William Saletan's Unlikely Abortion Compromise

Speaking of contraception-related debates, Slate’s Will Saletan recently made yet another attempt to persuade the pro-life movement to champion contraception and sex education instead of focusing on throwing up legal impediments to abortion. He and I have been over this ground many times before. (You can read my response to an earlier iteration of his argument here, with follow-ups here and here and here.) But this time, Saletan pushed things a bit further, by suggesting that his own side should “reconsider the legality of second-trimester abortions.” He quoted the pro-choice historian David Garrow, speaking at the Princeton conference on abortion that occasioned Saletan’s reflections, and making what seemed to be a substantial concession on this front. Here’s Garrow: