Claim: SD assault on Roe is a gift to pro-choice Democrats

Alexandra Walker of Tompaine.com:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/03/27/the_south_dakota_curveball.php

Polman, like Waldman, noted the deafening Democratic silence over South Dakota's self-proclaimed "frontal assault" on Roe. The extremists in the Republican Party have just handed pro-choice Democrats a fairly black-and-white issue which they could be using to make their case for the importance of legal abortion. And, if they were smart, they would make a very prominent, public stand against the law, arguing that criminalizing abortion will not end abortions. Smart Democrats would pick up on research like that recently explained on TomPaine.com by the Guttmacher Institute's Cynthia Dailard. She wrote:

... restrictions may make abortions harder to obtain, they do not reduce the underlying demand for abortion. The reason for this is simple: behind almost every one of the 1.3 million annual abortions in this country is an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. The United States has a comparatively high abortion rate because it has a high unintended pregnancy rate—one of the highest among industrialized nations. States wishing to reduce their abortion rates would do far better to devote the necessary resources to help women obtain contraceptives and use them effectively over time—particularly low-income women who are most likely to experience an unintended pregnancy.

Smart Democrats would assail South Dakota for grandstanding while actually doing nothing to end the primary cause of abortion—unintended pregnancy. That would be framing the debate in a way that aligns the Democrats with proactive measures to reduce abortion, while affirming their commitment to safe, legal abortion. It would not only be pragmatic, it would be principled.