Pro-Lifers focus on how regrettable (if not actually evil) each abortion (or unnecessary abortion, depending on the individual's views) is.  Pro-Choicers focus on the inviolable right of a woman to decide her reproductive future.  The only way rational people can even begin this conversation we must agree that there is some significant value to each of these concerns.

I don't know a single pro-Choicer who rejoices at an abortion.  I don't know very many pro-Lifers who are completely oblivious to the fact that much of history is littered with stories of women who could not much control whether or not they had children.  The question of agency becomes even more deplorable when one considers that women have historically had less choice in whether or not they would initiate the sex act.  We've come a long way on the issue of consentual sex, but we have hurdles left to jump and miles left to run.  Most conservatives I know are at least somewhat considerate of these facts.

The first cleavage is the value each camp assigns to each problem.  Which is worse?  The death of the unborn or the sexual straightjacketing of women?  I find both to be deplorable and truly tragic.  Is there some way to avoid both, inasmuch as possible?  Yes, yes there is.  Both sides have to compromise for that to happen.

Bill Clinton nailed it when he said that he wished abortion were "safe, legal, and rare."  That's it exactly.  Women should have the right to make the choice, but we as a society should make the need or want for it to be as rare as we can be by defeating the causes.

Here is what I think a fair compromise would look like:

1) Functional sex education.  Parents can and should teach morality to their children, and sexuality is a large component of that lesson.  The state should not seek to teach whether or not sex under any set of circumstances is "right" or moral.  As a prospective parent I would not want a high school or middle school teacher telling my kids whether or not they should be having sex.  That's my job.  However, we as a society have a phenomenally strong interest in having all of our children knowing the mechanics, consequences, and issues of health that go along with sex.  The people I've known who've ducked that as kids turned out in a variety of odd ways.  Some took risks they never would have, had they been given a good education on the health of sex.

2) Adoption should be encouraged!  We use the tax code in all manner of ways to drive public behavior.  This should be encouraged greatly.  Tax credits may not be free, but neither is the foster-care system nor really any other step along the way the state rears its wards.  I think we can incentivize adoption in a way that winds up costing less than what we're doing now.  The process is overcomplicated and costly.

3) Gay adoption needs to happen, and the religious right needs to chill out!  Fine, they think it's a really big risk.  Whatever.  They're entitled to believe that, but if they really sat down and thought about it, ending the abortion debate has to be more important to them than this issue.  Homosexuals are the group most likely to want to adopt.  It's complete lunacy to exclude them, or to even suggest it.

4) We need to make contraceptives more available, and doubly-so for Plan B (and other forms of the morning after pill).  Having had to avail myself of this option in the past, I can assure you that they could make it a tad easier to get.  I don't want to hear about pharmacists refusing to sell it, either.  That's bogus and idiotic.  The folks who don't want to sell it are almost certain to be opposed to abortion.  

5) Along with #4, we need to educate the public.  The morning after pill generally does not abort a pregnancy - it prevents one.  This misconception is driving religious opposition to it, I'm sure.

6) Pro-choicers should probably come to terms with the Casey v. Planned Parenthood decision, because its reasoning will almost certainly inform any legislative regime.  Even if we stay within the judicial one we currently enjoy, that already is the governing precedent, and whatever follows will stem from Casey.  There are several salient points to Casey, and I'll go into them presently.

Women have a right to decide whether or not to have a child.  I cherish that right.  As a man I am extremely uneasy even discussing this topic.  However, I don't give up my right to speak, to reason, or to vote because I have a penis.  What I am trying to accomplish here is to reason a way to protect a woman's right to choose whilst still accomodating other valid concerns in the electorate.  Non-polygamists can vote on polygamy.  People who don't smoke marijuana can vote on drug issues.  The blind can speak out on road signs and god knows what else.  American democracy accepts the voices of all citizens, not just those who are affected by the law.  You need to accept that.  You offend and drive off allies when some of you insist we either can't have an opinion or we should keep it to ourselves.  If pro-choice men are silent then the only men speaking are the pro-Lifers, and I cannot imagine that pro-Choice women think that's a helpful state.

