Slate's Dahlia Lithwick sees nefarious motives in pro-life proposals (such as third-trimester bans and parental notification/consent) that would cut down on abortion. She believes, get this, that conservatives are proposing these things because they want to, get this, cut down on the number of abortions.

Well duh.

Pro-lifers do not want any abortions. This much is clear. However, that does not make limited proposals inherently dishonest. In fact, the public at large wants to limit these abortions, so why would the conservatives try to hide it?

To pick a liberal cause, let's take the death penalty. Capital punishment opponents do not want there to be capital punishment . If this sentence sounds redundent to you, proposals to curb certain kinds of abortions having the nefarious effect of cutting down on certain kinds of abortions seems equally so to me. However, to use Dahlia's logic, opponents of capital punishment trying to ban the executions of the mentally handicapped are a covert attempt to cut down on the number of executions. Well no kidding. Take the total number of people executed, subtract the mentally handicapped, and (assuming that there is at least one mentally handicapped individual being executed), the result will be less than the number of people originally scheduled to be executed.

The same is quite true for abortion. Take all of the abortions out there, subtract third-term abortions and those abortions averted due to parental notification/consent, and you will have less abortions than you would if you did not subtract third-terms and adolescent abortions (assuming, of course, that the subtracted value is greater than zero).

But, the question is, are these groups being dishonest by not stating that the goal is reduced overall abortions? Only if (a) that's what they were actually saying, and (b) they didn't have a particular interest in trying to target the specific abortions/executions that they are targetting. While I have no doubt that some opponents of abortion and capital punishment may be saying that this has nothing to do with limiting the number of abortions and executions, that's not typically the argument they put forward. But just as importantly, not all executions and not all abortions are created equal.

Let's start with executions. All executions may be bad, but most would admit that some are worse than others. There's a reason that they were out in full-force over Karla Faye Tucker and not Tim McVeigh. Similarly, a mentally handicapped individual is particularly undeserving of capital punishment because they are less likely to have been able to think through the consequences before they committed the crime. Their minds are less able to compute cause-and-effect. Therefore, even though they aren't winning the war, the smaller victories in battle remain gratifying. They may not be able to stop a serial killer from getting the needle, but they can stop someone that may not have entirely known what they were doing. That's an achievement.

The same is true with abortion. While there are those that believe that all abortion is murder, most draw distinctions. There is, for instance, the exception trifecta of rape, incest, and mortality. Similarly, third-trimester abortions are considered particularly heinus. A staggering majority of the public agrees with them on this matter. That doesn't make them correct, necessarily, but to suggest that 80% of the public is hoodwinked into seeing a distinction where absolutely none exists is not the argument of someone trying to influence public opinion. Let's put it this way, whatever unspoken doubts pro-life people may have about an implanted egg, they most assuredly to not have about an 30-plus week baby that is probably viable outside the womb.

Parental consent/notification is a tricker subject. Parental consent is an effort to limit abortions the same way that requiring parental consent for piercings (an example put forth by Ms. Lithwick) is an effort to cut down on piercings. In fact, I have never heard any other rationale. The number of kids that would like piercings minus the number that have parents that would not consent is going to be less than the number that wants them so long as the number of objecting parents is greater than zero. So yes, giving parents veto power over something like that is an effort to say that a kid is not equipped to make decisions about piercings is also not equipped to make decisions about terminating pregnancy and an effort to give those parents that do not want it to happen the power to make it not happen. You may not agree with those ends, but they're pretty straightforward.

Lithwick's best argument is for parental notification. Notification is not entirely an attempt to "open communication" between parents and children, but that was never the ends that was always the means. There are two ways in which this can present pregnancy: First, it gives the parents a chance to try to convince the daughter not to have an abortion. There is a basic argument that a parent ought to have the right to have input on such a large decision. You may disagree with that argument, but it's there and it's genuine. But secondly and I think more importantly, it means that they cannot simply make the problem "go away" by having an abortion. They can make the fetus go away, of course, but the notion of having an abortion to keep their sexual activity secret (as opposed to adoption, where it could not remain one) becomes a non-issue. This is, in the eyes of conservative Christians, a way to prevent an impressionable youngster from trying to make two wrongs (premarital sex and abortion) make a right (not disrupting the family).

Now there is a very strong counterargument that a young woman is equipped to make these decisions without the input of a parent. There is also an argument that they have the right to have an abortion simply to keep their sexual activity hush-hush, if they choose. There is also an argument that such cases are rare and poor cases to derive law from. But these arguments strike at the very core of the debate that Lithwick is saying is irrelevent to pro-lifers (the autonomy of youngsters).

For both sides, autonomy of the young is a battlefield, but abortion is the map. On the subject of parental notification, pro-choicers believe that the right to an abortion supercedes the right of a parent's control (or notification) of health care (a control they have in most other matters). Pro-lifers, on the other hand, believe that since abortion is too big and too important for an exception to be made in favor of those that might make an immoral decision for the wrong reasons. I'm hard-pressed to say that either side is being disingenuous -- except when they try to pretend that their side always discusses the issue with more honor and honesty than the other.