Where the Rubber Meets Roe
By William Saletan
Sunday, October 1, 2006; Page B02
The issue that never changes is finally changing.
If you're among the millions of Americans who don't like the idea of abortion but also don't like the idea of banning it, good news is on the way. In the past several weeks, two bills have been filed in the House. Without banning a single procedure, they aim to significantly lower the rate of abortions performed in this country. Voluntary reduction, not criminalization or moral silence, is the new approach.
How do you stop abortions without restricting them? One way is to persuade women to complete their pregnancies instead of terminating them. The other is to prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place. And there's the rub -- or, in this case, the rubber. The two House bills used to be one proposal, backed by an alliance of antiabortion lawmakers and organizations. The alliance split because one faction wanted to fund contraception and the other didn't.
In short, the good news is that we no longer have to fight about abortion. The bad news is that we're now fighting about contraception. The old question was abortion as birth control. The new question is abortion or birth control. To lower the abortion rate, we need more contraception. And that means confronting politicians who stand in the way.
