NYT Opinion Piece Calls For 'Reasonable Distinction-Making' Between Abortions At Various Stages Of Pregnancy

Main Category: Abortion
Article Date: 10 Jun 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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The case of George Tiller, the Kansas abortion provider who was recently murdered, "helps explain why so many people believe that abortion should be available at any stage of pregnancy," New York Times columnist Ross Douthat writes. Because Tiller provided abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy, he "inevitably ... handled the hardest of hard cases," according to Douthat. He continues that since Tiller's murder, "there's been an outpouring of testimonials, across the Internet, from women (and some men) who lived through these hard cases." Douthat adds that these patients' experiences "help explain why so many Americans defend [Tiller's] right" to perform abortions later in pregnancy.

However, "such narratives are not the only story about George Tiller's clinic," as he "was a target of protests -- and, tragically, of terrorist violence -- because he performed late-term abortions, period," Douthat writes. According to Douthat, Tiller's critics claim that he performed abortions later in pregnancy "not only in truly desperate situations, but in many other cases as well." Although a final determination about "how many of George Tiller's abortions were performed on healthy mothers and healthy fetuses" might never be made, "most abortions in the United States bear no resemblance whatsoever to the hardest third-trimester cases," according to Douthat. He continues, "Yes, many pregnancies are terminated in dire medical circumstances," but "these represent a tiny fraction of the million-plus abortions that take place in this country every year," and the "same is true of the more than 100,000 abortions that are performed after the first trimester: Very few involve medical complications of any kind."

Douthat writes, "The argument for unregulated abortion rests on the idea that where there are exceptions, there cannot be a rule." He adds, "As a matter of moral philosophy, this makes a certain sense," as a fetus either "has a claim to life or it doesn't," and the "circumstances of its conception and the state of its health shouldn't enter into the equation." However, he continues, "the law is not a philosophy seminar. It's the place where morality meets custom, and compromise, and common sense," and "it can take account of tragic situations without universalizing their lessons." Douthat also writes that the "argument that some abortions take place in particularly awful, particularly understandable circumstances is not a case against regulating abortion." He adds, "It's the beginning of precisely the kind of reasonable distinction-making that would produce a saner, stricter legal regime."

According to Douthat, "If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically," and "[a]rguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester -- as many advanced democracies already do -- would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions." Douthat concludes, "The result would be laws with more respect for human life, a culture less inflamed by a small number of tragic cases -- and a political debate, God willing, unmarred by crimes like George Tiller's murder" (Douthat, New York Times, 6/9).

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