Abortion: Keep the Debate Going, Anywhere, Anytime

This morning's Detroit Free Press reports that Michigan Representataive Bart Stupak's (one of those rare and brave birds, an anti-abortion Democrat) anti-abortion rider may kill the proposed health care initiative. That is a moral good in and of itself. But more importantly, it forces this nation to address what sometimes has become an issue relegated to second class status.

Abortion is the proverbial elephant in the room for the politicians in the middle. They know they can't win on the question, so they generally hope that it will just go away. If they seem in the slightest way to promote it, conservatives become upset. If they likewise appear to go against it, the leftists rant. That is precisely because, like slavery, it is an issue which does not allow for compromise. There is no middle way. We have it or we don't; there simply is not another, ahem, choice on the matter.

So if the abortion debate alone kills the health care initiative, it will have served a great good. Nevertheless, we must remember that more is at stake than short sighted political gain such as that. We must use this opportunity to remember that abortion is a stain on our national soul, and as a rallying point where we fight it all the harder in the future.