No matter how different their opinions, people can amicably "agree to disagree" on most topics of debate. Even political topics. But bring up the abortion issue, and somebody's getting angry. In fact, abortion could be the single most heated subject during the past 30 years of United States history. 

And why shouldn't it be? After all, how many conflicts are over things that really matter? On the other hand, abortion is about life and death. The power to give life, and -- from a pro-life vantage point at least -- the power to take it away. So tensions are inevitably going to run high in this debate.

If he succeeds in nothing else with Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War, Slate political correspondent William Saletan deserves credit for crafting an abortion tome deplete of the intense emotionalism that ignites the full spectrum of the issue. His bias is far from hidden, but he manages to provide a historical account of abortion law without straying onto an ideological soapbox.

The book reads as a pretty straight narrative that, in large part, tells the story of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (now NARAL: Pro-Choice America) and its entry into the political spotlight during the legal battles over abortion in the early 1980s. That's when amendments to the Arkansas constitution would have banned state abortion funding, but NARAL and others packaged their opposition as the rejection of government interference in family life -- a "conservative" idea, Saletan reminds the reader repeatedly.

"Swing voters didn't share the activists' concerns about women's rights or the welfare of teenagers and the poor," he notes, "but they are willing to reject the measure on other grounds: the perils of big government, the sovereignty of families…and the rights of rape victims."

From there, Saletan explores abortion politics from a diverse set of angles, from court cases and state and national campaigns to abortion-related issues like "forced" sterilization and finally embryonic stem-cell research. He manages to weave these different perspectives into a common thread, centered largely on NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and their allies, and he documents the rise of a supporting cast of household names made familiar in large part by their activism opposing or supporting abortion.

Saletan intriguingly lays out the abortion war in terms of this set of battles and this group of soldiers. At times, I felt almost like a spy looking into the enemy's camp, getting a glimpse of their classified attack strategy. That the book exposes so much of this strategy is enough to make it a valuable read. 

Yet despite his attempts to be neutral, Saletan does subtly implant his own thoughts periodically. For example, the book spends a noticeable amount of space framing the abortion debate around the question of exceptions for rape victims, even hinting that conservatives are hypocritical to reject abortion yet support the death penalty. And he hits home several times the argument that denying abortion to a rape victim causes her to be "victimized" again.

Of a law in Louisiana, Saletan suggests that "sex wasn't a sin in itself. It became sinful when performed outside traditional institutions…..The same logic applied to rape. What was violated in rape wasn't just a woman but womanhood and the whole fabric of traditional sexual morality. Abortion purged that violation."

The dilemma of whether conservatives support the abortion option for raped women is no doubt a heavy and important one, but Saletan seems to go to extra lengths to put this conflict on the front line as a divisive factor, even among pro-lifers. Yet he only gives brief mention to the pro-life response that an abortion itself creates the unnecessary victim of an unborn child.

More apparent is that despite the book's central theme of pro-choice conservatism's victory in the abortion struggle, the narrative recounts the issue primarily from the perspective of the left-wing activists of NARAL and the National Organization for Women and likeminded groups. Most of the dialogue in Bearing Right comes from liberal voices. Conservative and pro-life protagonists (or antagonists perhaps?) are largely relegated to supporting roles, most of them seeming to be faceless characters with only minor contributions to the story. Yet Saletan would have us believe that these are the forces that brought the far left to the center on the abortion debate.

Perhaps this provides evidence that even Saletan isn't truly convinced that conservatives have been victorious in the war. In fact, the more passionate elements on both sides of the aisle are bound to disagree with his thesis. While small government and family sanctity are certainly core conservative values -- indeed, they may be our defining values -- it is ultimately to our detriment that these principles have been turned against us in the abortion fight.

I would highly recommend Bearing Right as a fascinating and multifaceted look into the abortion war, but with the caveat that I disagree with its contention that some form of conservatism was victorious in that war (or that the war is over at all). Pro-choicers have clearly compromised some of their principles in order to keep Roe v. Wade intact, but pro-lifers have arguably done worse, considering their stance that abortion kills a human child.

So instead, read this book to find an interesting history of how the chess match has played out. Read it and ask yourself what the stakes in the game really are.

"To understand the abortion debate, you have to ask people not just whether abortion should or shouldn't be legal, but why," Saletan rightly asserts. "Some people believe the issue is about protecting human life. Others believe it's about women's rights. Some say it's about taking responsibility for sex. Others say it's about poverty and preventing unwanted children. Some think it's about preserving the family."

The issue is, of course, about all of those things and more. But if we are to conclude that the entity that grows inside a woman's womb is indeed a human child, then we haven't won anything yet.

This article appeared on Townhall.com.