Mark Stricherz is a man of many blogs. His latest appearance is over at America magazine's blog, where he refutes the argument -- advanced by David Gibson in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal -- that "the Democratic Party's strategy to reduce abortion is more effective than that of the GOP." Says Mark:

For one thing, the Democratic Party platform continues to support the expansion of taxpayer-financed abortions. This is not idle talk. Democrats are serious about it. . . .

Government funding of abortion increases rather than decreases the abortion rate. As the study commissioned by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good points out, which Gibson failed to mention, Medicaid funding of abortion is associated with an increase in the abortion rate by one-tenth.

As for the argument that overturning Roe v. Wade and returning issue to the states will not actually curtail abortion:

If Roe were overturned, dozens of states would do more than ban partial-birth abortion or enact parental consent laws; they would ban abortion in the "easy" cases -- economic and familial circumstance, psychological and emotional reasons, etc. Banning abortion in these cases would not only be possible; more than three-fifths of Americans support banning abortion in the "easy" cases. It would also be desirable; more than 90 percent of abortions are performed for those reasons.

. . . When abortion was illegal in all but the hard cases, abortion was rare, or relatively so. Now it's not. Indeed, the abortion rate is more than a quarter higher today than in 1973.

Mark has charts to back him up on this one (so you know he must be right). In all seriousness, do read the rest of his excellent response. As a pro-life Dem, he is intimately familiar with the party platform on this one, and in a good position to comment on the likelihood of it success. He does not seem optimistic.

For more responses to Gibson's piece, read here and here.