How We Talk About Abortion

Our debate yesterday over how pro-choicers talked reminded me of this Fresh Air piece an Ayelet Waldman. From my perspective, whatever the moral problems presented abortion itself, the specter of a ban instituted and enforced by the State, present many more.  But then there's another debate, which we hinted at yesterday--how we talk about abortion. My own pro-choiceness doesn't really procede from the question of whether a zygote is a life, as much as it does from a rejection of utopianism. Still, I was struck by how Waldman talked about her abortion. I don't think it much helps to render a moral judgement here--at least I didn't find it helpful. That said, I think the difference in how Waldman thinks about abortion, and how her mother thought about it are arresting.