Who's a Criminal if Abortion Is Criminalized?

Here's something I didn't know, courtesy of Bob Novak: "No serious antiabortion legislation ever has included criminal penalties against women who have abortions, much less their parents."

Indeed, as Daniel Allott recently noted, "Proposed state abortion bans in South Dakota and elsewhere explicitly state that aborting women would not be criminally penalized."

Instead, anti-abortion advocates seek to prosecute the abortionist—he who induces the act, not she in whom it occurs.

I post this not because I agree with this agenda—far from it—but because facts are rare commodities in the abortion rhubarb.

Update (3/14/07): Here's an excellent example of why I love the Internet: Shortly after I wrote this post, someone left a comment on it referring me to Anna Quindlen's 2007 article, "How Much Jail Time?" In a much-quoted line, Quindlen argues that "there are only two logical [legal] choices: Hold women accountable for a criminal act by sending them to prison, or refuse to criminalize the act in the first place."

The problem is, the very evidence she relies on rebuts her charge. And what fascinating evidence it is. In Quindlen's words,

Buried among prairie dogs and amateur animation shorts on YouTube is a curious little mini-documentary shot in front of an abortion clinic in Libertyville, Ill. The man behind the camera is asking demonstrators who want abortion criminalized what the penalty should be for a woman who has one nonetheless. You have rarely seen people look more gobsmacked. It's as though the guy has asked them to solve quadratic equations. Here are a range of responses: "I've never really thought about it." "I don't have an answer for that." "I don't know." "Just pray for them."

As strongly as I agree with Anna Quindlen on abortion in general, she is mistaken about its criminalization. As indicated above, serious anti-choice legislation goes after those who administer abortions, not those who have them.

The same counter-question still applies—how much jail time should the doctor do?—but it behooves us who care about this issue to make sure our knowledge is equal to our passion.

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The Flawed Logic of Roe v. Wade

It's not what you think, or at least what you've heard. As Sigrid Fry-Revere, of the Cato Institute, puts it (in a not-yet-online letter to the editor in the December issue of Reason),

To make the right of women to control their own bodies hinge on privacy instead of every individual's right not to be treated as a public resource indicates a fundamental misunderstanidng of what is at stake.

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Can We Please Stop Calling Rudy a Social Liberal?

Thank you David Greenberg (emphasis added):

What's left of the case for Rudy's liberalism relies on three prongs: Guns, gay rights and abortion. But even those positions, seen in context, don't render Giuliani a liberal or a moderate so much as an occasional and tepid dissenter from the GOP line. . . .

Take gun control first. Some people demand that their candidate endorse the right to plunk down a wad of cash anywhere, anytime, for a submachine gun. But for most conservative voters, what matters is a "tough on crime" stance, and if any issue has defined Giuliani's career—from his years as a prosecutor frog-marching corrupt bankers down Wall Street to his staunch support as mayor for trigger-happy cops—it's his conservative posture on criminal justice. . . .

His stands on gay rights also don't quite merit the liberal label. Pundits often note that he lived with a gay couple after splitting with his second wife. But policy stands, not private behavior, define a politician's ideology. (Just ask Sen. Larry Craig.) Yes, Giuliani supports more gay rights than do other Republicans, but he still opposes same-sex marriage and has even denounced New Hampshire's law blessing civil unions.

On abortion, Giuliani, while technically pro-choice, is far from liberal: He favors outlawing what opponents call "partial birth" abortion, backs parental-notification laws and supports the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funding for most abortions under Medicaid.

Update (12/1/07): Michael Medved, who calls himself "unhesitatingly pro-life," contrasts Rudy's position on abortion with those of the leading Democratic candidates:

Giuliani has committed to preserve the Hyde Amendment, banning taxpayer money for abortions; the top Democrats urge repeal and favor federal funding. Giuliani applauded the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion; all leading Democrats condemned it in harsh terms. The former mayor supports tougher rules requiring parental notification (with a judicial bypass) for underage girls who seek abortions; Clinton and Barack Obama oppose such legislation. Most significant of all, Giuliani has specifically cited strict-constructionists Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts as his models for future justices of the Supreme Court — and all three of those jurists have signaled their support for allowing states more leeway in limiting abortions. The top Democrats regularly express contempt for the conservative jurists whom Giuliani admires, and worked against the Alito and Roberts nominations.

