I've got an idea about the abortion problem, but I'm not 'merican so I want to hear your opinion. Can we deflect using the FREEDOM argument? That we'd be against it, but damn it, we're in America, the land of the free, not Russia/China/Whatever and we're not about to take away the citizens' freedom of choice only because we don't like what they choose?
That's a pretty standard argument used... by Democrats and by those who are 'pro-choice' (hence the label).
The Republican counter-argument is that "my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins" -- that is, it's all well and good to speak of "freedom of choice," but when your choices violate the rights (life, or liberty, or property) of someone else, then it's hardly a violation of your freedom for the government to prevent or punish you for making such a choice.
That's the key to the abortion debate: if it were just a random medical procedure, the whole hullabaloo would be nonsensical. But from the conservative point of view, the unborn human fetus is a child, a
human life, with the same intrinsic right to life as every other person on the planet. (That's why they call themselves "pro-life"). In other words, they believe that the abortion debate is fundamentally about whether or not it should be
legal to
end a human life.
...
This is why there are no easy answers. This is why the issue causes passions to flare on both sides, why the whole thing gives headaches and conniptions to most Americans (especially those who are politically disengaged or apathetic). The hardliners on both sides have very good, internally consistent arguments (the fetus isn't yet a 'person' = abortion is about women's health; the fetus is human = abortion is about a child's right to life), both sides believe that their ideological opponents are
horrible human beings for denying what is so obvious, and through it all the issue hasn't been satisfactorily handled or resolved despite decades of intense debate. This is why most Americans tend to take the 'lukewarm' path of "I think abortion should be legal, until the fetus starts to look like a human, in which case it shouldn't be" with a bunch of ad hoc exceptions and caveats to make things even more convoluted.
Incidentally, it gets even worse when you're talking about a politician like Pataki or Tim Kaine or Nancy Pelosi any of the many
many Catholic politicians in the US. Officially, church doctrine teaches that the unborn fetus is a human life with a right to life, which is why so many pro-life rallies are filled with Catholic parishioners. However, due to (complicated) US political history, Catholics have historically associated and voted with the Democratic party, which made it pretty uncomfortable for them when the Democratic party embraced the pro-choice position. (As recently as the early 90's, Al Gore was a remarkably consistent advocate for pro-life before being given the VP nod by Bill Clinton, at which point Gore pulled a quick 180 and became 'pro-choice' to appease to the national base).
Anyway, Catholic politicians (usually Democrats, but including the occasional Republican like Pataki) have always toed a very uneasy line, arguing that they may
personally believe the fetus is a human life (hence "agreeing" with their Church), but as a public figure they are unwilling to
impose their morality on others who disagree with them. Which is the sheerest nonsense, of course -- if they were actually convinced that a fetus was a human life, then they would conclude that abortion means forcibly ending that life... and suddenly "imposing your morality on others" doesn't sound so bad.
