This rant is off topic, but it is irritating to find the subject of abortion handled in the pathetic, whiny, and childish manner displayed in Bedroom v. Courtroom, Anna Quindlen's column at the end of this week's issue of Newsweek.
Unhappy with the Alito confirmation being so focused on abortion, Quindlen, a classic liberal, now turns libertarian with respect to abortion. Since she (now) is unhappy with the consequences of the Roe v. Wade decision, Quindlen longs for some imaginary world in which abortion is not a matter for the law but rather one entirely personal. Ironically, it was exactly this type of thinking which led feminists in the 1970s to take their dispute with state abortion laws to the court rather than the Legislature. What Quindlen conveniently ignores is that the result – the Roe decision – has constrained legislatures for three decades and has thus disenfranchised many voters in their attempts at resolving this issue. Yet instead of recognizing feminism’s responsibility for this disenfranchisement, Quindlen gets the vapors because even decades after Roe, lawmakers cannot ignore abortion, much as they might wish they could.
A few Fisks are in order here:
…wouldn't this confirmation process be more illuminating if abortion were taken out of the public realm and put back where it belongs, in the private one?
A mistake has been made in how this deeply divisive political issue is treated. The mistake is that it became a political issue at all.
A “political issue” as opposed to what? Here I see is the same attitude of disdain for the political process and impatience with legislation that brought Roe to trial rather than waiting the years that would have been required (but not decades, no doubt) for 50 state legislatures to each enact their own inconsistent but electorally responsive solution to the abortion question.
Once, abortion was not discussed in public, although it was certainly whispered about plenty in private. But even when it was illegal, it was widespread.
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