The day before yesterday the Kerry campaign issued this quasi-denial (i.e., a "non-denial" denial):

A Kerry campaign official said the campaign could find no record of any contacts with Burkett.

But then yesterday (surprise, surprise) Joe Lockhart, a senior Kerry campaign advisor and former Clinton press secretary, abandoned that quasi-denial and admitted he had indeed spoken with Burkett:

At the behest of CBS, an adviser to John Kerry said he talked to a central figure in the controversy over President Bush's National Guard service shortly before disputed documents were released.

Joe Lockhart denied any connection between the presidential campaign and the papers. Lockhart, the second Kerry ally to confirm contact with retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, said he made the call at the suggestion of CBS producer Mary Mapes.
. . . .
Lockhart said he does not recall talking to Burkett about Bush's Guard records. "It's baseless to say the Kerry campaign had anything to do with this," he said.

Which part of Lockhart's statement do you believe?

Lockhart's highly original claim that he "does not recall" talking with Burkett about the memos is obviously yet another quasi-denial in an impending string of quasi-denials.

Lucky thing for Lockhart, for this quasi-denial he has a witness of indisputable credibility to confirm his version of the conversation:

Burkett said his interest in contacting the campaign was to offer advice in responding to Republican criticisms about Kerry's Vietnam service. It had nothing to do with the documents, he said.

You have to give Lockhart and Burkett credit for having the forethought to get their story straight ahead of time: "And, oh, by the way, if anybody should ever ask, we never talked about these memos, right?"

In an earlier post, I had generously speculated that the Kerry campaign had played no role in manufacturing the forged memos and had not itself provided the documents to CBS, but had instead acted as an intermediary between CBS and Burkett. Perhaps I am too generous, but I continue to believe that was probably the case, notwithstanding Lockhart's transparent quasi-denial.

I also observed in my earlier post that, if the Kerry campaign's role was limited to playing middleman between Burkett and CBS, then that sin was "miniscule" judged by "contemporary campaign standards of no-holds-barred opposition research." I further speculated that, unfortunately for Kerry, the embarrassment he would suffer would be disproportionate to that minor sin.

As to my last bit of propheteering, the Kerry camp's bumbling is making me sound like a voice straight from the Old Testament. So since the Kerry folks were so ready to receive Bill Burkett's timely advice, maybe they'll listen to mine, which I offer in the spirit of compassionate conservatism:

In these last twelve days, have you Kerry folks learned nothing from watching Dan Rather's slow-motion slide down the face of the cliff? Did you not wince when he bashed his brains on every rock along the way? Do you not understand that the same fate awaits you if you insist on clinging to his tether? You must do everything you can to cleanly cut the rope that ties you to Dan Rather. You must cut the rope before he drags every one of you over the edge right behind him.

You can't save Dan, so save yourselves. Cut the cord now, and then toss the rope down after him.

Are you so naive to believe that CBS will finish out this story in a way that spares you Democrats? More likely the opposite. Sure, CBS loves you liberals, but CBS loves CBS even more. So CBS will do everything possible to spread the blame around, and that means putting as much blame on you as it can.

Every quasi-denial you offer now makes it that much easier for CBS to make you look worse later. Every quasi-denial you offer now strings out the inevitable revelation of the ugly truth and costs your candidate time and credibility he can't afford to waste.

So get it all out as fast as you can.

Beat CBS to the punch before CBS punches you out. Make a very big deal of firing Joe Lockhart and whoever else among your team had the slightest contact with Burkett, Rather, or CBS.

But don't ditch Max Cleland. There's no upside to ditching a triple-amputee. Instead, roll Max out on stage one last time to tearfully explain how his devotion to a brother-in-arms led him to do something for which he is now sorely ashamed. America loves a theatrical confession, and nothing could top a speech like this from Cleland: "Thirty years ago, I paid a great price when I threw myself upon a grenade to save my beloved comrades from certain harm. Thirty years ago I fell upon a grenade that wasn't mine. But today the grenade I fall upon is my own. I pray that this act will spare the brothers and sisters who share my cause."

There won't be a dry eye in the house.

To wrap your little morality play, Kerry himself could personally apologize to Bush for the misdeeds of his underlings. An apology might make your John seem halfway honest; it might even make him seem human.

And then your guy could get back to talking about prescription drugs and teacher salaries or whatever it is he thinks this election is about. It's all a long shot, but what have you got to lose?

One last thing: If you do manage to pull this off, from here on out I'd steer clear of that band-of-brothers crap.

[Note: Unlike Bill Burkett, I wouldn't offer my advice to the Kerry campaign if I thought there was a fool's chance in hell they would take it.--Adeimantus]

American Thinker has posted an article noting Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone's massive stock sale last week and suggesting he is inviting an insider trading investigation. Of course Adeimantus readers knew this three days ago.

By tomorrow this post could all be old news, or worse yet, flat-out-wrong.

But the weekend's slight lull in hard-news stories on the Dan Rather memos scandal leaves me unable to resist the temptation to indulge myself with idle speculation on the following question:

What role, if any, did the Kerry campaign
play in the publication of the fake memos?
It seems pretty clear that a disgruntled former National Guard officer, Bill Burkett, was CBS's immediate source for the Killian memos.

Intense scrutiny has centered on the role of William Burkett, a former National Guard official who charged last February that he saw Bush Guard documents in a trash can in 1997, an allegation that Guard officials strongly denied. A source who worked with CBS on the story said Burkett was identified by a producer as a conduit for the documents. Three days before the broadcast, Burkett e-mailed a friend that there was "a real heavy situation regarding Bush's records" about to break. "He was having a lot of fun with this," said the friend, Dennis Adams. Burkett told a visitor that after the story ran, Rather phoned him and expressed his and the network's "full support." CBS has declined to comment on the sourcing of the network's story.

So my question now is:

How did CBS first learn that Burkett had these memos?
Back in February of this year, CBS News had used Burkett as a source for an earlier report on Bush's National Guard service. And, as is now well known, Burkett already had an established history of publicly rabble-rousing against Bush. Therefore, it is certainly possible that, without the assistance of the Kerry campaign, CBS first learned of the memos because Burkett contacted CBS or CBS happened to re-contact him to look for more dirt to shovel into the same old anti-Bush story it had been pursuing for so many months.

So it is certainly possible that the Kerry camp played no role in this scandal.

But the timing of Burkett's contacts with CBS and the Kerry campaign do seem suspicious.

