Non-solutions to abortion

The number of people who consider themselves pro-choice is considerable. But few are those who think abortion is a good thing. Most "pro-choicers" think it the lesser of evils for some women; the idea is to eliminate one life rather than let that one and others become seriously unpleasant. The Democrats have begun to realize that honesty about that is not a good selling point. So they scramble to come up with humane "alternatives" to abortion that would presumably discourage it.

The two most often bandied about are more money for poor women and children, and more contraception. But out in the red states, handing out contraceptives to women too young or too unstable to deal with having children sounds like a license for more rollicking sex granted to one of the less responsible segments of the population. So the talk shifts to mo' money, i.e., rolling back the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Hillary Clinton is working her way up to that very deftly.

But not everybody in the pro-choice camp is buying it. Frances Kissling, one of the few pro-choicers so radical that she arguably does think abortion (sometimes) a good thing, has argued at length that there's no evidence that fattening the financial cushion for unwed mothers makes them less likely to have abortion.

Diogenes goes into detail and comments. Read it all.