While a woman has the right to choose whether or not to have a child, the Casey decision weighs that right against another interest.  The State has an interest in protecting the lives of its citizens.  Per Casey, the unborn becomes a person that the State has an interest in protecting at some point during the pregnancy.  Casey defined the threshhold as when the child becomes viable.  At viability the fetus/unborn child/child (whatever you wish) could survive on its own, though often with initial assistance.

This is a good place to draw the line for two reasons.  First, we can all agree that a child is fundamentally human an hour prior to birth.  If we accept that, then we have agreed that human life does not begin at birth but at some point prior to that.  If we agree to that, then the question becomes: when does human life begin?  That is as much a philosophical question as it is a medical one.  However, as a question of policy we need some kind of answer and Casey gives us one.  Human life may begin at whatever point it begins, but the State has a vested interest in protecting the lives of its citizens.  At viability we have someone who could survive on his/her own.  I think that's a very reasonable bright line rule.

It's also a bit nuanced.  Viability varies from individual to individual, but also as medical science improves and learns we have been able to shorten the amount of time it takes to reach viability.  Per Casey, viability occurs somewhere around 22 or 23 weeks into the pregnancy.  That's five to five and a half months.

So lets bring it home.  I believe in a woman's right to choose as much as I believe in any other fundamental right we Americans possess.  The idea that any man or woman could force a woman to bear a child she does not want is abhorrent to me.  It is a form of bondage.  However, if the woman voluntarily consented to the act that lead to her pregnancy (thus excluding rape, statutory rape, and so on) then I believe that the Casey rule is absolutely fair.  22 or 23 weeks is more than enough time for any sane person to know if she is pregnant and to reflect on that situation at length.  I don't know that I can countenance an abortion morally if it occurs after viability, unless that abortion is needed to guarantee the safety of the mother (or the usual rape, incest, etc exclusions apply).  At that point you've very nearly got a person.

Now I understand that many people will understandibly reply that this is a woman's right and should not be regulated or infringed by men or the State.  All well and good, but there simply is no right that you or I or anyone possesses that cannot be regulated by the State, or infringed under certain circumstances.  Our Constitution provides for our rights, both enumerated and unenumerated.  We can speak, though we cannot do so without thought to consequences.  We can keep and bear arms, though we cannot do so without reasonable regulations.  We have the right to life, though we can forfeit it.  We have the right to liberty, though we can forfeit that as well.

Your individual rights exist up until the point that society decides they don't.  The majority is wrong at times.  The Constitution attempts to allow the majority its due whilst still protecting the rights of the honest minority.  I think the Casey rule, whether it continue on in a judicial regime or be substantively enacted in a legislative regime, is the fairest and sanest way.

If a woman were to decide, under this regime, after 23 weeks that she (being healthy, both physically and mentally) did not want the child, the State would not permit an abortion but would facilitate an adoption.  I am not blind at all to the restriction on the freedom of the mother under these circumstances.  However, if we do our damnedest to educate our young and give them the tools they need and more than enough time to make educated decisions, I think we can avoid this sad state from happening very often indeed.

Remember this - in this hypothetical we have a woman who consented to sex and waited until after she was carrying a viable child.  Is that really something our society wants to allow and protect?  I don't see any easy answers to these questions, but I've tried to lay out a way to satisfy the core concerns of everyone.  Inevitably I will have offended nearly everyone.

I would like to stress that what I have suggested would be incredibly hard to enact, as there are aspects of this that neither side will like.  I have tried to envision a system that preserves life and a woman's right to decide whether or not to create it.  What I have suggested is essentially what the Supreme Court has already decided.

Critique what I have written, but I ask that you folks avoid personal attacks here.  I am neither God nor a dictator.  I am simply giving my thoughts and trying to foster an honest and constructive debate.  I can be persuaded by force of cogent arguments.  I hope that you will approach this in the same way.

Thank you.