Around the same time that Burkett was first in touch with CBS about the memos, Burkett was also in touch with Kerry campaign, via Max Cleland:

A retired Texas National Guard official mentioned as a possible source for disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Guard said he passed along information to a former senator working with John F. Kerry's campaign.

In an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats, Bill Burkett said that after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's war service. Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.

Burkett, who lives near Abilene, wrote that no one at the Kerry campaign called him back.

Several sources are reporting that Cleland has confirmed that Burkett had indeed contacted him and that he had instructed Burkett to take his information to the Kerry campaign. For its part, the Kerry campaign has now issued a quasi-denial (i.e., a non-denial) of any communication with Burkett:

Former Democratic senator Max Cleland confirmed that he got a call from Burkett in mid-August offering "valuable" information about Bush. He told Burkett to contact the Kerry campaign. A Kerry campaign official said the campaign could find no record of any contacts with Burkett.

According to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, it was in this same mid-August time frame that "60 Minutes" producer Mary Mapes learned of the existence of a person claiming access to incriminating memos about Bush:

In mid-August, Mapes told her bosses that she had finally tracked down a source who claimed to have access to memos written in 1972 and 1973 by the late Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Bush's squadron commander in the Texas Air National Guard.

My speculation is that someone in the Kerry campaign, perhaps without ever seeing the memos himself and perhaps without ever getting back in touch with Burkett, tipped off Mapes about Burkett and his memos: "Hey, Mary, we've just heard from a guy who claims to have some Bush National Guard documents that we really think you might want to see. We're not going to do anything with this ourselves, but we might be able to give you the guy's name, if you promise never to reveal publicly that we put you onto him. He's somebody you folks have talked to before, so there's no reason for anyone to suspect that we've had a hand in this." (And if the documents had not turned out to be such blantant forgeries, nobody would have suspected, or cared, that the Kerry campaign had helped CBS track down the memos.)

To sum up, my (rather unexciting) speculation is that the Kerry campaign probably did not directly provide the fake memos to CBS, but instead played the role of a middleman, bringing Bill Burkett and Mary Mapes together.

If that's the case, then judged by the contemporary campaign standards of no-holds barred opposition research, the Kerry campaign's culpability in this fiasco would amount to a miniscule sin. Unfortunately for Kerry, in politics as in life, the magnitude of a sin does not always equal the magnitude of the embarrassment its exposure entails.

While I'm at it, here's a little more in the way of speculation:

The suggestion, floated by Terry McAuliffe, that Karl Rove manufactured these memos is, of course, utter nonsense. On the other hand, it is conceivable that, before "60 Minutes" publicized the memos, the White House had already ascertained that they were fakes. (It is also possible, but less likely, that Buckhead was tipped off by someone in the White House before or very shortly after the infamous "60 Minutes" episode went off the air.) But even if the Bush team did know in advance that the memos were fakes, who could blame them for concluding that they had no obligation to prevent Dan Rather from committing professional suicide?

If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story.

Dan Rather, September 15, 2004

How do you ask a man to be the last man to break a story?

Professor Bainbridge has posted a response to questions I (and others) had emailed him regarding potential liability for Viacom under Rule 10b-5 for CBS's failure to come clean on Rathergate. I have nothing but respect for the good professor, but my take is Rather different. So--with the caveat that Professor Bainbridge teaches this stuff whereas I can barely remember my Securities Law class at Georgetown--let me offer this response.

1. I can't see how you show that the fraud (assuming there was one) was not "in connection with" the purchase or sale of a security. Even with the rather liberal touch and concern standard the Supreme Court has adopted to determine when a misstatement is made in connection with the purchase or sale of a security, there still must be some link between the two. I am unaware of any precedent in which the link between the alleged misstatement and the purchase or sale of a company's stock was this tenuous.

With its continuing assertions that the memos it reported last week are accurate, CBS is making a material statement as to the nature of its product (information), to wit: that it is accurate. I can think of few things that more closely touch and concern the sale of the stock of a corporation than a description of that corporation's product. Were General Motors to issue a statement to the effect that it had invented a car that ran on perpetual motion, said statement would surely meet this prong.

2. The speaker must have acted with scienter. It would have to be proven that Rather was reckless. if it turns out that his source was at least semi-reputable, that's going to be hard to do. Especially if the current take on the whole story - the documents are fake, but the basic gist is true - is supported.

I agree that it would be difficult to show scienter as to the original broadcast, but CBS has not stopped making statements. Now that a mountain of evidence as to the documents' falsity is available, CBS is at least reckless in continuing to state that they are genuine.

3. How do you show but for causation, even using the fraud on the market theory? What shareholder sold because he believed Rather (selling because you didn't believe Rather obviously doesn't count, because you were not misled).

I don't see why the analysis must be so narrow. CBS News is a significant business unit of Viacom. Its value lies in its ability to attract viewers and, as a result, advertisers. It attracts viewers in large part because it produces a quality (i.e. accurate) product. An investor assessing Viacom's value in the long term must surely evaluate whether it continues and will continue to produce that product. Dan Rather is saying that CBS continues to produce accurate news reports. That statement is false, and the market will surely incorporate the fact of the diminished value of CBS's product into Viacom's share price. Again, if GM announced tomorrow that it had invented a car that ran on perpetual motion, causation for a 10b-5 suit would surely be satisfied.

4. How do you show loss causation? You'd have to do an event study to show the extent of the damage caused by Rather's statements. The mere fact that the stock dropped in price roughly contemporaneously with the whole kerfuffle is nowhere near enough.

How do you ever show loss causation? You get a big pack of experts together to argue with Viacom's experts over what caused the drop (or gain). Meanwhile you've survived summary judgment and the lawyers' clocks are ticking.

5. It's got to be material. In other words, whether there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor would consider the information important in deciding how to act. In the totality of Viacom, a hit to CBS News likely is not material. CBS News could disappear tomorrow and the company's bottom line likely wouldn't change in a noticeable way (it probably would improve, but not so you'd notice).

Maybe so, maybe not. CBS is certainly among the most visible of Viacom's operations (and certainly the one most jurors will have heard of), so its value cannot be fully measured by reference to a balance sheet. Besides, I recall information as being material if there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable investor would consider the information to be important or to have significantly altered the total mix of information made available about the investment. Basic v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224, 231-32 & 235 n.13 (1988). "Significantly altering the total mix" strikes me as a pretty low hurdle to pass. Either way, it's a question of fact and therefore likely to be eventually decided by a jury. How confident do you think Viacom would be that a jury would find CBS's continuing bullshit immaterial?

