Miranda Divine talks about the abortion debate in today's Sydney Morning Herald. Miranda argues that the debate is being pushed by women, (funny that, last time I looked, Ron Boswell and Tony Abbott were blokes), and that staunchly pro-choice women, like Hilary Clinton, are changing their views.
They are women like the US senator Hillary Clinton, a high priestess of liberal feminism and "hero" of the pro-abortion lobby. Last week she softened her stand on abortion in a speech which drew "gasps and head-shaking" from some 1000 abortion campaigners in New York State."There is an opportunity for people of good faith to find common ground in this debate," she said. Her common ground includes preventing unplanned pregnancies, supporting sexual education, including "abstinence counselling", and encouraging adoption, The New York Times reported.
"We can all recognise that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women. The fact is that the best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place."
How has Clinton softened her views? Has she ever said that abortion is preferable to preventing unwanted pregnancies?
What Clinton said is common sense. Abortion is tragic, and in a perfect world should be avoided. (I wonder about the "abstinence counselling," but she's probably being a politician and pitching at the religious conservatives.) Nowhere does she repudiate the principal of freedom of choice.
We shouldn't loose sight of the crux of the debate. On one side there's the extremist minority who want to remove the freedom of choice. On the other, there's the majority who want to retain the status quo. Of the majority, there are many who are uneasy with the subject and wouldn't have or condone an abortion, but acknowledge that the individual has the right to choose.
