Beyond the fact that I still, like DougJ, can’t figure out why conservatives are so damned caught up in trying to analyze culture through their own myopic lens, but this Ross Douthat piece matches a trend I’ve noticed lately, the push to provide legal protections for the unborn. I’ve been picking up rumblings about this for a couple weeks, and I’m not sure what is going on. My best guess is with the tea party wingnuts in the GOP sucking all the air out of the room with their new fiscal austerity, and the social cons stinging from their defeat on DADT, they have decided to ramp up the abortion issue to remind the GOP that the godbotherers are still relevant in the party. My favorite portion of the piece:
In every era, there’s been a tragic contrast between the burden of unwanted pregnancies and the burden of infertility. But this gap used to be bridged by adoption far more frequently than it is today.
What exactly is he suggesting? Who knows, but every time the anti-abortion crowd starts trying for new restrictions on abortion, they always use the language of compromise. Yet time and time again, they fail to realize we already have compromised on this issue- if Ross and his wife don’t want an abortion, we won’t force them to have one. Likewise, he can pipe down about what other couples do when they get pregnant. That, folks, is a compromise. How many kids has Ross adopted?
And btw, it is worth pointing out that aside from Douthat’s usual drivel, he still has not managed to figure out that those unborn babies he so cherishes all reside in, you know, actual people who might just have a say in what Ross wants to do to their bodies.