Ross Douthat

But someone sitting here arguing with you could say, I think, you know,

the S, the E, and the D, fine, they make a good case against second trimester or third trimester abortion, but are you really telling me that the 28-cell organism that clearly doesn't seem conscious at all has attained a status where you have to grant it full legal rights?

But a lot of people would say that if people want it, they want it because they associate abortion

legal abortion with what gets described as the language of reproductive rights, reproductive freedom, but which is fundamentally about female equality in what was historically a male-dominated society.

Roe v. Wade is decided during a particular surge of feminism and female advancement in American society.

I think it's very hard for a lot of people to imagine a world where

abortion is restricted, as it was in 1955, but you have the landscape of female achievement and opportunity that you have in the 2020s.

Do you think there's a tension there?

We live on the far side of the sexual revolution, right?

And I think any plausible world where abortion is restricted...

is not going to be a world where you have an immediate return to large-scale premarital chastity.

And so it is most likely going to be a world where you have a lot of pregnancies in difficult circumstances that under current conditions would end in abortion.

You're talking about reality.

A core reality of difference between men and women is that in a situation where there's an unplanned or unexpected pregnancy, women do bear a burden that men don't bear.

What is the responsibility of society, government, public policy,

to be cognizant of that and provide some kind of special support?

Is that an obligation?

Is there, inherent in the pro-life argument, is there a case for a kind of public provision of support for women who are being asked to carry pregnancies?

You pass an anti-abortion law in the District of Columbia or the state of California tomorrow and...

In the next two years, what does the landscape look like?