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"The government safety net was created to keep Americans from abject poverty, but the poorest households no longer receive a majority of government benefits. A secondary mission has gradually become primary: maintaining the middle class from childhood through retirement. The share of benefits flowing to the least affluent households, the bottom fifth, has declined from 54 percent in 1979 to 36 percent in 2007, according to a Congressional Budget Office analysis published last year."

"So perhaps, it might be argued, abortion can be safely limited only when the government does more to cover women's costs in other ways - in which case Texas might still be flirting with disaster. But note that this is a better argument for liberalism than for abortion. It suggests, for instance, that liberal donors and activists should be spending more time rallying against Perry's refusal to take federal Medicaid financing than around Wendy Davis's famous filibuster. It implies that the quest to "turn Texas blue" should make economic policy rather than late-term abortion its defining issue. And it raises the possibility that a pro-life liberalism - that once-commonplace, now-mythical persuasion - would actually have a stronger argument to make than the one Texas's critics are making now.