Ross joins the debate (since he left the Atlantic and went to the NYT, his online presence seems somehow dimmed):
By enshrining a near-absolute right to abortion in the Constitution, the pro-choice side has ensured that the hard cases are more controversial than they otherwise would be.
One reason there’s so much fierce argument about the latest of late-term abortions Should there be a health exemption? A fetal deformity exemption? How broad should those exemptions be? is that Americans aren’t permitted to debate anything else. Under current law, if you want to restrict abortion, post-viability procedures are the only kind you’re allowed to even regulate.
If abortion were returned to the democratic process, this landscape would change dramatically. Arguments about whether and how to restrict abortions in the second trimester as many advanced democracies already do would replace protests over the scope of third-trimester medical exemptions.
Is Ross saying that an abortion regime which forbade legal abortions after the second trimester would make late-term exceptions more acceptable and less prone to politicization? I find that less than convincing. But I don't know the experience in European countries with this kind of abortion regime.