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Abortion Agonistes

According to a new study—the first global analysis since 1995—conducted by the WHO and the Guttmacher Institute, outlawing abortion does little to deter its incidence.

Katha Pollitt wants to know why there aren't any pro-life organizations that endorse contraception? Even Democrats for Life of America has refused to support congressional legislation expanding funding for contraception.

George Will reminds pro-lifers that a Republican-appointed court will not necessarily overturn Roe:

[O]ne of the justices who thinks Roe was improperly decided might nevertheless reason as Chief Justice William Rehnquist finally did concerning the "Miranda rights" of arrested persons—the right, arising from a 1966 ruling, to be notified of their right to counsel and their right to remain silent. Rehnquist repeatedly and strongly argued that the Constitution, properly read, did not require the ruling, which he thought impeded effective police work. But when in 2000 a case gave the court an opportunity to overrule Miranda v. Arizona, Rehnquist wrote the majority opinion in a 7 to 2 decision upholding it. He wrote:

"Miranda has become embedded in routine police practice to the point where the warnings have become part of our national culture. While we have overruled our precedents when subsequent cases have undermined their doctrinal underpinnings, we do not believe that this has happened to the Miranda decision."

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The Daily Digest

Jonah Goldberg explains why he's pro-life: "In death-penalty cases, 'reasonable doubt' goes to the accused because unless we’re certain, we must not risk an innocent’s life. This logic goes out the window when it comes to abortion, unless you are 100-percent sure that babies only become human beings after the umbilical cord is cut. I don’t see how you can be that sure, which is why I’m pro-life—not because I’m certain, but because I’m not."

Anheuser-Busch boasts one of the best MySpace profiles I've seen. The reason: It looks nothing like MySpace.

Reason's Michael Moynihan takes on Jon Stewart.

Rudy and Fred offer fiscal conservatives much to like.

Jon Henke, Fred Thompson's new-media consultant, live blogs Fred's first debate with his fellow Republicans. Jon employs just enough Dave Weigel and Ana Marie Cox wit to keep things interesting, without degenerating into Wonkette.

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The Daily Digest

Maureen Dowd reviews Rudy's performance at the recent NRA conference.

Shorter David Broder: Newt is good for America. Shorter Debra Saunders: But not as a politician.

Yesterday, the Council for National Policy issued a resolution that “if the Republican Party nominates a pro-abortion candidate [i.e., Rudy] we will consider running a third party candidate.” The NYT's David Kirkpatrick reports (see also WorldNetDaily and Salon), "The group making the threat . . . includes Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, who is perhaps the most influential of the group, as well as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the direct mail pioneer Richard Viguerie and dozens of other politically-oriented conservative Christians, participants said. Almost everyone present expressed support for [the] written resolution."

George Will poses 17 questions for Obama. For example: "You advocate leaving in Iraq 'some' U.S. forces for three missions—fighting al Qaeda, training Iraqi security forces and protecting U.S. forces conducting those two missions. . . . What is your estimate of the numbers required by your policy? How, and in consultation with whom, did you arrive at your estimate? As to fighting terrorists but not insurgents—how would soldiers and Marines tell the difference? If, while searching for terrorists, they make contact with insurgents, would your rules of engagement call for a full-force response? You say all 'combat brigades' should be out of Iraq 'by the end of next year.' Even if al-Qaeda is still dangerous? Who, after the end of next year, will protect U.S. noncombat forces that you say 'will continue to protect U.S. diplomats and facilities' and to 'train and equip' Iraqi forces?"

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Are Liberal Ideas Harder to Communicate?

Rudy Giuliani is a Republican who holds the Democratic position on abortion. He's also a Catholic, which digs his hole even deeper, since various American bishops have threatened to deny him Holy Communion, as they did to John Kerry in 2004.

Accordingly, most political strategists would advise Rudy to avoid the subject of communion at all costs, on the theory that there's no good way out of this minefield. A satisfactory answer would require either an encyclical or a Castro-length sermon, they posit.

