Writing law from anecdotes is generally a bad idea. Today, we see why in a story buried on page A16 of the New York Times. After a heinous episode in which a 17-year-old girl who was seven months pregnant paid a man to beat her in hopes of inducing a miscarriage, Governor Gary Herbert is trying to decide whether to sign into a law a bill, passed by both houses of the legislature, that would make it a crime to seek an illegal abortion.

The potential implications of such a law are enormous: