Keller: A personal defense of abortion rights.

Safe, legal and rare -- Keller's position, and mine, too. His essay is far too eloquent to suit the tub-thumpers, but then again, this is L'America.

It’s Personal, by Bill Keller (New York Times)

This will not be “succinct,” or simple, or likely to satisfy anyone who can reduce abortion to a slogan.

The closest thing I have to a guiding text on the subject of abortion is not a volume of constitutional law or a summary of the latest biological research on the origins of life. It is a black, three-ring binder containing hundreds of letters from readers who lived and suffered with the subject.

The letters arrived in response to a column called “Charlie’s Ghost,” which The Times published on June 29, 2002. It recounted the decision my wife and I made to end a badly troubled pregnancy, and the strong countervailing emotions that decision entailed.