The truce between Sen. Hillary Clinton (NY) and Sen. Barack Obama (IL) lasted just about as long your average truce between Hamas and Fatah. The two repeatedly lobbed bombs at each other during the first half of the Democrat debate in SC on Monday. For his part, Fmr. Sen. John Edwards (NC) chose to provide both sides with additional ammunition rather than play the role of peacemaker, as Gov. Bill Richardson (NV) used to.

Obama struck first, accusing Hillary and hubby of making assertions about him that “are not factually accurate” and several times during the debate complained that he felt he was running against both Clintons. During a skirmish over Ronald Reagan’s legacy, Obama hit her with: “while I was working on those streets watching those folks see their jobs shift overseas, you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart” (apparently dems fightin’ words amongst Dems). A few minutes later, Hillary hit back with: “I was fighting against those ideas when you were practicing law and representing your contributor, [indicted real estate developer Antoin Rezko], in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago.”

In previous debates Edwards teamed up with Obama to weaken Hillary – no doubt convinced that of the two men, he would be the one doing battle with her for the nomination – but this time he alternated between assisting one, then the other, of his rivals in their campaign of mutually assured destruction. First, he attacked Hillary for being too vague on how she would pay to keep Social Security viable (“[S]he has proposed nothing about how we're going to create revenue to keep Social Security alive and talked about fiscal responsibility”) and a few minutes later he took up Hillary’s attack on Obama for his voting record as an IL state legislator (“I do think it's important whether you are willing to take hard positions. … What I didn't hear was an explanation for why over 100 times you voted present instead of yes or no when you had a choice to vote up or down”).

This shift in debate tactics was followed by a private meeting between Edwards and Hillary backstage, leading to wild speculation that the two initiated a dialogue about his being her running mate.

The Day America Lost Its Moral Compass

On the 35^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, and Kate Michelman, former president of NARAL, co-wrote an op-ed  in the Los Angeles Times that admits that a fetus is not just a formless clump of cells, but a life:

In the 1970s, the arguments were simple and polarized: Abortion was either murder or a woman's right to control her body. The fetus, however, stayed largely invisible. The pro-choice movement stayed on the message offensive, tactically shifting in 1989 from women's bodies to the "who decides" question posed by NARAL Pro-Choice America. But this was rapidly parried by the anti-choice demand that we look at what was being decided, not just who was deciding.

Science facilitated the swing of the pendulum. Three-dimensional ultrasound images of babies in utero began to grace the family fridge. Fetuses underwent surgery. More premature babies survived and were healthier. They commanded our attention, and the question of what we owe them, if anything, could not be dismissed. …

Advocates of choice have had a hard time dealing with the increased visibility of the fetus. The preferred strategy is still to ignore it and try to shift the conversation back to women. At times, this makes us appear insensitive, a bit too pragmatic in a world where the desire to live more communitarian and "life-affirming" lives is palpable.  …

If pro-choice values are to regain the moral high ground, genuine discussion about these challenges needs to take place within the movement. It is inadequate to try to message our way out of this problem. Our vigorous defense of the right to choose needs to be accompanied by greater openness regarding the real conflict between life and choice, between rights and responsibility.

Though this belated acknowledgement of the humanity of an unborn baby is welcome, only in the dystopic alternate universe inhabited by Kissling and Michelman could abortionists ever occupy the moral high ground. As one of The Stiletto’s friends puts it, “Americans are pro-choice, but anti-abortion,” by which he means that most people regard abortion as a necessary evil in some circumstances. And there are many who regard abortion as just plain evil.

Editorial Note:  The “Roe IQ Test” created by Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund and the Family Research Council will be a real eye-opener for those who have never given much thought to what it means to have an absolute “right to choose.”