ABORTION AT THE MARGINS

Newsweek has an article on the 'New Abortion Debate', and finds that (who knew?) many people feel guilty about aborting their children:

...the pro-abortion-rights interest groups are just beginning to grapple with an uncomfortable truth: that many of the million-odd women who have abortions every year are deeply troubled, if not guilt-ridden. "Our patients are not coming to, quote, 'exercise their constitutional rights'," says Claire Keyes, who runs a Pittsburgh abortion clinic. "They want to talk about prayer and forgiveness."

They also bring up the strategy of the pro-life (aka, 'anti-abortion' in Newsweekspeak) law in South Dakota:

Even if Bush-appointed Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito want to overturn Roe (not a certainty), there is still a five-vote majority on the court to uphold the precedent, which was reaffirmed as recently as 1992. For that simple reason, trying to reverse Roe now would be a "strategic loser," says James Bopp, general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee. The federal courts would likely strike down the South Dakota law, and the Supreme Court would either refuse to hear the case or—worse for the pro-lifers—once again re-affirm Roe, say conservative legal strategists.

They are likely right that an incremental approach is better:

States may have more luck chipping away at abortion. There are bills in many state legislatures to give fetuses "personhood" and requiring waiting periods and pre-abortion counseling. Some states are considering laws to require women to get an ultrasound image before obtaining an abortion.

The good news is that there are cracks in the once perceived unassailibility of abortion in this country. That can only lead to good things.