Do anti-abortion laws increase the numbers of pro-choicers? Nicholas Kristof poses that question in his comment today in the Times. He discusses two "mass abortion trials" in Portugal, and the subsequent increase in those favoring abortion rights.

Portugal, like the U.S., is an industrialized democracy with a conservative religious streak, but the trials have repulsed the Portuguese. A recent opinion poll shows that people here now favor abortion rights, 79 percent to 14 percent. In a sign of the changing mood, Portugal's president recently commuted the remainder of the nurse's sentence. There's a growing sense that while abortion may be wrong, criminalization is worse.
...
Portugal offers a couple of sobering lessons for Americans who, like Mr. Bush, aim to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The first is that abortion laws are very difficult to enforce in a world as mobile as ours. Some 20,000 Portuguese women still get abortions each year, mostly by crossing the border into Spain. In the U.S., where an overturn of Roe v. Wade would probably mean bans on abortion only in a patchwork of Bible Belt states, pregnant women would travel to places like New York, California and Illinois for their abortions.

The second is that if states did criminalize abortion, they would face a backlash as the public focus shifted from the fetus to the woman. "The fundamentalists have lost the debate" in Portugal, said Helena Pinto, president of UMAR, a Portuguese abortion rights group. "Now the debate has shifted to the rights of women. Do we want to live in a country where women can be in jail for abortion?"

And the comment ends with:

Portugal's experience suggests that while many people are offended by abortion on demand, they might be even more troubled by criminalization of abortion.

"Forbidding abortion doesn't save anyone or anything," said Sonia Fertuzinhos, a member of the Portuguese Parliament. "It just gets women arrested and humiliated in the public arena."

The upshot is that many Portuguese seem to be both anti-abortion and pro-choice. They are morally uncomfortable with abortion, especially late in pregnancies, but they don't think the solution is to arrest young women for making agonizing personal choices to end their pregnancies.

As one sensible woman put it in her autobiography: "For me, abortion is a personal issue -- between the mother, father and doctor." She added, "Abortion is not a presidential matter."

President Bush, listen to your mother.

Without relying too heavily on Kristof's thin empirical data, I can see the common sense in what he's saying. When abortion is a legal right, pro-life folks are mobilized. They might seek to oulaw abortion, or to attempt to convince the masses that abortion is murder. But if abortion is outlawed, pro-choice folks are mobilized- and will push the rights side of the issue. Kristof suggests, I think, that U.S. law puts the pro-life view in a better position in the public forum.
Forget laws for a second, and think only of the public debate. The terms of the debate, sadly, have been set- pro-life, and pro-choice. (This is unfortunate, as many of those favoring abortion rights are not anti-life-in that we do not think abortion is murder.) In any event- the rhetoric of "pro-life" is quite strong- especially when squared against the label "pro-choice." Do we favor human life or human choice? It's not even a debate- but rather people arguing past each other. And I cannot imagine a pro-choicer that could argue he is anti-life, or that choice trumps life--while I can imagine a pro-lifer arguing that life trumps choice.
I reckon all this is to say that, despite our laws, I think pro-life advocates have the upper hand in the public debate. Thus, you have a population that universally admits great discomfort with abortion. Even politicians that staunchly favor upholding Roe will feel it necessary to reveal their discomfort--or that they would rather avoid the pregnancy in the first place.
If Roe was reversed, though, this would change. The rhetorical value of choice would trump life for this reason: the fact that we are in large disagreement over what the fetus is would come to fore. And choice would come to mean more than the choice to have an abortion: it would come to represent a larger choice about life, the body, and what we these thing mean.