Perhaps I should have taken more care in formulating my sentences, since some “interpretations” in the comments are not what I subscribe to, and perhaps it could have saved us from the bad part of this thread (though I wonder whether one could write about abortion without provoking some rather nasty, and in my view uncharitable, comments.)

In any case, I think Alison (#21) gives a better interpretation of the orignal post than some others do; and I agree that aiming for a reduction in the number of late abortions by having a same-number increase in earlier abortions is, all other things equal, a good thing.

My critique on the Nicaraguan position is in part based on the belief that if a woman is pregnant and really doesn’t want to continue the pregnancy, she will try whatever she can to have an abortion; and I further assume that for the vast majority of women pregnancies resulting from rape or incest are strongly unwanted, up to the point of being (psychologically) unbearable. If that is true, then the first step in minimising the number of abortions is to minimise the number of unwanted pregnancies.
Therefore the policy mix I’d support is making contraceptives effectively available AND providing sexual education AND empowering women AND supporting women who do choose to continue the pregnancy AND giving women access to safe abortions up to a certain week in the pregnancy. (Thanks to the commentators who highlighted the sexual education and empowerment issues – I should have mentioned them in the original post). If you have this policy mix, I would hope that (a) you minimise the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and (b) from all the abortions that will happen whatever their legality, you minimise the probability that they will take place later in the pregnancy or in unsafe conditions. And you don’t create a society where the effective options for how to deal with unwanted pregnancies are strongly unequal between the rich and the poor.

I’m happy to admit that this is a refinement/restatement of the view in the original post, prompted by some interesting comments (though in my view it is not a categorical change). If those who thought my original post was ridicilous still think so, so be it.

on some threads about “social liberties”, we see some of our regular “libertarian” commentators coming in on the side of liberty. To my knowledge, I have never seen this once.

I don’t know what threads and which ‘liberterian’ commentators (not including the occasional cross over from the Corner or whatever) you’re referring to but this seems just like a baseless assertion. Again, this blog is left of center, which is reflected in most of the comments with a sprinkling of some liberterians. And these two groups pretty much agree on social issues, with the possible exception of abortion which is much more complex (and let me remphasize this again since you’re completly ignoring it, prefering to attack your own fata morganas – everyone on this thread agreed abortion should be legal!). You want me to prove my social liberal cred? Fine. War on drugs bad. Gay marriage should be subsidies to make up for past discrimination. Immigration, more please. Homeland security and patriot act, stupid, wasteful and authoritarian. Swat teams and no-knock raids, trouble, trouble, trouble. Hell, I’ll throw in higher gas taxes and higher EITC for poor folks while we’re at it. On a good day you might convince me to extend unemployment insurance.
This is like the Cory Maye post where some commentators on here were trying to score cheap ideological points by saying “where are the liberterians on this? see how hypocritical they are!” while liberterians were actually doing most of the leg work on spreading the news.

And when you begin by questioning people’s motivations rather then engaging their arguments (again, post #41) then yeah, I think you’re just having an idelogical knee jerk reaction.

Steve Lebonne – “these people”? Where are they, I don’t see them. Yup much better to just call’em “these people” then actually say something substantial.