Gonna go out on a limb

I was reading Chris Dierkes's piece about Obama's Notre Dame commencement speech over at Ordinary Gentlemen. He is, unsurprisingly, no more a fan of the Huffington Post than I am:

In the controversy around abortion, it is not hard for Obama to look fair-minded. Obama is helped in this by useful idiots from his left flank who write not particularly bright commentaries on his speech re: abortion like this one on the front page of the HuffingtonPost.

The link leads you to a not particularly bright commentary at the Huffington Post.

I try to avoid writing about the snake pit that is the abortion controversy in the United States. I am too ambivalent about my own pro-choice stance to question the sincere beliefs of others, and am loath to court undue controversy. But I am unable to contain my scorn at reading this:

A few minutes before President Obama's commencement speech at Notre Dame, the CNN anchor was intoning that he supports stem cell research and he supports abortion rights, and that he would not shrink from his positions on either. In fact, she said, he was going to use an email he had gotten on the subject of abortion as part of his remarks.

Good, I thought. It will be from the parent of the mentally retarded high school student who was gang raped, the doctor of an 11 year old incest victim, or possibly a woman with four kids already whose husband has just lost his job and medical benefits along with it.

Boy, was I wrong.

Friends, it would be much, much easier if everyone who sought an abortion were in straits as dire as those described above. I would love to tell you that, during my years working in New York, I was faced with young women consistently conflicted about their pregnancies, and who were aware of how profound a decision they were making when they opted for abortion. I wish it were not the case that many such young women truly did use abortion as a method of contraception, and that some (dare I say many?) of those young women did so blithely and with no apparent hesitation.

I would love to say those things. Those things are not true.

Abortion is a tremendously complex issue, and one about which I believe people of intelligence and integrity can honestly disagree. Indeed, I believe that both sides have compelling arguments in their favor. But if we're going to have this debate, then let us move away from the examples of women in extremis, and acknowledge that abortion occupies a much more muddy moral space. I will not make the cavalier young women I encountered stand-ins for women who seek abortion in general, but neither will I accept that they are outliers.