It’s not uter-you, it’s uter-us.

Ross Douthat and John Schwenkler are just a couple of guys sitting around trying to hammer out some kind of compromise in the abortion wars (they’re playing for the "pro-life" side) and, although they hold losing hands, they would like the baby-killers to, in a manner of speaking, throw them a bone:

Schwenkler:

All of which is to say that it’s largely because of the pro-choice movement’s uncanny ability to use Roe as an all-purpose whipping stick that the abortion debate is as paralyzed as it presently is, and it’s only if folks like Freddie are willing to back down from that position that a (small-d) democratic middle ground on this issue can ever be reached. And so as happy as I would be to see a political movement emerge that genuinely represented the majority position on abortion, that’s never going to happen without considerable cooperation from the pro-choice Left. And somehow I don’t anticipate that happening any time soon.

Douthat:

Meanwhile, Schwenkler’s larger point is especially worth keeping in mind when confronted – as pro-lifers often are – with arguments like this one, from P.J. O’Rourke:

Take just one example of our unconserved tendency to poke our noses into other people’s business: abortion. Democracy–be it howsoever conservative–is a manifestation of the will of the people. We may argue with the people as a man may argue with his wife, but in the end we must submit to the fact of being married. Get a pro-life friend drunk to the truth-telling stage and ask him what happens if his 14-year-old gets knocked up. What if it’s rape? Some people truly have the courage of their convictions. I don’t know if I’m one of them. I might kill the baby. I will kill the boy.

If we take O’Rourke’s hypothetical on its own terms, it reads as an argument for, say, a legal regime that makes abortion available to women/girls below the age of consent – and I think I speak for many pro-lifers when I say that I would gladly entertain that sort of compromise, as part of a broader package of restrictions, if we were drawing up abortion law from scratch. But it’s not even close to an argument for the legal regime we have, in which no middle ground is even possible. And so long as Roe remains inviolate, those who urge pro-lifers to "compromise" without providing any legal ground on which a compromise could be forged are effectively telling them to just give up on their movement’s goals entirely.

Oddly, or maybe not so oddly, neither Douthat or Schwenkler mention the woo-word, as in "wo-man". Nobody likes to admit that they got beat up by a girl. 

No, this is more of a jerk-off session wherein deep-thinking guys are, you know, really disappointed by the unfairness of it all because most people are basically against abortion… up until that unexpected unplanned moment when the little + sign shows up on the pee stick at which point the deeply-held theoretical gets run over by the oncoming baby bus. At this point, Ross and John would like to burst into the room and go over a few rules with supporting addenda that seem perfectly fair to them… which is yet one more good reason to lock the bathroom door.

To be fair, Ross is willing to "gladly entertain that sort of compromise"  (some Douthat-sanctioned zygoticide in return for restrictions to be named later) which is very Penis-American of him but I can’t say that he’s playing from a position of strength.

Might I suggest a different sort of compromise: 

Women will mind their own private baby gardens and Douthat and Schwenkler should mind their own fucking business.