I don't want to overstate the case--it surely isn't a slam dunk. But it has the advantage of (a) having enough meat on its bones that a lawyer who brought it wouldn't face sanctions, and (b) being certifiable as a class action, meaning that even small per share damages would mean enormous potential liability. Certainly smart trial lawyers like John Edwards have won big with less.

UPDATE: Bainbridge's major concerns seem to focus on two elements of a claim: materiality and causation (both transactional and loss causation). Let me say a few more words on each:

The standard test for materiality comes from TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., 426 U.S. 438 (1976), as applied to 10b-5 cases by Basic, Inc. v. Levinson, 485 U.S. 224 (1988). A fact is materal if there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable shareholder would consider the fact of significance in determining how to act. Materiality does not require that knowledge or lack thereof would have caused the shareholder to act differently, only that it would have assumed actual significance in the mix of information the shareholder considered. While the law contains no precise numerical standard for when a fact becomes material, securities lawyer friends tell me that a fairly widely accepted rule of thumb is that information affecting 10% or more of an issuer of securities' assets, sales, or earnings is material while information affecting 5% or less is usually not (obviously there's a gray area between 5 and 10%).

A quick glance at Viacom's most recent 10-K shows that its television business (consisting of CBS and UPN) accounts for 29% of the company's 2003 consolidated revenues. I cannot imagine, therefore, how information that has the potential to do serious damage the CBS brand could not be material.

It should also be noted that Viacom cannot easily escape liability by couching its claims as "opinion." In Virginia Bankshares, Inc. v. Sandberg, 501 U.S. 1083 (1991), the Supreme Court held that a statement by a company that its board "believes that $42 per share is a fair price" is an endorsement of the underlying fact (i.e. that the price is actually fair), not just a statement that a belief is genuinely held.

Finally on materiality, my guess is that the error in the initial report is not material. It was not a statement about Viacom's business and thus not substantially likely to be taken into account by a reasonable investor contemplating a purchase or sale of Viacom's stock. CBS's statements since then, however, (and especially Dan Rather's "I know that this story is true") amount to direct characterizations of CBS's product and business practices. Again, I can think of few things an investor would be more interested in when purchasing a company's stock than the nature of the company's products and business practices.

On loss causation: In order to prevail in a 10b-5 suit, a plaintiff must show that the defendant's misrepresentation was the cause of the plaintiff's loss. Where a large company like Viacom is concerned, determining exactly what causes share-price fluctuations can never be an exact science--there are simply too many factors acting on the market to be able to say with absolute certainty precisely what's behind any given share price fluctuation. But the standard of proof required in a 10b-5 suit (preponderance of the evidence) is much lower than absolute certainty. A plaintiff need only show that it is more likely than not that a misrepresentation caused a price change.

Consider the facts: On the day CBS first aired the story, Viacom's stock reached 35.20 per share. As forgery allegations swept the blogosphere, the stock dipped to 34.22--a nearly 3% loss--only to rebound to 35.25 on Friday in the wake of CBS's announcement that it continued to believe the memos were genuine. As the proof mounted and several major media sources have joined bloggers in declaring the memos fakes (and CBS in serious trouble), Viacom's share price has steadily trailed off, closing yesterday at 34.18--again, nearly 3% off its September 8 high. In a little less than a week, Viacom's shareholders lost nearly $2 billion in share value. Over the same period the SIG Cable Media Index, which tracks Viacom's market sector, climbed from 316.17 to 318.41 (despite the fact that Viacom is, itself, a component of the index). While Viacom's stock was tanking to the tune of $2 billion, its competitors stocks gained 1%. Share prices are largely driven by investor perceptions. The CBS scandal has been in the news every day since the 8th. Can you think of any other news concerning Viacom during the same period that might explain the slump?

On transactional causation (a.k.a. "reliance"): Where securities transactions take place (as almost all transactions involving Viacom stock do) through a major exchange (as opposed to between a face-to-face seller and buyer), courts usually apply the "fraud on the market" doctrine of transactional causation. Under this doctrine, it is supposed that investors rely "generally on the supposition that the market price is validly set and that no unsuspected manipulation has artificially inflated the price, and thus [rely] indirectly on the truth of the representations underlying the . . . price." Blackie v. Barrack, 524 F.2d 891 (9th Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 816 (1976). Hence, where the fraud on the market doctrine is applied, its effect is to create a presumption of reliance on any material misrepresentations. Basic, Inc. v. Levinson; see also, List v. Fashion Park, Inc., 340 F.2d 457 (2nd Cir. 1965) (When a fact is shown to be material, there is a strong indication that it was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff to enter the transaction). If, as I argue above, CBS's misrepresentations are material, transactional causation is almost certainly satisfied (The only exception I can find is where a plaintiff knows the material misrepresentations to be false and invests anyway. Given CBS's repetition of its claims and its resort to various "experts" in defending them, I think showing that an investor "knew" the claims to be false would be a very tough slog.)

Now, I'll warn once again that I am not an expert in the area of Securities Law, so you should take that fact into account when weighing my disagreement with Prof. Bainbridge (who is one of the top guys in the field). But experts make mistakes, too--especially in mushy areas like whether or not a good trial lawyer could tag someone with a big civil suit. So with all due (and genuine) respect for Bainbridge's enormous expertise, I still disagree with his conclusion that there's no basis for a 105-b suit against Viacom.

UPDATE: CBS Ratings are way down and its affiliates are not happy. Material? You decide. (hat tip: Instapundit)

UPDATE: Sumner Redstone, the Chairman of Viacom, exercised options for shares worth about $12 million on Tuesday, netting a $6.7 million profit. This is the first time Redstone has ever exercised Viacom options. Mr. Redstone may wind up wishing he'd read Professor Bainbridge's post on insider trading before he made this move.

Today's post begins with two observations. Forgive me if they already seem rather too obvious. (No pun intended.)

1) Bloggers have established beyond reasonable dispute that the Killian memos are inept forgeries.

2) In so doing, bloggers have also established beyond reasonable dispute that, with the aid of ordinary citizens who funnel them ideas and information via the internet, they have forever altered the terms under which the Mainstream Media (MSM, acronym of the day) shall disseminate its product to the larger public. The revolution is over. The bloggers (in their PJs) have won. The world is a better place for it.

Toward those two already well-established truths, the MSM navigates its way hesitatingly, cautiously, grudgingly, tardily. Yet though the MSM consults its own interests more than it considers the public good, the MSM shall arrive at the first truth within a few weeks at most. As to the second, the journey will take longer, but the destination is no less certain.

