Abortion and slavery

Ari Armstrong writes about the prospects of religious-right candidates in Colorado following Marilyn Musgrave to defeat.

He also examines the misrepresentation of a statement by Dawn Johnsen, former NARAL counsel and nominee for the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, who once wrote that forcing a woman to bear a child was "disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude". Opponents of abortion, including Musgrave, have implied that Johnsen's statement means she believes that all pregnancy - whether chosen or forced - is equivalent to slavery.

Forcing a woman to bear a child she does not want is more than merely suggestive of slavery.

Slavery is obviously not a word that applies to a woman who freely chooses to carry a child, give birth to it and raise it because that is what she genuinely desires.