I think this comparison is particularly interesting, if only because many would vehemently deny both the validity of the analogy as well as its utility.

To legal scholars, the relationship between gun rights and abortion rights is self-evident; for example, consider this thought experiment. Though Magliocca sketches the broad contours of the comparison, which is interesting to think about by itself, the legal history is even more similar. No original reading of the Constitution would come up with the right to bear arms or the right to an abortion. Just as the NRA spearheaded the movement to legitimize firearm rights in the latter half of the 20th century, grassroots abortion referral organizations drew attention to the maternal health crisis.

Both rights would later be confirmed by the Supreme Court in Heller/McDonald and Roe. Indeed, Scalia and Alito’s majority opinions in the gun rights cases can be critiqued in the same manner as Blackmun’s Roe opinion; both rely upon shaky readings of the Constitution in an attempt to broaden the scope of fundamental rights. These legal debates were both ultimately framed in the context of substantive due process, a contentious area of legal thought.

The other interesting aspect of this comparison is the mistrust argument. Since Roe, judicial and legislative action has markedly eroded abortion rights. Waiting periods, parental consent, and physician descriptions could be seen as reasonable requirements for an abortion, but most pro-choice advocates regard such requirements as merely the precursor to a complete ban. Though gun-control advocates haven’t quite had the legal success that pro-life advocates have had, one can understand the similar consternation raised by the seemingly innocuous executive orders that President Obama recently signed. Both are reasonable responses, given that a complete ban on abortion or guns is not unthinkable. It is this argument that I think makes the comparison worthwhile: using one familiar issue to parallel the opposition on another (unless you’re libertarian, in which case you probably support both gun and abortion rights) can help moderate discourse. Or, at the very least, understand the opposition to a greater degree.

The most frequent response to this is the idea that “gun rights and abortion rights are fundamentally different.” On the areas mentioned above, I don’t think that argument can hold. But at the “core”? There are a few variants of this, but the liberal version boils down to: guns affect more than one person and involve the community, whereas abortions are personal health decisions.

I concede that guns, by their very design, can affect the lives of others - strictly defined, one need only threaten or shoot at another person. However, at the same time, there is no intrinsic reason why guns automatically do so; the large majority of gun owners use their weapons for home defense, hunting, or shooting at a range. Abortions, by definition, involve the fetus and the mother. Whether the fetus is conferred the rights of a human is debatable, but unlike other personal health decisions, the abortion is unique in its relation to potential life. The difference then is: guns have the potential to affect bystanders, while abortions do (or do not, depending on whether the fetus counts as “another human”). The binary decision on whether abortions affect another human being will likely influence one’s personal beliefs on abortion, but it does not affect the validity of the gun-abortion comparison. This distinction I think is important, since it illustrates the “two ships passing” nature of the discussion. Of course a liberal will distinguish the two, just as a conservative would as well. The assertion that “gun rights and abortion rights are different” in this manner works for a personal, normative viewpoint, but it does not undermine the neutral, descriptive comparison described here. The fact that these two areas are so easily conflated is even more reason to discuss the similarities. I don’t view this comparison as dangerous or pandering to the “other side,” but as instructive to consider - definitely for its legal ramifications and possibly for the policy ones as well.