I have an old cartoon pictuing a table with three placards. The first one, in front of a man, reads, "Women cannot have abortions." The second, middle one, in front of a woman, reads, "Women choose whether to have an abortion." The last placard, on the far right, in front of an empty chair, reads, "Women must have abortions."

The caption: "The other extreme hasn't shown up."

The obvious point is that being pro-choice is the compromise position, is the centrist and sensible view. The not so obvious position is that morality is not the same as personal values. Every day, individuals make private moral decisions based upon their values and needs, not upon whatever government or religion determines to be morally correct.

To suggest, as Ms. Kissling does in her opening sentence, that being pro-choice is somehow linked to immorality or irresponsiblity is stunning. Her article is indicative of the sticky fuzz that passes for argument in politics today. Pro-choice, pro-abortion advocates have to stop looking for compromises from people who do not want compromise but do want control.

Control is the issue, not morality. Even the now ancient call for abortion on demand didn't and doesn't mean that women should be allowed to have an abortion at 8 months of gestation, it meant and means that women demand abortion be safe, legally protected proceedure, available to them as part of an overarching health regulatory system. Somehow the very idea that individuals, especially women, might be capable of making difficult decisions without government intervention has gone missing.

Whether it's boycotts of "offensive" entertainment, pharmacists refusal to do their jobs or Catholic hospitals denying certain drugs and disallowing medical procedures, citizens have been reduced to consumers, government has taken to placating the most obnoxious, and constructive debate has been belittled in fights over illusory and untestable principles.

Ms. So easily dismisses the 30% of those girls who do not notify parents or guardians for fear of physical injury. And, she takes at face value a study that theorizes, not proves, but theorizes a link between fear having to tell your parents you're pregnant and oral sex. Aside from the error that oral sex is safe (only from pregnancy, not from STD's), the idea that one emotion conquers another, that fear will vanquish irrationality overrides her own reasoning that regarding sex, people's "hearts rule their heads."

By the way Ms. So, it's not the brain that turns on the sex drive.

Morality and a happy family cannot be legislated or regulated, but health care can. Those girls who have parents they can talk to, will, those who don't will find some way to terminate a pregnancy or worse, dispose of the child. Protecting minors and preserving the family is the straw boogeyman that appears at every attempt to insert reality into the abortion discussion.

I'm not clear what Ms. So and the pro-notification/anti-abortion clan is protecting. If it were babies or women or girls, they would best spend their time demanding accurate sex education, safe havens for girls and women who carry pregnancies to term and schools and health care and all those things that are truely pro-life.