The question now is: When, if ever, will CBS concede that the Killian memos are forgeries?

It's bad enough that CBS's malicious bias rendered it susceptible to such blatant deception. [Note: Previous link probably won't work in Internet Explorer browser.] Yet both the defect of malicious bias and the error it wrought, if acknowledged early on, would be curable. But by continuing to vouch for the forgeries in spite of crushing proof to the contrary, CBS has become an accessory-after-the-fact in the original deception and a party to a continuing deceit. By refusing to admit a reckless error, CBS has transformed that error into an ongoing premeditated journalistic crime.

But let us put aside the question of what journalistic integrity demands, a quaint concept with little motive influence among CBS's decision-makers. Instead let us focus on a question to which they are more attentive, the question of CBS News' current and future standing as a credible news organization. CBS News' credibility among Republican viewers now stands at a paltry 15%. The powers-that-be within CBS and its corporate parent must be capable of the calculation that, aside from CBS's actual integrity, its perceived credibility--already significantly diminished--will evaporate altogether if CBS long continues in its irrationally stubborn attempts to defend the forged documents.

In trying to whistle their way past the graveyard, CBS and its few allies inevitably will stumble into new difficulties. Until CBS acknowledges that these documents were fraudulent, any further explanation CBS gives will properly be perceived by the public as a self-interested deception designed only to paper over its previous falsehood. Dan Rather, an experienced observer of scandals, understands at least that much. So he has indignantly announced that he has nothing more to say on the subject.

This indignant silence is almost halfway virtuous: Although Rather still stubbornly refuses to admit his prior mistake, he dearly wishes to avoid drawing further attention to the offense with new falsehoods. The only possible way to avoid new falsehoods is to say nothing at all. And so Dan Rather has taken a pious vow of silence, from which he swears he can be disturbed by nothing less than "definitive proof":

Until someone shows me definitive proof that they are not [authentic], I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill.

(Rather prefers information manufactured in the amateur rumor mill.)

By the way, was "definitive proof" the standard CBS applied when it chose to foist these specious documents into the public discourse? No, the standard CBS says it followed in reporting the existence of the memos was a "preponderance of evidence," a much lower standard than "definitive proof." Aside from what's lately been discovered, even the purported "preponderance of evidence" that CBS relied upon at the time has proven to be at best unreliable and at worst intentionally distorted. Is it any surprise that the actual standard CBS applied was the "hotness" standard? The memos were "too hot not to push."

CBS and Rather are now learning a thing or two about "hotness."

And so Rather's rant continues:

My colleagues and I at '60 Minutes' made great efforts to authenticate these documents and to corroborate the story as best we could. . . . I think the public is smart enough to see from whom some of this criticism is coming and draw judgments about what the motivations are.

Yes, the public is plenty smart enough to draw judgments about motivations. That's why Rather's job and CBS News' ratings totter on the precipice.

If more "definitve proof" really were still needed, the corner offices at Black Rock would obviously be a good place to begin the search. Therefore, to reduce the risk that yet more "definitive proof" might come to its attention, CBS has announced (contrary to earlier reports) that it has no plans to conduct an internal investigation:

Contrary to some rumors, no internal investigation is underway at CBS News nor is one planned.

One would think that a company ostensibly engaged in journalism would possess enough collective experience of the traditions of that fine profession to know that a scandal like this one can't be brought to a halt by indignant stonewalling denials. CBS might have briefly consoled itself with the hope that other news organizations might give it a pass as a matter of professional courtesy. And they did--for about twenty-four hours. Yes, lest CBS somehow turn the tables against them, NBC, ABC, Fox, The Washington Post, The LA Times, The Dallas Morning News, et al, will be somewhat more cautious than usual in pursuing this story. But to its journalistic competitors CBS presents both a more enticing and a more vulnerable target than other companies that have found themselves the subject of the media's delicate attentions. CBS is a more enticing prey for obvious competitive reasons. And a more vulnerable one as well because, notwithstanding CBS's announced decision not to conduct an internal investigation, it is all too tempting for newsmen to let things slip while downing a few beers. There must still be at least a few professionals at CBS News, and they can't be too happy about the mess Dan Rather has poured over their heads. Ditto for the few media outlets which, having precipitously taken up CBS's defense, now find themselves sharing in its humiliation.

No matter how much Dan might wish it otherwise, the grand poobaahs at CBS cannot be so abstracted from reality to believe questions like the ones now being raised about CBS's forged memos will simply go away. How can CBS save itself from further damage? The obvious answer is, CBS must:

1) apologize for its error;

2) acknowledge the truth as it is now known, including information CBS is still withholding;

3) make an honest effort to discover whatever truth remains untold about the memos, including the failings within CBS News that led it to become a party to the deception;

4) undertake institutional reforms to prevent future offenses.

Oh, but how to apologize? That's always the tricky part. Dan Rather seems to have carried himself beyond the point of no return. And the most contrite apology in the world won't save Rather and the network from plenty of much deserved ridicule. Perhaps his superiors in the CBS hierarchy will be so merciful as to offer him the opportunity to apologize now, retire in two or three months, and thereby spare himself the ultimate humiliation of an immediate, unceremonious dismissal. But if Rather can't bring himself to 'fess up, the execs at CBS will spend a few days or weeks working out their damage control strategy, and then they'll cut him loose "quicker than a trout fisherman unhooks a channel cat."

At some point in every presidential election, every candidate claims that the contest is The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime.

Well, this year is no different, except that this year that claim can't be dismissed as overwrought campaign hyperbole. This election might very well be The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime.

I expect that most of you probably already have a pretty firmly set idea about why this election is so important. And I also have the feeling that, whether you're "fer it or agin it," your idea about what makes this election so important is exactly the same as mine.

But in case you're one of those undecided voters who still can't quite wrap your mind around what makes this election The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime, maybe this will help clarify your thinking.

As you know by now, moments after the close of the GOP convention last week, John Kerry gave a midnight speech to rebut that slandering, chickenhawk chimp from Texas. Demonstrating the clear vision with which he would lead us through the difficult days ahead, Mr. Kerry used the last five minutes of his candlelight address to explain in careful detail why he thinks this election is The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime.

As you read the following excerpt from John Kerry's midnight speech, pay close attention to his reason(s) for why this election is so important. There will be a short quiz later.

