But one measure of the lack of intensity afforded to women’s issues by either candidate was that, while contraception was discussed, the word “abortion” did not come up at all, except maybe by proxy. Obama mentioned Planned Parenthood five times, once in the same sentence with Big Bird. A woman watching, who did not know either of the candidate’s positions going in, might have guessed the general orientation, but would not have known that Romney—at the moment—supports a ban on abortion unless a woman has been the victim of rape or incest, or will die without it. That is an extreme position. How, after all, is it supposed to work, even for a woman who has been raped? Would she have to go in front of a judge and prove that she had been raped before she could end her pregnancy? What if the alleged perpetrator claimed that the sex had been consensual—would he have an interest in contesting an abortion? Or would a woman need to prove that the risk to her life—never mind to her health—was over a certain per cent, say, seventy-five? Which bureaucrats would decide who got access to this medical procedure? There was silence about abortion in this debate, as there was in the first one, but it is not yet as deadly as the silence would be if women, as in the days before Roe, had no safe and legal access to abortions. They would be left to seek them out in streets where nobody knew them—and where some of them would die. Would Romney lead a search party to go looking for them then?

-[Amy Davidson, The New Yorker online, today]
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