Where is the middle ground between murder and women’s rights? Is there one?

“Rights are ours by virtue of humanity,” FOX news analyst Andrew Napolitano said in his opening statement to the audience at the “Abortion Rights in America” debate Thursday night.

“The Bill of Rights makes it clear the government doesn’t create rights, it protects rights,” he said. “But no right can be enjoyed if one is not alive.”

Napolitano called his debate opponent, Michael Waldman, a public interest lawyer and aide to former President Bill Clinton, a “worthy adversary.”

“We may disagree very sharply on this issue, but we agree on many other things, and we really are good friends,” Napolitano said.

In his opening statement, Waldman said abortion was an issue that deserves serious attention.

“There are deep moral issues on both sides of this,” he said, adding he wanted to find a common ground between those two sides.

“Abortion should be safe, legal and rare,” Waldman said, quoting Clinton. “We have a chance to move past the debates that have clogged this issue for the last 30 years.”

The debate, moderated by Edward Panetta, an associate professor in the speech and communications department, was formatted to give both Panetta and University students an opportunity to question the debaters about abortion.

“It’s an issue that’s never-ending, as long as Roe v. Wade exists,” Panetta said in a telephone interview Thursday.

The questions covered related issues including the recent health care reform bill, freedom of speech and what credibility two men had when debating an issue many see as that of women’s rights.

“Both sides agree that this fight should not spill into this bill,” Waldman said, saying health care reform should be “abortion neutral.”

Napolitano said if abortion were excluded from the bill, it needed to be “crisp, careful, direct exclusion.”

“Nothing can justify the killing of the innocent,” he said.

“Who in their right mind would propose health care in the hands of people that have bankrupted everything they have attempted to manage since the beginning of the federal government?” Napolitano asked.

Napolitano, who later said he also believes the death penalty is immoral, said freedom of speech with regards to the sometimes graphic abortion literature, and violence against abortion doctors, is a “very, very slippery slope.”

“I don’t know what the cause of this violence is and I condemn it,” he said.

“I’m an absolutist when it comes to freedom of speech,” he said. “We sometimes have to live with the criminality of a few for the freedom of us all.”

And what if Roe v. Wade were overthrown?

“There’s no federal right to abortion,” Napolitano said, adding the result should be a states’ rights issue. Even then, he said, he believed that to be a “deplorable view” – that no state should legalize murder.

“You can’t authorize abortion because it’s done neater or cleaner by a doctor, than by a monster in an alleyway,” he said. “Tell that to the baby that died.”

In response, Waldman said it is not just the aborted fetus in danger from “back alley abortions,” but the woman carrying the fetus as well. He said if Roe v. Wade was overturned, he believed society would be in a “wild fracas” about the issue of abortion – putting people in the same position they are now with the issue.

“Republicans tiptoe up to [a reversal] and one way or another it doesn’t happen,” Waldman said.

Waldman said he believed abortion is a reality – “something the woman has a right to do,” but something society can limit at the same time. He said an appropriate balance needs to be found.

“Women’s freedom and women’s equality are at stake here,” he said.

Napolitano, however, did not have the same view on the woman’s right to choose.

“It’s not about the woman, it’s about the baby,” he said. “It would be nice if the government didn’t have a role here.”

Regardless of their differing viewpoints, Napolitano and Waldman have agreed to disagree on abortion.

“We don’t disagree that privacy should be protected,” Napolitano said. “We disagree with what privacy protects.”