Penna Dexter

I read nearly every column Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker writes. I interviewed her for radio on her 2008 book, Save the Males: Why Men Matter Why Women Should Care. I loved the book and Kathleen struck me as a thoughtful voice for the center-right. I kept on reading her. I still do.

These days I find myself disagreeing with Kathleen more than I agree with her. But I still read her columns because I like how she’s willing to open up her personal life to readers to explain why she thinks the way she does.

That’s what she did in her recent piece about how and why she has shifted her views on abortion and Roe v. Wade. She writes:

“I have been an adult throughout Roe’s 50-year life span and, admittedly have wobbled to and fro. When Roe became law in 1973, a much younger me performed a sideways leap and clicked my heels together, such was my glee.”

Eleven years later and with child, Kathleen says:

“…I became someone else and thought anew. It was clear to me that I was a mere vessel for this other autonomous life growing inside me and my job was to protect him. Sure, it was my body, but it was his life. Whereupon I became, for lack of a better term, “pro-life.”

Still, she never supported reversing Roe v. Wade. But it has become less important. Guttmacher Institute says that by 2017 the number and rate of abortions had fallen to its lowest since 1973.

Today, “nearly half a century after Roe”, Kathleen finds the whole debate exhausting and wonders “would it really be so bad if abortion were decided by the states?”

If it is, she writes: “we might see the end of litmus tests for politicians” and maybe we’d have more pro-life Democrats again. And perhaps the Supreme Court confirmation process would no longer be a “search-and-destroy” mission.

OK, Kathleen. I’ll take it.