An anchor on TV just blamed Roe v. Wade for dividing our country. This makes as much sense as reporting that an SUV has run over a bunch of people at a shopping mall.

Saying the Roe v. Wade divides our country implies that there are two groups, one for and one against abortion, and that the cited court decision is responsible for the division. Roe v. Wade isn't dividing our country. Roe v. Wade simply represents our government's current law relative to abortion. The country would be divided about abortion without Roe v. Wade. And there aren't just two groups: pro abortion and anti abortion. Some people accept some types of abortions. Some people accept certain timeframes for abortions. Some people accept abortions but don't want them to be paid for with government funds. Some people accept abortions but don't want them to be too easy to obtain. Some people don't want anyone to be able to obtain an abortion under any circumstances at all, no way, no how. Making abortion rights a simple, dualistic, up or down issue inhibits our ability to consider our varying postions on this important question, understand the reasons behind our current laws, and make rational future decisions about abortion rights.

Rudy Guliani has a very reasonable position relative to abortion rights. I share his position. If I have it right, he is against abortion, concedes that it should be legal, but wants the government to do everything in its power to make it unnecessary. 

It is amazing how many people find it hard to understand Guliani's essentially conservative postion on abortion simply because they can't put him in either the pro or anti abortion camps.

So laws don't make issues divisive. If we didn't have any abortion laws, would abortion be less important?

What does divide us are the efforts of some people in our two political parties to claim ownership of specific positions and attribute a dicotomous opposing position to the opposing party. They must think that we are incapable of answering anything more complicated than a yes/no, true/false question, want to simply sort us into one of two large piles, or be so unintelligent themselves that they can't respond appropriately to multiple choice and essay questions.