Ramesh Ponnuru (my friend and colleague), in his book The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life, writes “Everything you think you know about Roe v. Wade is a lie.” Something similar could be said about his book: Everything you think you know about The Party of Death is a lie.

Ramesh doesn’t need me coming to his defense, as he shows well elsewhere on NRO. But there’s something worth highlighting specifically in the emotional pull of the Jonathan Rauch New York Times review of it this weekend.

Rauch, who as Ramesh points out, is gracious, right here and there, and a smart fair-minded guy, starts out with the story of friends of his, Jenny and Greg, who are pro-legal abortion. When asked to “reduce” one of their triplets, though, they were horrified, as so many normal parents (i.e. those who are not legal-abortion-activist-absolutist types) would be. Though Jenny and Greg “think people have a right to control their own bodies,” they “also find the abortion issue distressing and difficult, and believe abortion should be reserved for special circumstances (theirs didn’t qualify).”

Rauch concludes that Ramesh “is out to tell them their position is nonsense.”

Yes, Ramesh, wants to convince readers that he’s right — that abortion, euthanasia, cloning, etc. are bad things — but it’s more complicated than that, and Ramesh acknowledges that throughout the book, from the introduction to the final page. He knows that many people are exactly where Jenny and Greg are. In his book, Ramesh says both that “There is no ‘pro-choice majority’” and that “there isn’t a pro-life majority, either, exactly.” Large numbers of Americans say they favor waiting periods, consent and notification requirements, and other restrictions, including on abortions after the first trimester. But, as he writes: “The public has some ambivalence about the subject of abortion. . .”

And Ramesh, I think, reaches right where Jenny and Greg, I imagine, are in the very beginning of his book — when he, heaven help him, dreams of Hillary Clinton.

He writes:

I do not often dream about Hillary Clinton. I did once, though, and I will try to clear away the haze and reconstruct it here.
She is at the podium, well into a campaign speech. The audience is more than sympathetic. NOW? The Democratic National Convention?
“Like so many of you in this room, I have been an advocate for women and children for years. And while we have more work to do, we should be proud of what we have accomplished. (Applause.)
“Because of our efforts, domestic violence is no longer hushed up, no longer seen as just a part of marriage. We treat it for what it is: a crime. We have raised awareness of rape, and made sure that the victims are no longer put on trial.
“You know, I’m old enough to remember when they called business a ‘man’s world.’ Now almost everyone knows that a woman’s place is in the boardroom. I know we still have far to go. The pay gap has shrunk, but it hasn’t disappeared. The lack of child care still keeps our society from realizing its full potential. And there are still some glass ceilings out there. I think we’re going to break some of them soon! (Cheers, applause.)
“And we’ve fought for something else, too. No woman should ever find herself in jail because an unplanned pregnancy has left her desperate. We don’t make criminals out of pregnant women in America. The Supreme Court guarantees that. If ideologues in the other party [try] to change that, we will fight them every step of the way. (HILL-A-RY! HILL-A-RY!”

Ramesh’s dream continues with more Hillary reaching out to Jenny and Greg, who find the abortion issue “distressing and difficult”: “But that doesn’t mean we’re for abortion. Don’t let anyone pretend that’s what we stand for! Abortion is a tragic choice. We want to liberate women. Abortion is a sign that our society is pitting them against their children. (Scattered applauses, murmurs.)”

Rauch relays, in his review: “Overwhelmed by the prospect of triplets, they were now horrified by the doctor’s casual attitude toward abortion. ‘Honestly,’ Greg says, ‘I felt like there was no regard for human life.’” In other words, Greg and Jenny might applaud at this point in Hillary’s fictional speech. The doctor, on the other hand, might murmur.

Ramesh’s imaginary Hillary speech continues:

“We should all be able to agree that 1.3 million abortions a year is way too many, and we should work together to bring that number down. The most important thing we can do is to give women more options. We need to balance the federal budget. But let’s do it by ending giveaways to big corporations that don’t need the money — not by cutting programs that help women take care of their families.
“I’ll admit that like many Americans, my thinking of this issue has changed over the years, and what I’m about to say may trouble some of my oldest friends and allies. I think maybe we’ve been so busy fighting the people who want to throw women in jail that we’ve somehow lost sight of the fact that abortion is a terrible act of violence against the young. If the law can discourage it — without, I want to repeat, making criminals out of women — then we ought to consider it. We ought to have laws that involve parents in their children’s decisions, for example.
“I’m not saying that I have all the answers. I don’t. But I think states ought to be able to try different approaches to protect women and children. And I think the Supreme Court ought to let them. Because America deserves better than abortion, and America deserves better than this fight we’ve been having for over a generation.”

Ramesh notes that when he woke up, he “realized if Hillary Clinton ever made that speech, she would be elected president of the United States.” But not before she concludes: “And I’m willing to work with anyone, in either party, who wants to move past that fight.”

Even Ramesh Ponnuru!

He argues later in The Party of Death for an incrementalist strategy, again, because he knows where people are. He ponders a post-Roe world where states are free to decide their abortion laws. It’s not a guarantee that abortion is outlawed, by any stretch, which he notes. But it’s a hopeful, realistic strategy. The more restricted abortion becomes, the less of it there will be, and the less support it will have. Ultimately, he says:

Perhaps in this new climate, it will even be possible to restore a sense of the sanctity of life to America. Over the last decade, pro-lifers have gained ground on abortion, while losing it on embryo research. People have turned against abortion based on the gut-level appeal of babies and the revulsion toward ripping them apart. That’s why ultrasounds and the campaign against partial-birth abortion have molded the debate. So far, pro-lifers have not been able to reach people in that way in the debate over stem-cell research.

But even there Ramesh is hopeful: “The more we reject abortion, the more we might come to reject other choices for death, too. That is surely what pro-lifers should work for.”

Rather than having “little to say” to Jenny and Greg, The Party of Death is a pro-life acknowledgement that they represent a lot of people and it is a call to the pro-life movement — “Hard-line abortion opponents” in Rauch’s language — to reach them where they’re at, to be realistic while working to defend life. The Party of Death, in this way is, contrary to the title of Rauch’s review, a “middle ground” in itself.

But don’t take my word for it.

– Kathryn Jean Lopez is the editor of National Review Online.