Sorry, but that's dead wrong. Instead of obfuscating or tiptoeing around the issue, Rudy plunged headfirst into it, in the current issue of the New Yorker:

“They [the bishops] have every right to tell me anything they want,” Giuliani said to me. “But then I have every right to believe anything I want. And, ultimately, that sort of expresses both my political faith and my religious faith. They have a right to instruct me. And then, having my own conscience, and my own mind, and being my own individual person, I have a right to determine whether I agree with that or I don’t agree with it. Now, there are some people that look at religion differently. That’s the way I look at it. It’s a way that helps me understand morality better. It helps me understand God better. And ultimately it’s my relationship with God, my relationship with Jesus, that’s the important one. And I’ve got to figure it out. And if they help me they do. And if I don’t agree with it then I have to go with my own conscience.”

Thus, in just 152 words—to a reporter, no less—Rudy defused a tinderbox. He didn't pander, but spoke from his heart. Joe Klein would be proud.

Rudy’s homily is especially important because it disproves the conventional wisdom that Republicans are better communicators than Democrats, the thinking being that the nuance of clause-draped liberal ideas doesn't lend itself to sound bites (cf., "support the troops" vs. "pro-troop, anti-war"). As Stanley Fish has brilliantly elucidated, what matters is not the message but the messenger:

If you can't explain an idea or a policy plainly in one or two sentences, it's not yours. . . . Words are not just the cosmetic clothing of some underlying integrity; they are the operational vehicles of that integrity, the visible manifestation of the character to which others respond. And if the words you use fall apart, ring hollow, trail off and sound as if they came from nowhere or anywhere (these are the same thing), the suspicion will grow that what they lack is what you lack.

Indeed, a good communicator can always articulate his message, regardless of complexity and without compromising the integrity of his argument. Tom Friedman, a liberal columnist for the New York Times, is a master of this art, using simple metaphors, like The Lexus vs. the Olive Tree and The World Is Flat, to encapsulate big ideas.

Bear this in mind the next time someone carps that, say, Hillary Clinton's position on Iraq is too sophisticated to be simplified. It's not the position, it's the person, that's the problem.

Update: As soon as I finish praising him for being forthright, I read that he's clammed up. Asked last week at a town-hall meeting in Iowa if he is a "traditional, practicing Roman Catholic," Rudy retorted, "My religious affiliation, my religious practices and the degree to which I am a good or not so good Catholic, I prefer to leave to the priests."

Update (8/20/07): The more I think about it, the less I think there's a contradiction between the above two quotes. In short, some questions, like whether one is a good Catholic, are inappropriate, and it can be refreshing to hear a politician tell a questioner as much.

In fact, this is what Mitt Romney told a writer for the Atlantic Monthly last year, who asked if he wears Temple Garments—white underclothing, with the "Marks of the Holy Priesthood" sewn in, donned with reverence by the most faithful Mormons. "I'll just say those sorts of things I'll keep private," Romney sensibly replied.

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Rudy's Republicanization

Yesterday, the Boston Globe ran an article revealing the gradual ways Rudy has Republicanized (Romneyized?) his once moderate-to-liberal views, particularly on civil unions.

This week, a lengthy profile in the the New Yorker details two major shifts.

On guns. Once a near "absolutist" and "heartfelt advocate" of gun control, he now sees himself as a federalist on the assault-weapons ban:

He was a visible ally of Bill Clinton’s during the Brady-bill wars in the 1990s, and has been something close to an absolutist on every gun-control issue he has ever confronted, going back to his time in the Reagan Justice Department (when he opposed Edwin Meese, the White House counsel, on the issue). It is the subject on which he becomes most contorted in trying to square his past positions with his current political imperatives.

As mayor, Giuliani pressed for federal legislation banning military-type semiautomatic weapons (“assault weapons”), and requiring that anyone wishing to carry a handgun be licensed. As a Presidential candidate, Giuliani portrays his gun-control advocacy as an anti-crime tool, particular to New York, and says that gun regulation is best left to the states. “I was extremely aggressive in enforcing New York gun laws, and all the gun laws I could think of, to the point of reducing crime in New York,” he told me one afternoon in Baltimore this spring. . . .

