Douthat Again
By Sorry, busy day with parental visit and various other tasks that need doing, but while I might get to this later see Roy, Barbara, Kathleen Reeves, K-Drum, and Athenae. I do have to address this:
“One reason there’s so much fierce argument about the latest of late-term abortions — Should there be a health exemption? A fetal deformity exemption? How broad should those exemptions be? — is that Americans aren’t permitted to debate anything else. Under current law, post-viability procedures are the only kind you’re allowed to even regulate.”
I note, once again, that an alleged conservative intellectual is either lying about the current law or lacks an even minimal knowledge of what he’s talking about. Unless by “regulate” he means “ban entirely” — which in context would be a another form of dishonesty — this is straightforwardly false. Both states and the federal government are not only permitted under Casey to regulate pre-viability abortions in all kinds of ways, but are permitted to ban some pre-viability procedures altogether. How many times to his editors intend to let him keep saying things about abortion law that are simply false?
…as always, see also Hilzoy.