Compromise with What?

I had intended to blog about Jim DeMint’s ridiculous dodging of questions about the implications of his abortion position on Press the Meat, but fortunately Atrios nails it. He brings up another good point that I think is worth further comment:

I’m just about as close as one can be to being a pro-choice absolutist. But, decent people occasionally email me and wonder if there isn’t some sort of honest compromise that can be found between pro-choice people and the more reasonable of the “pro-life” folk.

The point that we can’t make meaningful compromises with such an unprincipled and incoherent position is an important one. I think, first of all, that it’s important to understand what’s going on when pro-choicers are asked to “compromise.” The key narrative of anti-Roe jihadists is to posit a golden age of abortion legislative reform, from 1967-70, when compromise was possible and before women started getting all uppity and demanding their rights. This romanticization is, in fact, ridiculous; far from being a model of deliberative democracy, these reforms were the product of logrolling between medical and legal professionals, created incoherent laws that involved gross inequities in their enforcement, and yet still enraged anti-abortion forces enough that they stopped legislative reform in its tracks by 1970. Understanding this context, I think it’s particularly important to be uncompromising:

• There’s certainly no reason to compromise on the merits. As I noted last week, the current position of the pro-coathanger lobby is such an ethical and legal shambles that it compels derision, not accommodation. If DeMint doesn’t take his own position seriously, why should I?
• As Atrios says, we could certainly make compromises that would reduce fetal abortions and protect fetal life, but since pro-coathangers are far more concerned with controlling female sexuality than protecting fetal life they won’t fly. This is certainly not our problem.
• Nor are there pragmatic reasons to compromise. If given a choice between a strong pro-choice position and a principled pro-life position, the latter doesn’t have the slightest chance. Abortion laws that were rigorously enforced against affluent women would last for about as long as it took the legislature to reconvene.
• Finally, I reject the assumption embedded in these requests that political conflict is necessarily bad. Sometimes, conflicts are incommensurable. That’s politics. There’s nothing inherently better about a compromise position; sometimes it’s good, sometimes it isn’t. Anti-abortion advocates have no choice but to compromise, because their positions in undiluted form would be extremely unpopular and lead to absurd conclusions. Pro-choicers just aren’t in that position; our position can be coherent, uncompromising, and politically feasible. So when you hear people whining about the lack of compromise on abortion, don’t buy it.