you can't defend something by constantly apologizing for it

I guess I don't have much to say about the continuing disagreement over what Planned Parenthood does than to say that this kind of weirdness is bound to happen when you keep apologizing for something you ostensibly defend. The failure in the Will Saletan/Bill Clinton line-- where you ostensibly want to keep abortion legal, but you acknowledge it as this terrible event best to be avoided-- is obvious. People don't feel compelled to defend what even supporters concede to be unfortunate. You're asking voters to thread that needle regarding a complex issue towards which many feel very emotional. It's a recipe for losing a base of support.

I know none of this is particularly novel. At the end of the day, I support abortion rights, and that means that I don't define abortion as some terrible, cruel necessity but as the valid expression of a woman's right to mastery of her own body. Asking me to do the dance where I define abortion as bad but necessary empowers the people I disagree with, removes the conversation from the practical realities of what law and policy should be, and most damningly, invites consideration of the kind of "perfect world" rationalizations that are the enemy of sober thinking about abortion in the first place. We don't live in a perfect world, and I refuse to define my politics in relationship to a theoretical one.