The two parties are dominated by unyielding ideologues, and as a result not only has actual discussion and debate broken down in favor of two mutually-reinforcing ideological mobs shouting bumper stickers at each other, but the real majority of Americans are reduced to deciding every two to four years which set of policies we disagree with to choose over the other.

That's not the way democracy is meant to work.