Max,
I'm all for more information on who's getting third-trimester abortions and why, but you lose me when you start talking about how a proper defense of "womanhood" is rightly a defense of the baby in the womb.
The philosophical pro-choice position is that before birth, the absolute dependence of the fetus on the body of the woman (for nutrients, oxygen, etc.) gives the woman some rights over the fetus, rights she would not have over a baby, who is dependent only in a much more general social sense. Third-term abortions appear more complicated because premature babies can sometimes survive with medical assistance, and obviously no- one wants to kill babies, nuts like Singer aside. But guess what? Even in the third trimester, the fetus isn't outside the womb; it still depends absolutely on the physical systems of the mother. Therefore, the woman still has the right to determine whether or not to continue the pregnancy, though she wouldn't have the right to kill a premature baby.
That's the argument--makes sense to me, but take it or leave it-- but we all know that women don't get abortions because they've developed airtight logical pro-choice arguments. They get them because their backs are against the wall. I would imagine that this is especially true of third-term abortions. Probably most of the people (three or four hundred a year?) getting third-term abortions are women with serious medical problems; the "lazy and irresponsible" ones are likely to be teenagers who are too afraid to admit they're pregnant in time to get an early abortion, thanks in no small part to the folks who tell them they'll be murderers if they do.
So when you laud the "coherent" Catholic position--which, in its divine coherence, extends to contraception as well--what exactly are you looking for, Max? Just playing with a new argument, or do you take it seriously? More limitations and regulations on abortion? An outright ban on third-term abortion? A defense of womanhood which puts childbearing back front and center, where it oughta be? Or just a little more humility from those uppity feminists, a little acknowledgement that the fetus counts too? Since you're usually the champion of the working class, I'd remind you those middle-class liberal NARAL and NOW members who bug you with their bloodless talk about the "right to choose" are, by and large, the women who, in the ugly old days before Roe vs. Wade, could pay for underground abortions--unlike their working-class sisters, who are the ones who truly benefit from legal, safe and affordable abortion.
Kim Phillips-Fein