Kerry-Edwards
Post-Republican Convention Campaign Rally
9/2/2004: SPRINGFIELD, OH
transcript of last 5 minutes of Kerry speech;
(this excerpt starts at the 31st minute of the clip)

My friends, this quite simply, and it's not because I'm saying it to you, this is The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime. And the reason I dare to say that to you is because, the reason I say that to you is because, all over this country as John and I were travelling across the country by bus and by rail, you came out. You all stood out there at twelve thirty at night in some places. You hold signs. You're hoping for the America that we know we can be when we live up to our values and our ideals. And I'll tell ya, as we cross this great land of ours, John and I felt this incredible sense of responsibility and the spirit of our nation. We went through communities at twelve thirty at night, several thousand people. We were goin' through one little community, and, and people, I was leanin' over the side of the train shaking hands, and people were cheering and saying you, you gotta talk to us, and I saw this sign, and the sign said, "John, give us eight minutes, and we'll give ya eight years." I'm tellin' ya folks, you, you never saw, you never saw a train stop so fast. And I never knew I could stop a train so fast.

And then we went on from there, and, and, we came to this wonderful little crossing out in the desert--beautiful rocks and the sunset goin' down--and it just gives you the sense of the power of our country. And there standing by a railroad crossing, as we went through clickety-clack at whatever miles per hour, was one lone figure, standing there at attention holding the American flag and saluting the train as we went by, all by himself. That's America. That's what this country wants, is a hope for the future.

And I'll tell you another.

Two nights ago, a few nights ago, I was in Philadelphia, and I got introduced to this tussle-haired little kid, guy came up to about here on me, tiny little kid. But he showed me this picture. And it was a picture of him sittin' out in the street where he was during the summer with a sign and a table. At the table he had some bracelets, and the sign said, "Kerry for President." And this little six year old kid had gotten his nine year old brother to make the bracelets for 'em. And he was sellin' the bracelets. And this six year old kid came up to me with a tupperware container, handed it to me, with $680 to change America, to change America.

So for all of you here tonight, we got about 60 days, in the Most Important Election of a Lifetime, where everything you care about is on the line: your job, your healthcare, education, the capacity of our kids to be able to afford to go to college and get the skills they need to open the doors of opportunity, the ability of children to be safe after school, the ability of teachers to have a class size where they're actually able to teach, and not be punished by a system that is punitive. We need to respect education; we need to respect science; we need to reinvest in America, and when John Edwards and I are there, I'm tellin' you, we are going to fight every day, all day, for the middle class of America, to give a tax cut to the middle class of America, to make the workplace work for the middle class of America, to put America back to work.

And John and I know this, we know this: Every day of this campaign, if you'll do your part, because I'll tell you what, the outcome of this election is far more in your hands than it's in John's or mine. It's in your hands. If you'd go out there and do what, what, what, uh, little Willie Fields, six years old, did, if each of you will pick a number of people to talk to, and just talk common sense. Just tell 'em the truth. Just tell 'em there's nothing conservative about running up the biggest deficits in American history and piling debt on top of our children. Tell 'em! Tell' em that hope is there for America. Tell 'em that for the United States of America, because of who we are, the sun is rising if we get the right leadership that heads us in the right direction. Tell 'em that America's best days are ahead of us. And tell 'em that while some people may want to divide this country into the red states and blue states, not John Edwards and John Kerry. We want this to be one America, red, white, and blue. All of it working for all Americans. Let's go out and get the job done. Let's get back our own democracy in the United States. Thank you and God bless you all.

----QUIZ----

According to what John Kerry explained in his midnight speech, the 2004 presidential election is The Most Important Election Of Our Lifetime because:

• A) John Edwards and John Kerry have travelled all over this country by bus and train.


• B) You're hoping for the America that we know we can be when we live up to our values and our ideals, or something like that.


• C) At twelve thirty one morning, John Kerry saw a sign in the desert.


• D) John Kerry never knew he could stop a train so fast.


• E) There is a wonderful little place out in the desert with beautiful rocks, and when the sun is going down it gives you the sense of the power of our country, or something like that.


• F) A train goes "clickety-clack" at whatever miles per hour.


• G) It means an awful lot to a lonely guy at a railroad crossing who stands at attention holding a flag and salutes passing trains.


• H) John Kerry will tell you another.


• I) It means an awful lot to a tussle-headed six year old Philadelphia kid who gave John Kerry $680.


• J) Everything you care about is on the line.


• K) Your job is on the line.


• L) Your education is on the line.


• M) Your healthcare is on the line.


• N) Your kid's chance to learn the skills he needs to be a doorman is on the line.


• O) Gobs and gobs of other stuff is on the line.


• P) Teachers are being punished in a system that's punitive.


• Q) We need to reinvest in America, or something like that.


• R) John Kerry and John Edwards will fight all day.


• S) The middle class needs a tax cut, or something like that.


• T) The workplace does not work for the middle class to put America back to work, or something like that.


• U) If you pick a number of people to talk to, and just talk common sense, you can sell a lot of tupperware in Philadelphia.


• V) There's nothing conservative about piling debt on a tussle-headed six year old kid like that tussle-headed kid whose tussle-headed name John Kerry keeps forgetting, uh, uh, Willie Fields.


• W) We are engaged in a war that will determine whether we will live in freedom or in fear.


• X) The sun won't rise if we don't get the right leadership that heads us in the right direction, or something like that.


• Y) Red, white and blue are extremely hard-working middle class colors.


• Z) We have to get back our own democracy in the United States, or something like that.

The correct answer is posted in the sidebar announcements.

[NOTE: A reader has emailed me complaining that the speech excerpted above is not a very funny parody. That's true. It's not a parody, and it's not funny. But it is the actual transcript of the last five minutes of Kerry's midnight speech. I'm sorry Kerry's speech wasn't funny; it wouldn't be funny even if he weren't running for president. -- Adeimantus]

The article reproduced below is something that was posted anonymously to an internet news group a couple of years ago. I had skimmed it quickly and then copied it to my hard drive for a closer reading later. But when I tried to read it, the stilted, bloated writing made me give up after the first few lines. I had forgotten all about it until I ran across it again a few months ago while clearing out old files on my computer. On that occasion I managed to reread it all the way through and found it to be the strangest argument I've ever seen on the question of abortion. The argument is utterly off-putting, yet at the same time thoroughly convincing--if, that is, you accept the writer's implicit premise that a pregnant woman's decision to have an abortion or a child is hers and hers alone.

