Kathryn: I do know people who would put women who procure abortions in jail if it were possible, although they are a small minority of the anti-abortion movement. (The Republican platform specifically rules out this policy, by the way.) My own view is that if unborn human beings can be given the effective protection of the law by a regime as light as delicensure for doctors who commit abortions and fines for unlicensed persons who commit them, that would be fine. I’m a little rusty on this, but if I recall correctly the nineteenth-century American practice was to let the procuring women free since their giving evidence was key to prosecuting the abortionists.

On another point: Kristof’s comment about the relation of abstinence education and abortion is pretty facile–he makes the standard liberal point–considering that we’ve had more abstinence ed and less abortion over the last decade.