Yet Giuliani’s past gun-control positions suggested the passion of heartfelt advocacy. He not only enforced existing laws; he lobbied for new regulations, and was the first Republican mayor to join other cities in taking gun manufacturers to court in a strategy that mimicked the anti-tobacco lawsuits meant to take down the big tobacco companies. When President Clinton signed the crime bill banning assault weapons, in 1994, Giuliani attended the White House ceremony and sat in the front row. That ban has since expired, and I asked Giuliani if he would support its renewal. “I think assault weapons would fall into the category of things that you could reasonably look at to prohibit,” he said. “But I’d really prefer to see that done on a state-by-state basis.”

On illegal immigration. Once so pro-amnesty that he instructed NYC cops to defy I.N.S. agents looking for illegals, he now employs the fence-first, secure-the-borders-now rhetoric:

Hard-liners on illegal immigration criticized Giuliani for his policies in New York, where he instructed city employees—including cops—not to cooperate with federal I.N.S. agents looking for illegal aliens. Today, Giuliani says that the I.N.S. was wasting resources by chasing after “cooks and gardeners,” and that he was worried that illegal immigrants would stop cooperating with police during criminal investigations if they were afraid of being deported, but his heart is plainly on the side of those who have come to this country illegally in order to work, or to build new lives for their families, and he intuitively sympathizes with any immigration plan that would ultimately find such people a place in society.

His own immigration-policy plans, framed as a national-security issue, were not different in any meaningful way from the compromise bill that consumed Congress this spring, except that he wanted every illegal resident to come forward for a tamper-proof identity card before getting in line for citizenship. It was, in essence, another form of amnesty, with a few extra requirements—besides getting their I.D.s, the immigrants would have to learn English, and they would have to go to the back of the line. When I asked him if he would support the compromise legislation if it contained a provision for tamper-proof identity cards, he said, “If we could get the I.D., it would make the rest of it work for me”. . .

[In fact,] as a guest on the Hugh Hewitt radio program, Giuliani said he thought that the immigration problem could be solved without any new legislation. [But] [b]y the time I saw him address a crowd at Pat Robertson’s Regent University, on June 26th, his position had made a full migration. Echoing the view of the conservative broadcaster Sean Hannity, on whose show he has become a regular guest, Giuliani said he had become convinced that the U.S. government had to first demonstrate that it could control the borders before taking up the question of eventual citizenship for illegals. “If you do that,” he said, when the applause died down, “I think you will see much more of an ability of the American people to accept some compromises here that will lead to sensible results.”

As for securing the border, Giuliani proposes the construction of what he calls “a technological fence,” which he insists would be much more effective than a simple physical barrier. . . . The innovation is a sensor-based platform that can be launched aloft and will “see” a 20-kilometer area, in a 360-degree panorama. “It will be able to conduct a surveillance, actually,” a person familiar with the project told me. “It can follow an individual, or follow a car, at very far distances.”

On abortion here, here and here.

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The Daily Digest

Al Gore's Nashville digs

"Mitt Romney continues to make John Kerry look like the model of consistency," opines Phil Klien. But this time, the latest flip flop only took six months. In February, on ABC's "This Week,"Romney said that "we should allow a federalist approach as it relates to the issue of abortion." Then, several days ago, asked about a constitutional amendment to ban abortion, he declared, "I support that being part of the Republican platform."

Related: Radley Balko argues for the Romney 1.0 approach. "Abortion policy . . . is about drawing lines and setting community standards. Such issues are best dealt with in those diverse laboratories of democracy, the states. A federalist approach would allow a wide array of abortion policies that better reflects the spectrum of public opinion on the issue."

BarelyPolitical.com releases its third Obama Girl video.

Did you know that it's illegal to tout a stock publicly without disclosing that you're being paid to do so?

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The Daily Digest

I'm unsure which is more horrifying and revolting: that a mother of two young children would turn herself into a bomb, or that her country's laws forced her to do so, lest she face execution for adultery. Time's Tim McGirk reports from Jerusalem on the Sophie's Choice for Palestinians. Related: in 2004, I asked, "Is there no shame?"

Amnesty International recently added to its catalog of human-rights abuses the denial of access to abortion. But as the Weekly Standard reports, the members-only part of its Web site discloses an interesting nota bene: "This policy will not be made public at this time. There is to be no proactive external publication of the policy position or of the fact of its adoption issued."