Notwithstanding the creepily inapposite hyper-rationalism that seems to inform his understanding of relations between men and women, the writer's argument maintains an internal logic that is difficult to dispute. I really do fear that the writer's opinion, due in part to the consistency of its moral logic, is now shared by a growing number of modern males who think, "If the bitch won't get rid of it, that's her choice and that's fine with me, just so long as she don't expect me to pay her to raise the damn thing."

Even if most men who arrive at that opinion navigate to it more by blind emotion than by cold-blooded logic, the spread of that opinion still worries me. For the sake of the relations among men, women, and children, both the opinion and the logic implicitly supporting it must be countered. So ever since I reread the article reproduced below, I've been trying to formulate some sort of effective response against it. As every decent student of Plato knows, the only real way to defeat an argument is to concede its premise and then to demonstrate that the argument's conclusion is not consistent with the premise. But in this case, once I concede the writer's premise, I'm stuck with his main conclusion. Perhaps you'll have better luck. In any event, while the opinion the writer expresses is so disgusting that it will equally offend pro-choicers and pro-lifers, it also seemed to me that the writer's inflammatory argument might stimulate in both camps some new reflections about how abortion politics has raised the stakes in the eternal battle of the sexes.

---

WHY THINKING MEN
SHOULD SUPPORT ABORTION

---

INTRODUCTION
One often sees surveys showing that a higher percentage of men than women support abortion. This is as it should be because abortion liberates men, at least as much as women, from the antiquated restrictions of traditional sex-based roles. This article aims to elucidate some of the benefits abortion secures for men and to encourage men to pursue the long term goal of complete abortion justice. Furthermore, because complete abortion justice does not yet exist for men, this article seeks to empower men with coping strategies to enable them privately to attain abortion justice in their individual reproductive, areproductive, and antireproductive transactions. In an era when abortion is freely available, no male can justly be held responsible for the birth of any child when any pregnant female can choose not to have that child.

I. COMPLETE ABORTION JUSTICE:
THE BENEFITS FOR MEN
The Obsolete Cultural Artifacts. Before the advent of the liberating influence of abortion, if a man impregnated a woman out-of-wedlock, traditionally he had only three options:

1) Marry the female and be bound for his entire life, not only to a woman for whom he probably had no genuine emotional attachment, but also to a mundane existence of enervating work, the fruits of which would be expended almost entirely for the support of the wife and child. Because of the dependence of the woman and her children, the man could not risk exploring or pursuing more fulfilling or pleasant life choices.

2) Allow the female to fend for herself and the child, in which case the male would most likely be made by society to feel guilt and certainly would be harmed in his reputation, which would damage his opportunities to find willing partners for future sexual transactions. He might also be psychically burdened by a culturally imposed longing to interact with his offspring to whom he could be denied access by the mother as revenge for his principled refusal to submit to artificial, socially constructed sex-based roles of head-of-family and provider.

3) Acknowledge paternity, refuse to marry, but pay child-support, in which case, the male would be burdened with the sex-based role of family provider, without receiving any of the benefits (i.e., the sexual benefits of regular access to a female; the dubious but nonetheless socially valorized psychic benefits of interaction with his offspring; and the purely artificial benefits society bestows upon a male who submits to the role of "good family man").

Even in the present relatively enlightened times when abortion is widely available, cultural artifacts of obsolete social values continue to coerce men into outmoded sex-based roles as bread-winners, protectors, soldiers, and heads of households. Archaic social values still unjustly impose responsibility upon a male--vis-a-vis a female who has freely chosen to accept a possibility that she might become impregnated by him--for a child produced of their sexual transaction, even though the birth of that child takes place only if dictated by the female's free and sole choice.

The Advantages of Complete Abortion Justice. Complete abortion justice will allow both men and women to enjoy the natural psychic benefits of frequent and varied sex partners without having any of the archaic burdens of the traditional sex-based roles imposed upon them against their individual wills. Moreover, if society valorizes a rational understanding of the liberating influence of abortion, society will eliminate the unfair advantages it now unjustly awards to the so-called "good family man." Complete abortion justice will liberate men from the shame-based and/or guilt-based constraints inherent in the suffocatingly narrow roles of protector and provider and will allow men freely to explore and to develop their creative and intellectual capacities to achieve fully self-realized individuality.

Complete Abortion Justice: Equality of Post Conception Choice. Achievement of full and equal reproductive, areproductive, and antireproductive rights for both men and women requires that the laudable principle that "no woman shall be forced to become a parent against her independent choice" must also be applied equally to men, such that "no man shall be forced to become a parent against his independent choice."

Complete abortion justice requires that there be an equality of choice that does not yet exist. Insofar as a male and a female, entering upon a sexual transaction and prior to conception of any child, have independently chosen to engage in that sexual transaction, then after the sexual transaction is finished, complete abortion justice requires that they each individually be granted an equality of choice after conception. Men, equally with women, must be permitted to exercise a post-conception choice about whether to accept any burden of parenthood.

Under current societal values, a woman cannot be compelled to accept parenthood merely on the basis of her decision to engage in the sexual act that resulted in pregnancy. Instead, with the liberating "right to choose," every woman is legally granted an independent post-conception choice about whether to become a parent. The female retains a post-conception choice either to have a child or to have an abortion. By contrast, in the currently imposed value set, the male is unjustly denied a corresponding post-conception choice. Parenthood can be imposed upon him merely on the basis of his having engaged in the sexual act that resulted in the pregnancy, even though parenthood cannot be imposed on the female who engaged in that very same act.

Not only is a male unjustly denied a post-conception choice equal to that of the female, what's even more unjust is that a male can be forced into parenthood by the female's post-conception choice to have a child. Thus, under the current unjust value set, the post-conception choice that properly belongs to the male is socially abrogated to the female, who is granted the power not only to exercise her own post-conception choice but also to assume authority over the male's post-conception choice. This abridgment of the male's post-conception equality of choice is a denial of equal justice for men. It is a denial of complete abortion justice.

Because the post-conception choice of whether to accept the responsibilities of parenthood is a private, personal, and life-altering decision, neither partner to a sexual transaction should be allowed to impose his or her own parenthood decision on the other sex partner. The equality of abortion justice requires that men, equally with women, must be permitted to exercise a post-conception choice of whether to accept any parenthood role, including the role of providing financial support for the child. This choice, when made by a male, must be honored by all other persons, including the pregnant woman, just as the post-conception choice of a female must be honored by all other persons, including the male who impregnated her.

