Thus far in 2019 we have seen some liberal states pass laws to make abortion legal up to the point of birth and maybe later. And we have seen conservative states make abortion a crime almost from the moment of conception -- for the abortion doctor.

Are we going to have a civil war over this, as the two sides get more and more extremist? And anyway, which side is God on? And which God? The God of religion, or the God of social justice?

Actually, I understand both sides of this moral issue. Let us look at the issue first from the educated woman’s point of view. This was brought out to me in stark relief yesterday as I started into Crazy Rich Asians, the book.

The movie didn’t make it too clear, but at the opening of the novel our Cinderella, Rachel Chu, economics professor, has been going with her Prince Charming, Nick Young, for two years, and he hasn’t said a thing about marriage. I ask you: what’s a girl to think? How long is she expected to string along before going nuclear? Any of you guys see the problem with bonking a woman for years without telling her where the relationship is going?

Here’s the point. If you are a good little professional-class girl in these times you are expected to go to college, go to graduate school, get a career established, all before you are 30, and then get married and then have kids. No pressure, girls!

Along the way you are expected to have a few relationships with similarly educated humans of the opposite sex, or in Blanche’s immortal words from Streetcar Named Desire, you “put out.”

You can see why educated women that have been carefully taught to have educations and careers would be paranoid about abortion. Getting pregnant would shoot the good little educated girl out of her good little education-career trajectory. Not to be endured!

I get it. If well-born young women are expected to get educated, expected to start careers, expected to be sexually available, many of them will expect an insurance policy. Women are, after all, more risk averse than men.

And what about Nick Young, our crazy rich scion of a Singaporean Chinese dynasty who is slumming incognito in Manhattan disguised as a history prof.? Isn’t it a bit risky to be sexually active with a young ABC (American-born Chinese) of no dynasty at all? Suppose she got pregnant and wanted to keep it? They say that young men are the most enthusiastic supporters of abortion. I wonder why?

So I get where the educated class is coming from on abortion. I also get where actresses are coming from: Harvey? You there?

But those of us that are not marked out for crazy careers or crazy riches live with the fact that the only thing that posterity will know about us is our children and our grandchildren. Not because our children and grandchildren will amaze anyone, but because they are there. So we have a tendency to sanctify the marriage bond and the children that come out of it, because that’s all we have.

Some of us even notice that, unless society makes a big deal out of marriage and children, then lots of educated people mindlessly living the urban liberal zeitgeist will suddenly wake up at age 50 to realize that it’s too late to have children! How come society didn’t warn them? This sort of thing can get so out of hand that the number of children born doesn’t replace the oldsters dying out. Like right now.

So what do we do about the diametrically opposed notions on abortion?

Frankly, I’d prefer that the criminal law did not get involved right after the moment of conception, as it does in the new Alabama law. I’d prefer if abortion were more disgraceful than criminal.

In the first trimester, I’d limit disgrace to the semi-private verdict of the community of women: “I can’t believe she did that…” In the second trimester I propose a public disgrace. In the third trimester, perhaps, it’s time to escalate disgrace to punishment.

And, of course, all the usual caveats about rape and incest, etc. apply.

One of the important messages from Crazy Rich Asians is that the women decide everything. Ever notice that Nick’s dad never appears in the movie? That’s because in the book he lives in Sydney, Australia, fishin’ on the dock of his waterfront home, at a safe distance from the hurricane winds of the bomb cyclone he is married to.

So, really, we guys might as well put another worm on the hook and light a cigar. Eventually, after almost indescribable storms in the Intervaginal Convergence Zone, the women of the world will decide what to do about abortion. And all we’ll have to do is agree.

Hey, how about those UVA Cavaliers!

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.