The Times applauds, naturally:

A Kentucky state representative believed that a new law requiring women to have a medical consultation 24 hours before having an abortion smacked of sexism.
So the lawmaker, Mary Lou Marzian, proposed a bill in the male-dominated House to drive home the point.
Under the legislation by Ms. Marzian, a Democrat, men would have to navigate a series of obstacles before they could obtain erectile dysfunction drugs, like Viagra. Each man would be required to have two doctor visits, a signed-and-dated letter from his spouse providing consent and a sworn statement — delivered with his hand on a Bible — that he would use the drugs only to have sex with his spouse.
Only married men would be eligible for the drugs.

Oh, wow! That’s so cheeky! The patriarchy is reeling!

These showpieces are popular on the left, and they’re all enormously tiresome. To state the obvious, the question at issue in abortion is, Are two lives at issue, or one? That question is not at issue in the purchase of Viagra.

But I expect Ms. Marzian knows that — and just doesn’t care. Which, as it happens, is where the pro-abortion movement has been heading for some time. And it’s clarifying. Take, for example, Hillary Clinton’s coming out against the Hyde Amendment, the perennial appropriations rider that prevents taxpayer dollars from directly funding abortions. In politics, the Hyde Amendment is called a compromise. Ms. Marzian’s pro-abortion constituents can procure a procedure, but her other, anti-abortion constituents don’t have to pay for it. On a fraught question, we made room for both sides. What pro-abortion activists are increasingly unwilling to do is concede that there is a moral question at issue at all. Hence the disappearance of “safe, legal, and rare,” and the rise of “safe, legal, and whenever you please.” In the long term, I suspect that that will work to the benefit of abortion opponents; but in the short term, it means a more shrill, more vehement pro-abortion movement, set on knuckling under those who disagree with them.

Which brings us back to Marzian: A medical consultation and a 24-hour waiting period are very minor concessions to make when the procedure in question may involve killing another person. It’s a way of giving some room for moral considerations that may be neglected by rushing into an abortion. If you’re set on the procedure, the 24 hours will not make a difference; if you’re on the fence, it may. And here’s the question for Ms. Marzian and her sort: Why shouldn’t we err on the side of life?

(P.S. Since Marzian’s opposition to the new law is sexism, how about a brain-bender: Is Marzian in favor of laws prohibiting sex-selective abortion? Since baby girls are overwhelmingly the victims of that practice, wouldn’t opposition to such a law, by Marzian’s logic, be sexist?)