As a former journalist, one of the blogs I read everyday is FishbowlDC, a gossip blog about Washington, D.C., media. Fishbowl is part of the Media Bistro empire, which, on Tuesday, was sold for a cool $23 million. What is Media Bistro, you ask? Rachel Sklar, of Eat the Press at the Huffington Post, offers an insider's history.

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The Daily Digest

The morning-after pill: abortion or contraception? William Saletan investigates.

Adam Liptak tracks down several double standards concerning the clemency for Scooter Libby and clemencies denied to others similarly situated.

Jim DeMint, a loyal Republican senator from South Carolina, knows how to spin. First, blame the sin, not the sinner: "The president’s intentions were good, the heart was in the right place, the legislation was bad." Second, conjure hope out of disaster: "If this [immigration bill] had passed, America would have lost all confidence in the Congress and the president. I think this is going to give us a fresh start."

The New Yorker's press critic, Ken Auletta, reports on an underappreciated aspect of Rupert Murdoch's genius: his discipline. "The Bancrofts [who own Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal, which Murdoch is seeking to buy] wanted a board that the family would control in perpetuity, with the power to hire and fire the editors and the publishers, and leverage to protect employees from Murdoch—an extraordinary proposition. It is a measure of Murdoch’s discipline that he did not explode at the implication that he was some sort of uncaged vulgarian or at the idea that the Bancrofts would control the paper after selling it. Instead, Murdoch said—gently, by all accounts—that he could not invest five billion dollars of his shareholders’ money in order to become a mere spectator. He proposed a board like the one he had established for the Times of London and the Sunday Times, where of the 15 members only seven have no ties to News Corp., and where he can theoretically hire or fire the editor only with the assent of the board."

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The Daily Digest

In a bunker under the White House on 9/11

The iPhone spin stops here.

Contrasting the energy policies of the libertarian Cato Institute with the conservative Heritage Foundation, Jerry Taylor concludes that Heritage is more hostile to the free market than is the Sierra Club, of all places.

Here's an apt, Luntzian turn of phrase: "political power." It's a spin-off of "government power," which conveys undefined but big authority. "Political power" sounds more specific, pairing the idea of power and politics to convey the inevitable when the latter is given too much of the former: corruption.

In 2000, 95 percent of Wyoming women who had abortions traveled out of state to get them. In Mississippi, the number was 60 percent, in Kentucky, 41 percent, and in South Carolina, 35 percent. Accordingly, argues Eyal Press, "[A]bortion-rights advocates ought to focus less on the specter of a Supreme Court reversal than on the reality of who is—and is not—able to exercise choice under current laws."

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The Daily Digest

Rudy and McCain will not contest the Ames straw poll. Bully for them, says David Yepsen, who declares the famed poll "a shake-down of candidates that, for some, has replaced the caucuses themselves as a test of viability."

Frank Luntz shows off his dial technology for the most recent Republican debate. The winner: Romney, whose answer about his faith sent the dials off the chart.

Even before Ramesh Ponnuru suggested that earmark reform was a misguided cause, Cato's Stephen Slivinski and Reason's Jacob Sullum were voicing similar arguments.

Michael Rosen, an attorney in San Diego, explores Rudy's studied neutrality on Roe v. Wade.

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The Daily Digest

Rosie O'Donnell vs. Elisabeth Hasselbeck

You've heard of book reviews. Now get ready for Web site reviews. Alan Rosenblatt of techPresident reviews Bill Richardson's, a redesigned version of which the candidate unveiled concurrent with his official, presidential announcement. Rosenblatt's verdict: the site is "clearly good and potentially great."

Rudy's position on Roe v. Wade may be "perfectly reasonable," as Charles Krauthammer argues, but John Dickerson points out the difference between being pro-choice and very pro-choice (my links): "He supported public funding for abortion in New York, made donations to Planned Parenthood, and backed partial-birth abortions."

Considering that the name "Jerry Falwell" probably raised far more money for the left than for the right, liberals may come to mourn Falwell's death. John Pitney explains: "[H]is name remained a fixture in liberal speeches and fund-raising letters long after his actual power had shrunk. When he endorsed school choice and opposed abortion, liberals cited his position as a reason for taking the other side. When he supported Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, Senator John Kerry mentioned him and other conservatives in a floor speech: 'This right-wing reaction can only mean one thing: They know what kinds of opinions Judge Alito will issue in line with their extreme ideology.'"

