In the abortion issue there’s a painful asymmetry that anti-abortionists have to be careful to skirt, and even throw a skirt over. It’s this.
If pro-choice laws are advanced, no one is forced to do anything personally. Your religion prohibits abortion? Then don’t have one.
If pro-life laws are advanced, then the burden of bearing a pregnancy and what eventually becomes a child is on the pregnant women, with no options for termination. In some cases, even existential disaster is not considered good enough.
And this is another crack in the wall of anti-abortion reasoning, in fact a crack so important that it must be papered over, like Erick Erickson does here:
I understand the argument of leaving this to the states, but Democrats have already said if they get back the Senate with a few more seats, they will scrap the filibuster to impose abortion on demand. The GOP needs a response.
Bold mine. It looks like an awkward word choice made in the heat of the moment, but consider this: any other word choice renders Erickson’s argument too transparent. Another word choice runs the danger of clarifying, rather than confusing, the above asymmetry. The argument that abortion on demand is imposed is specious; the proper verb is permit.
His word choice here makes it sound like the discussion is about involuntary abortion, which is not the case in the least.
The fact that a close examination of this point causes this particular argument to collapse into incoherence suggests his entire side is incoherent. That is, applying the epithet baby-killers, as he has done in the past, to women who simply want to survive their pregnancy is a painfully mistaken, if not deliberately dishonest choice.
And that’s why it pays to closely examine the wording of arguments.