This conclusion has been endorsed by Karen DeCrow, a leading feminist and Constitutional lawyer, who served as President of the National Organization for Women from 1974 to 1977, the very years when abortion was first enshrined as a fundamental individual right. In a letter published in the New York Times on May 9, 1982, Ms. DeCrow wrote:

The courts have properly determined that a man should neither be able to force a woman to have an abortion nor to prevent her from having one, should she so choose. Justice therefore dictates that if a woman makes a unilateral decision to bring pregnancy to term, and the biological father does not, and cannot, share in this decision, he should not be liable for 21 years of support. Or, put another way, autonomous women making independent decisions about their lives should not expect men to finance their choice.

Ms. DeCrow's words belie any claim that a female's post-conception choice is uniquely supported by the consideration that forcing her to bring a fetus to term would be an unjust imposition on her bodily freedom. A brief nine month imposition on a female's bodily freedom, though perhaps more intense, is no more cummulatively burdensome than the twenty-one year imposition present law threatens against the bodily freedom of a male, who during that entire term is subject to humiliating incarceration should he ever fail to hand over an installment of child support. True equality of abortion justice demands that neither a male nor a female should be forced to accept any burden of parenthood against his or her free choice.

Complete abortion justice obviously requires that a pregnant female remains free after conception to decide for herself whether to become a mother. By the same token, the equality of choice that is inherent in complete abortion justice also requires that a pregnant female who freely decides to have a child--instead of an abortion--cannot be permitted to impose her parenthood decision upon her sex partner by forcing him to accept any duty of fatherhood, including a duty to pay child-support, if he has expressed a post-conception choice not to accept that duty.

II. PRIVATE PERSUASION AS AN INTERIM
SUBSTITUTE FOR COMPLETE ABORTION JUSTICE
Some might object that until the complete abortion justice described above is realized, so that both the male and the female have an equal right to exercise a post-conception parenthood decision, abortion rights as currently distributed do not fully benefit men. It remains true that when a pregnant woman exercises her post-conception choice to have a child instead of an abortion, society does not honor the male's post-conception choice against fatherhood, but instead attempts to force the female's parenthood choice upon the male by requiring him to provide financially for the child, and may even imprison the male for failure to pay child support if he refuses to submit to society's legal, sexual, and cultural oppression. While that objection is theoretically true, in practice a man can effectively realize abortion justice privately in his own case if he acts reasonably to persuade the woman to accede him his proper areproductive and antireproductive rights.

To overcome the lack of equality in existing legal and social mores, a man is equitably entitled to employ any form of persuasion short of force to fulfill any and all of his areproductive and antireproductive rights not yet formally recognized in law. To that end, men who would otherwise be denied abortion justice must not hesitate and must be willing to take advantage of the psychological fact that a newly-impregnated woman is, as a result of hormonal changes as well as the novelty of her condition, extraordinarily receptive to well-conceived and executed persuasive techniques. Without resort to force or physical compulsion, a sensible man privately seeking abortion justice in his own case can persuade almost any woman to have an abortion by using methods similar to those set forth below.

Emotional Persuasion. These techniques of emotional persuasion must be carefully adapted to suit the particular pregnant female involved:

Preganacny resulting from a semi-monagamous unmarried relationship. If not married to the impregnated female, but if involved in a semi-regular relationship with her, the male can usually persuade the female to have an abortion through the simple but effective device of telling her that he has strong feelings for her and that he wants the relationship to continue to develop, but that he fears that having a child now will interrupt the progress of the relationship toward its "ultimate goal." (Most women will interpret such a statement as a promising hint that a marriage proposal will be forthcoming after the abortion, while the man keeps it to himself that for him the ultimate goal of the relationship is to have sex as often as he desires until such time as he no longer desires that particular woman.) If the woman persists in expressing a desire to have the child, the man can also suggest that he, too, wants to have children, but only in the context of a loving, voluntary relationship, and marrying and having the child now would put the taint of obligation on the union and on the child, forever poisoning what might have been a pure relationship. If the female still persists in attempting to enforce her parenthood decision upon the male, the male should wait until the female is noticeably "showing," and then the male should offer to marry the woman immediately, but only on the condition that the woman has an abortion prior to the marriage. The male can justify this condition on the emotional basis similar to the one described above (i.e., that having a child at this time will put the taint of obligation upon the marriage). This approach creates a high-stakes scenario for the female, one which she is unlikely to be able to manage given the emotional volatility of her condition. Thus, the female is likely to accept this condition either because her reason for becoming pregnant in the first place (to ensnare a husband) appears to have been fulfilled, or because her personal vanity will make her want to be able to claim that she did not use her pregnancy to "force" the man into marriage, or simply because she will prefer to avoid the embarrassment of walking down the isle with a big belly. Most unmarried women of our times will be persuaded by such arguments. After the woman exercises her choice to abort the child, the man can, when he desires either withdraw the offer of marriage and offer to continue the relationship as before if the female so wishes or end the relationship altogether. In any case, the male should be careful not to impregnate the same female again, as the effectiveness of this type of persuasion declines slightly when used more than once on the same female.

Pregancy resulting from a casual sexual transaction. If the pregnancy was the result of a casual encounter, even though it is possible in such cases that the child might be the product of the woman's casual sex with some other male, the accused male should resist the initial impulse to deny paternity. In this era of DNA testing, denials of paternity quickly become irrelevant, and an incorrect denial of paternity has the effect of generating intransigence on the part of the female, which limits the male's persuasive options going forward. The successful male will realize that a female's uncertainty about paternity actually increases his persuasive alternatives. Instead of immediately denying paternity, the male should valorize all of the newly-pregnant woman's emotions, both her hopes and her fears. For when a female has become pregnant from a casual encounter, the shock of the unexpected emotional reciprocation leaves her less able to discern the true state of her affairs. Rather than abandoning the field to the machinations of man- hating family court judges, the male should indicate to the female that he will "respect and support" whatever decision she should make. At the same time, instead of explicitly denying paternity, the male should work subtly upon the doubts that the female herself will most likely be having, since she herself probably knows that this was not the only casual sexual encounter that might have produced the pregnancy. The male should tell the female that, whatever she decides, he will "do the right thing." The male's vague suggestion that he would be willing to marry this woman with whom he has had only a casual encounter will only increase the female's confusion. While the female is still riven with doubt and suppressed shame about her condition, the male should off-handedly mention to the woman some story about some childhood friend whose features were so unlike his father's and his other siblings' that the father could never completely accept the child as his own, etc. When telling this story, the male should be sure to emphasize how glad he is that they won't have to worry about that kind of problem with this child because he knows she was never acting like a slut. The effect of this persuasion is to put the entire burden of the decision on the woman when she is confused by the unexpected attention shown by a man who was merely a casual sex partner, when she is herself still doubtful of the child's paternity, and when she is completely uncertain about the family dynamic that would evolve if the child has features unlike the putative father. Since a female in this kind of casual relationship does not really know the true character of the person who is now a potential life-mate, it can be very useful to display some truly disgusting personal habit (e.g., nose-picking or finger-sniffing) or some bizarre hobby (e.g., taxidermy) that women generally find both offensive and revealing of character. This approach will cause the woman first to abhor the prospect of marrying the male and secondly to begin abhor the prospect that the child she carries will turn out to be like its father. When these effects have been brought to the most intense level possible within the shortest possible time, the male should tearfully tell the woman that he has "seen in her eyes" that she does not love him, that he understands that he is not good enough for her, but that he hopes she will not punish him by having his child--a child for whom he could never, under the circumstances, be a complete father. In the very rare case in which the female exercises her right to have the child, a child which she herself neither wanted nor anticipated, it is highly likely that she will decline to seek child-support inasmuch as to do so will cause her publicly to accept a permanent social arrangement (e.g., joint-custody, visitation, etc.) with a man she considers repugnant.