Steve Chapman explains why Monica Goodling's recent congressional testimony was so appalling: "Considered in the most flattering light, the [U.S. Attorney] firings showed a process that was sloppy, amateurish and poorly informed, with no one in charge and no one responsible for the ultimate decisions. At worst, it revealed a highly politicized atmosphere that elevated partisan goals above fuddy-duddy concerns like honest law enforcement."

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Why Pro-Choicers Should Support Mandatory Ultrasounds

Will Saletan, author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, is, in my reading, the most informed, balanced and insightful mind in the abortion debate. Here's his counterintuitive take on why pro-choicers should support mandatory ultrasounds for women seeking an abortion:

Ultrasound has exposed the life in the womb to those of us who didn't want to see what abortion kills. The fetus is squirming, and so are we.

Around the country, ultrasound bills are all the rage. Most of them require clinics to offer each woman an ultrasound view of her fetus. Mississippi enacted a law on March 22. Idaho followed April 3. Georgia's legislature passed a bill a week ago; South Carolina's is about to do the same.

Critics complain that these bills seek to "bias," "coerce," and "guilt-trip" women. Come on. Women aren't too weak to face the truth. If you don't want to look at the video, you don't have to. But you should look at it, and so should the guy who got you pregnant, because the decision you're about to make is as grave as it gets.

Are ultrasound pushers trying to bias your decision? Of course. But of all the things they do to "inform" your decision, this is the least twisted. Look at the Senate's "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act." It would order your doctor to deliver a 193-word script full of bogus congressional findings about your "pain-capable unborn child." Ultrasound cuts through that kind of garbage. The image on the monitor may look like a blob, a baby, or neither. It certainly won't follow some senator's script. All it will show you is the truth.

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The Daily Digest

Bill Richardson's Latest Ads

If you're a young conservative or libertarian in the DC area, you should know about America's Future Foundation.

As is his wont, Radley spotlights the big picture surrounding a current event: prosecutorial zealotry and botched convictions go far beyond the exonerated Duke lacrosse players. "It's likely of no coincidence that the one jurisdiction [in Dallas, TX] where blood samples have been preserved is also one that's finding a shocking number of convictions of innocent people."

Another victory for transparency and bloggers (especially considering how expensive ShadowTV is): CNN has agreed to make its presidential debate footage available without restrictions at the conclusion of each debate.

The NYT reports that Rudy is "planning to offer a forthright affirmation of his support for abortion rights in public forums, television appearances and interviews in the coming days." This should be interesting, though let's hope that Rudy (1) drops the "hate!" declaration and (2) refrains from his other oft-repeated line that his position on abortion has always been "consistent." Even if that were true, I think it's better to admit the complexity of the issue rather than aver consistency in the face of a huge perception otherwise.

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Rudy on Abortion: One Step Forward, One Step Backward

Yesterday, on the heels of news that he has personally donated to Planned Parenthood, Rudy visited radio host Laura Ingraham (listen here). Ingraham wasted no time in broaching the elephant in the room: "If you hate it, what exactly is wrong with abortion?"

Rudy's response: "I think in America, you can personally oppose something, and at the same time recognize that in a pluralistic society other people just as strongly view it differently, and ... you can't put 'em in jail for it."

So far, so good. Given the time to elucidate and elaborate, Rudy did so in a way that seemed plausible.

But then Ingraham zinged him with the obvious follow-up: "[W]hy would you donate to something like Planned Parenthood that makes hundreds of millions of dollars off the procedure that you say you hate?"

Rudy's response: "Because Planned Parenthood makes information available. It's consistent with my position."

Huh? If you hate something, which you say you personally discourage, shouldn't you donate to organizations that also discourage that something?

I should also point out that it's less than confidence-inspiring when a politician, especially one like Rudy whose views on abortion are perhaps his most controversial, doesn't know whether the Mexico City Policy, otherwise known as the global gag rule, is or isn't currently the law. (It is.)

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Question for Rudy: What Exactly About Abortion Do You "Hate"?

