Making women feel bad.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Political eye

Back in December, American Prospect Deputy Editor Sarah Blustain wrote a column that could have been a blueprint for Democrats as they rethink their position on abortion rights. "The Democratic defense of abortion makes me cringe," Blustain wrote. While she supports Roe v. Wade and every legislative effort to defend reproductive rights, Blustain deplored the "stridency, the insistence," and the "vocabulary of 'rights'" used by Democrats and pro-choice advocates.

Well, she didn't have to wait long to hear a change in tone. Within weeks, Hillary Clinton, that lightning rod for feminist bashers, was among the first Democrats to start talking about abortion as a "sad and tragic choice." Pro-lifers are the new stars of the party. Stridency is out. Conciliatory language on abortion is in.

Is this apologetic approach really such a good idea? "I'm certainly not recommending any backsliding on Democrats' actual support for abortion rights," Blustain wrote. But defending something you acknowledge as complicated at best and tragic at worst hardly seems like a good bargaining position. Backsliding is sure to follow. Witness the raft of restrictions on abortions, from waiting periods to parental consent laws to bans on particular procedures, that have garnered Democratic support in pursuit of a more "nuanced" view of the issue.

This pursuit has led Democrats to vote for reasonable-sounding legislation that limits abortion rights and to embrace pro-life members of the party who vote for even more restrictive laws. The net effect is not to acknowledge the sad feelings of women who have had abortions, as Blustain urges, but to make abortions hard to get. And, if they can't make abortions illegal, the proponents of all these restrictions seem to make women who seek abortions feel sadder about it.

Take the latest bill to come down the pike, a proposal to anesthetize fetuses before they are aborted. Under the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act, doctors would read a statement to their patients: "Congress finds that there is substantial evidence that the process of being killed in an abortion will cause the unborn child pain, even though you receive a pain-reducing drug." Doctors who fail to read the statement could be fined $100,000 to $250,000. The statement would urge that anesthesia be "administered directly" to the fetus. But it turns out that administering a separate anesthetic is a difficult process many doctors are not qualified to carry out.

Making women...