Unnecessarily Evil

A couple of days ago, Linda Hirshman posted an essay on Slate titled “Unnecessarily Evil: Reclaiming the Morality of Abortion and the Overdue Change to the Democratic Party Platform.” In it, she argues that it is time for pro-choicers to leave the pragmatic “safe, legal, and rare” language behind and reclaim the moral highground in the abortion debate.  Toward that end, she is pleased that “The Democratic Party platform of 2008 finally dropped its old abortion language ("safe, legal and rare"), which had asked that women not have abortions unless they absolutely must. The 2008 platform … says instead, ‘The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.’"

The essay ends with this:  “The wrong question will always lead to the wrong answer. Not coincidentally, the founding text of the Post-Abortion Syndrome movement is called "Making Abortion Rare." The Democratic platform of 2008 offers an opportunity to put an end to this self-destructive cycle of Safe, Legal, and Rare, otherwise known as regret, depression, and self-denigration. In its place, it can finally argue for the value of women's lives.”

For the rest, click here.