Michael “Axis of Evil” Gerson brings up a common misconception of the pro-choice, anti-abortion position:

The question naturally arises: Why does Giuliani “hate” abortion? No one feels moral outrage about an appendectomy. Clearly he is implying his support for the Catholic belief that an innocent life is being taken. And here the problems begin.

That’s stupid. There is plenty of stuff that is patently immoral and worthy of hate that falls far short of murder. Polygomy, for instance, which is apparently the worst thing Mitt Romney can even imagine.

For those who do not believe life begins at conception, abortion is not the termination of life, but the termination of pregnancy, a state of womanhood that fosters life. Ending that state can conceivably be seen as morally problematic without amounting to murder.

I have no qualms with those who view abortion as immoral; it is a costly, risky, somewhat gruesome procedure that is, at times, horribly necessary. The world would be a better place without abortion, no doubt, but only in so much as the world would be a better place without unwanted pregnancy.

The termination of a problematic pregnancy is a difficult, morally challenging decision, not because it amounts to murder, but because the termination of a life-fostering state of womanhood comes with a lot of emotional/ethical strings attached, ethics that fall far short of all-out “murder.”

That said, if pregnancy is nothing but a state of womanhood then legislating around that state is a clear violation of due process (no matter what legal gymnastics Antonin Scalia may be capable of).