One Fool v. a Horde of Reasonable Moloch Apologists

It's no contest

open book on "Ramesh v. TNR"

Behold!

Ramesh Ponnuru takes on The New Republic's conventional wisdom on Roe v Wade - in the pages of TNR - which is that the fall of Roe would be good for abortion and bad for pro-lifers.

The New Republic's theory is, if I can be so bold, a mite too convenient for complacent pro-choicers. The truth is that the public is not as pro-choice as this magazine would like to believe, nor are pro-lifers so tactically inept.

He first tackles the polling, going through the deep problems with most abortion-related polling (in essence they don't define what Roe and Doe say when asking people if they support the rulings)

I am aware of only one poll that allowed respondents to choose options that included both what one might call the moderate pro-life option (prohibiting abortion with exceptions for rape, incest, and the mother's life) and the moderate pro-choice option (allowing abortion for any reason in the first trimester). This poll was conducted by Richard Wirthlin, who is, admittedly, himself a pro-lifer, in November 2004. He found 55 percent taking either moderate or hard-core pro-life positions, compared with 40 percent on the pro-choice side. If that's in the ballpark, you can expect more support for restrictive laws than the polls tnr likes to cite.

He then takes on the Congress scenario, dealing with the prediction that if Roe fell and the issue came to Congress, the GOP would suffer most, pushed by its base to go for the strictest legislation possible. Ponnuru argues:

Honesty, however, should compel tnr to admit that pro-choicers have also been known to overreach. It was their insistence, in 1993 and 1994, that the Freedom of Choice Act include public funding of abortion that stymied the legislation. Most pro-lifers, meanwhile, have embraced an incrementalist strategy--pushing for small-bore legislation like the ban on partial-birth abortion rather than a Human Life Amendment to the Constitution--over the last decade.

Maybe, then, it would be Democrats who would be stuck with an uncomfortable calculus: Do they please a liberal base that wants to keep late-term abortions legal or a general public that doesn't?

The Reasonable Moloch-Worshippers at TNR underestimate the Fools of the Pro-life movement: What a surprise!

Wait 'til they hear us laugh when SCOTUS eventually overturns Roe V. Wade and ends their Judiciarium ways permenantly. I wonder if the collective sound of their jaws dropping and hitting the floor would constitute a natural disaster?

Ramesh Ponnuru vivisects their half-baked perspective on the prolife movements' ineptness. Go read the rest!