The Homa Files

One Response to “Pro-life, pro choice … the nums explain the politics.”

1. Frank Says:
   February 10, 2012 at 1:47 pm | Reply

   Chuckle… we are wading in to it today, right? I want to comment on the politics of abortion. I really, really, really do not want to comment on the merit of abortion.

   We’re all aware of the problems inherent in liberal democracy: populations tend to vote themselves benefits and not taxes, what is the value of checks/balances in the absence of political opposition, the disproportionate power of single-issue voters. But I want to suggest another one. Most politicos will laud small-“d” democrats as engineers of compromise- that electoral judgment pushes political operatives away from the fringes.

   That is true- but it falls apart on what I inelegantly label “questions with fantastic moral consequences”. To wit, vox populi can’t compromise, because one side simply cannot lose due to the catastrophic moral aftermath.

   The moral consequence has to be at the Pol Pot level, and not ExxonValdez: some sort of eight figure death toll, or unimaginable human cost. The Unites States has faced this political problem twice*. The first example was slavery. The United States ultimately never could resolve this political problem short of war because one side (cotton south Democrats) just couldn’t give on the argument. If judgment on slavery came down against them, they would not be labeled anything short of historical monsters.

   I’m not suggesting any moral equivalence between abortion and slavery. But honestly, the issues simply are politically equivalent. They provoke the same level of absolute principled passion. The same massive historical consequences exist for one side. Consequently, the pro-choice community cannot lose this argument.

   Americans have made doozy mistakes in the past: Johnson’s Vietnam policy, Nixon’s vile corruption, the Democratic Party Klan-bake in 1924, Know-Nothings, etc. But, should our national abortion policy be in error, it is a mistake of a whole other magnitude. Figure 40-50 million abortions since the mid-70’s. It is the only issue since 1860 that has that kind of potential human cost consequence. And the enablers aren’t going to get a cheery pass like General Custer does.

   I don’t know what 2080 will look like. If the societal determination is “pro-choice”, figures like Santorum and Maggie Gallagher go down as misguided historical footnotes. If the determination is “murder”, then Rep. Pelosi and President Obama go down with the ugliest people in history. The 2080 version of “The Good Germans” would be written about registered Democrat voters of 1970-2012.

   And therein are the stakes, right? What other issue has that sort of potential downside? President Obama and his supporters, like Jefferson Davis and the 1860s Democrats, simply can’t lose this particular argument. It isn’t a political question to the Obama administration. It is something more important- and thus you can’t view his decisions through a traditional lens. Remember, Edmund Ruffin just kinda happened.

   *Maybe a third too- the extermination of the Native American Indian population.