TIME.com: The Case for Compromise on Abortion — Mar. 07, 2005
Deb and I just read this in TIME magazine (like most people who read magazines, I get to them only when I have time—unlike my issues of The Wall Street Journal which are must read news as soon as I receive them) (and yes, I am contractually obligated to say that). In any case, I think this is one of the most intelligent arguments I’ve seen articulated regarding abortion.
[Let me know if the link goes dead---not sure how long it stays live.]
* UPDATE *
I just scanned the page so we don’t have to worry about Time Inc. trying to hit y’all up for money.
What’s that? Can’t read it that small. Click on it, braniac.
Monday | March 7, 2005 at 2:41 pm
Your link has timed out but since I have a subscription, I pulled out my paper copy and read the article. I agree with you but I also feel the radicals on both sides will not understand a word of it. Too bad and too sad.
Monday | March 7, 2005 at 7:04 pm
They want my money to read an article?? I thought this “Internet” thing was supposed to be free….
If anyone has the full text, please email it to me. Sounds like a good read.
Tuesday | March 8, 2005 at 11:50 am
For years I have thought that, for many issues fought out brutally along the line from Position A to Position B, the best position was not some fraction of the way from A to B, but Position C, the third point of the triangle. This looks something like that, and as such, I think it is actually superior to pure compromise — even if “compromise” *does* begin with C, as in position C.
“C” here seems to be “Results orientation”, which is significantly different from A and B (No, I don’t know which is which.) in that an essential of both B and A seems to be the complete wrongness of the other.
And while both sides trumpeted their moral purity (each preaching to the converted; pep rallies triumphant over good-faith attempts at persuasion), abortions went on.
I think much of the opposition to easy access to contraceptives is that it would shield people from the “consequences” of fornication. (Hey, I’m from that culture; I can use the word without irony.) I see that in the abstract; but the “consequences” are new human lives. What must it mean to be a child whose very *existence* is a punishment of the parents? No child should have that start in life. We have been concerned with the adults and condoning sin. Let’s be concerned with the child — and maybe position “C” is “Concern for the Child” — and the sin of risking a child coming into the world under avoidable, unfavorable conditions.
Similarly, heaping scorn upon “abstinence” programs because they come from a religious background you don’t want to encourage — well, there, too, it’s more about proving how enlightened you are than about reducing conceptions where the kids can’t be well cared for. So again, ironic though it is, it’s a trumpeting of moral purity (to a different audience) versus a “what works” orientation.
Thus, the top of the second column, four short sentences, crystallizes the breakthrough thought, the “C” attitude, and proposes a societal support for “whatever works” — for the children and prospective children of the nation.
So, I might think some of my taxes are going for funding impurity — contraceptives easier to get — and you might think some of your taxes are going to support repressive relition — abstinence, including faith-based — but maybe all our funding could be going to improve the proportion of children being born into good situations.
OK, that’s not a complete analysis, but this is a refreshing “Position C” position paper. “C” is for “Children”, and we can putter around at leisure about which is “A” and “B” — if we first get together on Concern for Children.
Actually, both sides are being called on to choose compassion over positional purity.