Making lost battles winnable.

THE ABORTION RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN the United States has secured a situation of partial victory and partial defeat. It has won the battles in which public opinion is on its side. It has lost the battles in which public opinion is on the other side. And it has reinforced the ideological dividing line that keeps the won battles won and the lost battles lost.

The dividing line is determined not by discomfort with abortion, which is nearly universal and often vague, but by three principles of American conservatism. These principles are:

1. Government is the central threat to freedom, not an ally in the exercise of rights.

2. Freedom belongs to private institutions such as the church and the family, not to the individual.

3. The innocent deserve rights to which the legally or morally guilty are not entitled.

The abortion rights movement has exploited these principles by making three sympathetic arguments:

1. Politicians have no place in this private decision.

2. The choice should be left to a woman, her family, her doctor and her clergyman.

3. Denying an abortion in the case of rape punishes the victim and rewards the criminal.

The three principles, reinforced by the three arguments, determine three policy conclusions:

1. The government has no business banning abortions--or taxing you to pay for them.

2. You're entitled to decide what to do if you get pregnant--or if your daughter does.

3. Medicaid should pay for abortions for rape victims, but not for other poor women.

The three policy conclusions, in turn, have driven three nationwide legislative trends:

1. Thirty-five states refuse as a general rule to pay for abortions for poor women.

Only three states pay for such abortions as a general rule without a court opinion requiring it.

2. Forty-four states require parental consent or notification for a minor's abortion.

3. Only eight states pay for abortions for poor women in cases other than rape, incest or life endangerment without a court opinion requiring it.

How can the movement reverse these trends? The comprehensive solution would be to dissolve the conservative ideology underlying them, by persuading Americans that government is an ally in the exercise of rights, that freedom belongs to the individual (including a pregnant minor), and that women who engage in consensual intercourse should not have to endure pregnancy and motherhood as a consequence. But that solution would take a long time, if it is possible at all.

As an alternative, I would suggest again crafting an argument sympathetic to conservative public opinion, but this time choosing an argument that would make the lost battles winnable. The lost battles are parental involvement, public funding and more recently, late-term abortion. All three involve situations in which the woman might need an abortion now so that she could hear a child later in better financial, age or health circumstances. In short, the winning message would be family formation. I would make the message more emphatically pro-natal than the usual "family planning" message is.

Would this message sell out the right not to bear children? In principle, yes. In practice, no. And given the difficulty of winning the lost battles any other way, the price is worth it.

WILLIAM SALETAN is chief political correspondent for the online magazine Slate. He is a contributor to numerous publications including the New York Times. the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones and National Review. His books include Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War (University of California Press, 2003).