While on the NR cruise, I missed a debate about these subjects that broke out on the blogs (some links to start with are here). The various positions have been well ventilated, but I do have four quick points to add:

1) The popular reception of the Freakonomics argument that abortion cuts crime is one reason for thinking that eugenic arguments for the general availability of abortion have some purchase with the public.

2) A regime of legal abortion, coupled with advances in screening, makes abortion to get rid of severely abnormal fetuses inevitable. Nobody wants–I don’t want–to ban screening. So our choices are, I think, a general ban on abortion and accepting that the abortion of fetuses with Down syndrome and other conditions will be widespread.

3) People such as Matthew Yglesias insist that the contemporary practice of selective abortion differs crucially from the old eugenics in that it is not coercive. Whether it is coercive or not, however, depends on what you think about human beings in the stage of development in question. On pro-life premises, abortion is, so to speak, a coercive act. So this is one of those debates that circles back to the beginning.

4) The whole debate seems to be pervaded by the idea that eugenic abortions–pick another term if you find that one offensive; the point I’m making does not depend on the label–are a p.r. problem for the pro-choicers. Pro-lifers therefore want to associate them with those abortions, and some pro-choicers reject the association. But it isn’t a political weak point for pro-choicers; it’s a strong point. That abortion should be available in cases of severe fetal abnormality is wildly popular. Most people who have the choice exercise it, and some parents who do not report that they feel as though some of their peers judge them negatively for continuing the pregnancy. All in all, I think it is fair to say that at present in this country, there is a reasonably strong social norm that fetuses with certain conditions should be aborted.