NRO's Rich Lowry (again) pinpoints another contradiction in Rudy's oft-repeated line that he "hates!" abortion: it's "so flagrantly insincere" and "rings so false because, temperamentally, [Rudy] is not one to hate something without outlawing or attempting to discourage it."

Indeed, since Rudy is still ultimately pro-choice, why hasn't anybody asked him what exactly he abhors about abortion? Is it that it's controversial? That it's too common? That it constitutes murder?

Moreover, how does Rudy square his avowed abhorrence with at least six, personal contributions to Planned Parenthood, one of the country's leading abortion-rights groups and its top provider of abortions?

Add these questions to Dave Weigel's list for the full field.

Finally, Lowry suggests that Rudy can redeem himself by supporting the repeal of Roe (which many pro-choice scholars agree is bad constitutional law), and allowing each state to decide its own abortion laws. On the surface, this seems like the perfect way out—until you ponder the legal nightmare it would unleash:

The common refrain in the anti-Roe pro-choice camp is that women in anti-abortion states will simply travel elsewhere to end their pregnancies. But it’s unlikely that states with strict regulations on abortion would stand idle, and they will have many legal tools at their disposal.

States could make it illegal to cross state lines in order to abort a fetus—a tactic Ireland tried in the early 1990s, until a court decision and subsequent constitutional amendment recognized a right to travel. While the Supreme Court has recognized a constitutional right to travel across state lines, it has also recognized exceptions.

If states can decree that life begins at conception, they might also be able to use child custody laws to curtail the movements of pregnant women. For example, many states are legally allowed to hold children in protective custody if there is reason to believe the parents will misbehave. Once Roe has been overturned, a state may be able to place unborn children into protective custody, forbidding their mothers to take them across state lines.

Furthermore, in recent decades, the Supreme Court has ruled that a state can regulate its citizens’ activities while they are elsewhere and prosecute them for violations of state law upon their return. This so-called long-arm jurisdiction has been invoked to allow states to regulate Internet sites based beyond their borders, or to prosecute murders that followed interstate kidnappings. Anti-abortion states could forbid their residents to obtain or perform abortions, even while out of state. Would such measures be legal? The current law is unclear.

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When Not to Publish Anonymous Leaks

Phil Klein opines that Jonathan Martin's article yesterday about Rudy's donations to Planned Parenthood—information Martin received from an unnamed rival campaign—"makes me a bit uncomfortable, because basically the journalist is doing the dirty work for a candidate."

But the Hotline's Marc Ambinder (who I just recently discovered and whose work is terrific) argues that "Martin wasn't spoon-fed." He confirmed the tip, contextualized it, and disclosed its origin.

My take: Ambinder's conditions are all necessary but not sufficient to maintain journalistic integrity. To be sure, the issue isn't that the article hurt Rudy or helped his rivals, or that the Politico published the tip. The issue is the anonymity, or as the New York Times's first public editor, Dan Okrent, phrased it in a different context, the "anonymity-cloaked assertions of people with vested interests."

If a campaign wants its opposition research publicized, especially in a high-profile venue like the Politico, then it should stand by its hard work, with attribution. Martin, who's doing terrific work for his paper, was used like a football, and even though he and his editors are okay with that, the New York Times would never be.

Having said that, I'm still waiting for Jack Shafer to weigh in.

Update: Tom Bevan of RCP explains why the leak was well-timed.

1. "People, especially conservatives, are paying more attention to this stuff than most people . . . think.

2. "The longer Rudy stays out in front the more dangerous he becomes, so it is imperative he be brought back to the pack as soon as possible.

3. "Giuliani showed weakness on the issue of abortion in last week's debate and so the perfect opportunity presented itself to extend and expand conservative doubts about him on the issue by leaking the story now.

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The Daily Dose

Tel Aviv

The Right Angle, the blog of Human Events Online, catalogs (but sans hyperlinks) each presidential candidate's response to yesterday's Supreme Court banning late-term abortion.

In case you missed this year's CPAC, click here to watch Dave Bossie's introduction for Newt Gingrich, as well as Newt's speech (courtesy of American Solutions, Newt's latest Next Big Thing). Click here for a transcript of Dave's speech.

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