Tracing the connections people draw in their own thought is often revealing especially when one finds the contours of another person’s mind baffling. It is illuminating to watch someone like Ben Shapiro, for example, come up with a reasoned defense for saving Baby Hitler (as if this is a thought experiment in need of substantive analysis) in the fear that this could become a back door approval for some form of abortion on demand. In his mind, he drew a straight unencumbered Euclidean line from Save Baby Hitler to a pro-life position. In my mind, the line wrapped itself around an 11-dimensional labyrinth of pitfalls and snares willfully ignored and traversed with quixotic self-assurance that I almost admire his clumsy attempt, an example of the kind of high genius that emerges from time to time in the savant syndrome of our political discourse. Perhaps there is a deeper connection that I and others have missed. If so, God bless Ben Shapiro for making us see the world in a new light.

But, and yes there is always a but, to repolarize the abortion debate: so what? I doubt either side (pro-life or pro-choice) agonizes much over the absurd, hypothetical plot against the infant Hitler. The simple fact is, and this has been lost in the post-Roe world: there is no nuanced debate. There is only a single proposition: Do governments have a right to substitute their judgment for the judgment of a patient in consultation with their chosen medical professional? And the answer is clear: no. Never. Not even when a judge rules that a feeding tube can be removed from a patient are we under any pretense that the government is substituting it’s judgment on behalf of the patient. Rather, a judge attempts to determine, in the best way possible and under sometimes difficult limited information, what the patient would have preferred if they could provide their consent.

None of this rules out the ordinary regulatory function of government (a power which incidentally conservatives are attempting to dismantle root and branch). Governments have a right to regulate the form under which medical practice occurs related to the interest of safety, efficacy, standards of practice, etc., grouped under the rubric of protecting the public welfare. But pro-life proponents are arguing something else entirely, a bizarre hitherto unimaginable application of policing power to intercede between a mother and her unborn child, something which nature mocks and the laws of bodily autonomy reject. Who speaks on behalf of the unborn child? The mother. Full stop. There is no intervening authority. If the power to intervene be granted, it can certainly be applied, disgustingly, in reverse. We can imagine some future world where a woman is forced to have an abortion against her will. The power is what matters. Whether you agree with the actual decision is immaterial.

The position I just laid out is often labeled as extreme. Careful consideration would show there is nothing extreme asserted here at all. Pregnancy is entirely, singularly, by necessity, a medical issue. Centrists like to add strange ideas like viability (yes, I who supported the stare decisis of Roe, believe it was wrongly decided by introducing such superfluous ideas into a straightforward idea). Democrat Amy Klobuchar, apparently in a nod to flexing her centrists chops for a potential future Presidential run, assumes that government intervention is not necessarily gratuitous. “I support allowing for limitations in the third trimester that do not interfere with the life or health of the women.” Seems reasonable at first blush. So what’s the rub? The rub is pregnancy ALWAYS involves the life and health of a woman. There is no reasonable way in which to avoid that. Moreover, that determination is a MEDICAL JUDGMENT. Broadly defined, for medical judgments often involve complex agonizing moral and ethical decisions. The government is ill equipped and frankly incapable and incompetent to make those determinations. Could you imagine a woman unable to receive emergency care for an ectopic pregnancy while we wait around for bureaucrats to decide…oh, that’s right. We don’t have to imagine. We have plenty of examples of that happening already.