The Issue of Abortion in US Politics

The issue of abortion is probably the most divisive issue in American politics today, and the fact that this is so can be seen in the way Republicans this year are already fighting over the issue and whether it should be included in the party platform for next year's presidential election or not. The simple division many people make assuming that Republicans are against abortion and democrats are pro-choice is simply wrong. Republicans like California's Pete Wilson or New Jersey's Christine Todd Whitman are pro-choice, while a Democrat like Governor Casey is pro-life. This becomes apparent in the article offered by William Saletan,"The Abortion Paradox," wherein the author notes first that liberals believe conservatives are hypocritical because they argue for life in the abortion debate but fail to make the same argument with reference to Bosnia, and he argues this specifically with reference to what have been called partial-birth abortions. He then suggests, however, that the Republicans should indeed promote their ideas in terms of what he calls "the cold calculus of life and death" as they do with reference to Bosnia. The argument offered by Saletan itself contains a paradox and is not well-developed as an argument. An examination of the argument will show where it fails.

Saletan begins by noting that the Republican Party had endorsed a nationwide ban on abortions 20 eyers ago and that since that time, the issue has caused internal strife within the party. There ar

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is an emphasis on the idea that some problems cannot be solved and that we are forced to choose between bad and worse. Saletan cites a number of issues where this would apply, from the idea that not every toxic substance can be cleansed from the environment to the fact that some children may die when welfare reform is instituted (though not as many, it is insisted, as under the current welfare system). Pro-life activists argue with the Republicans on many of these issues and reject the cold logic of the body count: By and large, the antiabortion movement rejects the very concept of tragic choice. It insists on saving life at any cost. In this respect, it belongs more to the left than to the right. Following Saletan's logic, the Republican Party should not support the partial-birth abortion ban based on a body-count approach. He says there is no evidence that such an abortion was ever performed on a presumably viable fetus except to protect the life of the mother. He says Bob Smith has claimed that the medical procedure is never necessary to save the life of the mother, which is simply false. The liberals who criticize the Republicans, the Republicans who challenge the liberals, and Saletan himself are all using logic b

Category: Government - T