Pregnancy resulting from a married relationship. Even if he has already been trapped into a marriage, a man stands a yet better chance of persuading the woman to have the abortion: In addition to the arguments suggested above, which can be adapted to fit the married situation, the implicit threat of divorce (with suggestions of infidelity on the part of the female) carries additional persuasive force.

Rational Persuasion. One may sometimes impregnate a female whose character, intellect, and education render her invulnerable to the persuasive arguments set forth above. In that case, a more direct approach, based on rational arguments will always suffice. Such women tend to be those who most strongly support the principle of the primacy of individual choice. Thus, when the impregnated female is a rational creature, an appeal to basic fairness and the primacy of individual choice will enable the male to avoid an unjust imposition of the consequences of pregnancy. Rational persuasion is truly the most noble, because it honorizes the female's deeply held respect for choice and fairness, and results in freely negotiated abortion justice in the private context between a male and female operating at the highest level of intellectual honesty. Freely bargained abortion justice arguably would be preferable even to an as-yet-unrealized legally established abortion justice because, rather than being imposed externally through force of law, a freely negotiated resolution valorizes the choices of autonomous human beings who are fully respectful of the antireproductive and areproductive decisions of their sexual transactions partners. In dealing with the rare female intellectually and emotionally capable of accessing these principles, the argument the male must present to her is as follows:

This pregnancy was the result of the conjunction of our mutual, yet separate, independent, and free decisions to have sex. When you became pregnant as a result of your independent and free decision to have sex, you thereafter justly retained, and do still retain, a further post-conception choice either to have a child or to reject the burdens of parenthood by having an abortion. Neither I nor anyone else is entitled to force you to have an abortion or to force you into motherhood simply because you agreed to have sex.

Even though I am unable to choose fatherhood against your choice, while you are able to choose motherhood against my choice, simple fairness demands that, just as you retain the post-conception choice to reject the burdens of parenthood for yourself, so also should I at least retain the same choice for myself.

You know it would be wrong for me to claim that, just because you had sex with me, I was thereby empowered to impose motherhood upon you. It would be equally wrong for you to believe that, just because I had sex with you, you were thereby empowered to impose fatherhood upon me.

If you wish to bring this fetus to term, you are free to make that choice. However, your dedication to equal rights of men and women must make you freely acknowledge that you are not entitled to force me to accept any burden of your decision. If you choose to have a child, do not expect me to bear the father's burden of providing for its financial support.

I hereby express and exercise my choice against the burdens of fatherhood by tendering to you one-half of the current price of an abortion, an amount established by the most recent quarterly publication of regional health care costs issued by the United States Health Care Financing Administration. [A generous male would offer to increase this amount to cover the entire cost of the abortion since the woman alone undergoes the procedure, for which she should therefore receive some additional compensation.] Having tendered such an amount, I consider myself relieved from any further imaginary obligation either to you or the your fetal tissue. Of course, independently of my post-conception choice, you remain free to choose either motherhood or abortion. But you are not free to impose the consequences of your decision upon me.

A rational female who truly believes in abortion justice and the primacy of individual choice will accept this argument and will in all likelihood remain available for future sexual transactions with the male. A failure in employing this approach can occur only if the male has miscalculated the character of the particular female (i.e., he has used a rational argument when an emotional technique would have been more appropriate to deal with the particular female he has impregnated).

This rational negotiated resolution of the issue of so-called illegitimate pregnancy is certainly fair with regard to the female and the male. It does lead to certain societal issues should the female choose to bear the child, in that the child will not have the financial support traditionally provided by a man oppressed into the archaic sex roles. However, the persistence of this or any other coincidental problem stems more from society's incapacity to develop alternatives to the anachronistic sex-based family roles than from any deficiency in the argument itself.

IV. CONCLUSION.
That the predominant benefits of abortion accrue to men has some historical support. The earliest fighters for female equality, the suffragettes who won women the right to vote, took the position that abortion should be prohibited. They believed that legal abortion would actually be used by men as yet another tool to manipulate and oppress women at a point in their lives when they were most vulnerable and would allow men to avoid reciprocal obligations that supposedly arise naturally from sexual relations between men and women. While the early feminists were obviously wrong about women's capacity to deal rationally with circumstances surrounding their pregnancies, their intuition that the greater benefits of abortion accrue to men seems plausible. Experience and theory have demonstrated that men as well as women, if properly educated against society's false construct, can bargain as rational creatures to secure equal benefits from abortion.

The purpose of this article has been to show rationally why men should join with women to protect and to expand abortion rights. Though the abortion right, in its present incompletely developed permutation, is currently viewed as a woman's right, the benefits of the exercise of this right, even in the absence of full abortion justice, still can accrue to men at least as much and probably more than to women, inasmuch as the shackles of traditional sex-based roles restrain men, if more subtly, then also more completely, than they do women. The liberation of persons of all genders from such anachronisms and the development of a just society of complete individual autonomy depend upon men's ability to recognize, pursue, and demand full equality of abortion justice. However, until full equality of abortion justice is achieved in law, enlightened males should consider themselves equitably entitled to exploit all means of persuasion, rational or irrational, short of physical force to secure abortion justice privately in his individual case.