-- i wonder about that, in the following sense. Is the abortion question much different from racial segregation, in the sense that, to enforce any anti-abortion laws, i.e. laws making any or particular form(s) of abortion illegal would require, like racial segregation laws, a police state of one sort or another. Abortion laws designed on pre-Roe V. Wade bases cannot be enforced without police state measures by virtue of the social fact of widespread support for the right of women to have an abortion without having to be thrown thrown in jail.
That is the reason why the anti-abortion lobby, be it on the right, center, or left, needs to find ways to circumvent Roe V. Wade, wittle it down, 'refine' it...However, the fundamental idea that abortion should be made illegal is as impossible a proposition as racial segregation should be made legal and enforced, by virtue of the social fact that this is not the 1960's and the majority of the population does not and will not abide by such laws unless enforced by a major mobilization of police resources, and even then, thanks to the presence of a rooted civil rights and women's movement, would be difficult to enforce. It'd break the treasury!
If you ask most of the "anti-abortion" left, I would imagine Dennis included, if they supported the resort to police enforcement of laws that criminalise abortion, they would have to, on the face of it, say no. In fact, when you ask most right wingers that question, they really have a hard time with it, because they recognise what cannot be denied, that to enforce the law would require massive mobilization of police powers by virtue of the major seachange in attitudes among women on the right of the state to arrest a woman for having an abortion.
No different from the matter of racial segregation I would imagine. This is why few who are for segregation will ever argue for segregation, that's a settled issue by virtue of the massive seachange in attitudes toward the requisite police enforcement of racial segregation laws. Outside that, there are, indeed, a host of issues that are to be debated, but that is because there really is little choice given contemporary attitudes, or social facts if I may reveal my Durkheimian thrust....(blush!).
Steve