I guess it was her husband who perfected the idea of triangulation as a political strategy, so we shouldn’t be surprised that Hillary Clinton is moving to the right on the issue of abortion, according to this NY Times article.

Honestly, it’s a smart move for a couple of reasons. First, the abortion debate in this country is pretty meaningless in its current form. Both sides have become so polarized that no one seems interested in solving the real problems underlying abortion. I really wish a candidate would be willing to stand up to the pro-choice and pro-life lobbies and demand that both sides work on solving some problems instead of name-calling. I just didn’t think it would be Hillary.

Second, Hillary realizes that if she is going to win in 2008, assuming she’s in the race, that she must present an alternative to both the conservative Republicans, who don’t seem to have any genuine heir apparent for Bush, and the badly damaged Democrats, marked by the lackluster Kerry defeat and the insane bid to install Howard Dean as the chair of the DNC. I think if Hillary positions herself as a populist moderate, she could rally the defeated Democrats and shave off enough Republicans to make a run for it.

The real question is whether her talk will mean anything. I think the key to solving the abortion problem in this country is really about doing a better job reducing crisis pregnancies, which can be accomplished a number of ways. Certainly, better sex education, including a commitment to abstinence, would be a start. The fact that anyone thinks it’s healthy and normal for 14, 15, and 16 year-olds to be running around having all kinds of freaky sex should be pretty shocking. Let’s start there. Let’s start by killing the notion that the right to have sexual intercourse — especially if you’re a minor — is a protected human right.

Beyond that, I think we need to make real efforts to take the profit motive away from the abortion industry, which I’m sure will raise the hackles of Planned Parenthood, who makes its living off of crisis pregnancies. If Planned Parenthood spent as much time promoting adoption as it does abortion, I think we’d see a marked decrease in abortions in this country.