YESTERDAY MORNING AT the Christian Science Monitor breakfast meeting, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean was asked whether the Democratic platform on abortion should be amended. That will be up to Barack Obama and his delegates, Dean said, adding that the Democratic party believes “individuals have a right to make up their own minds in personal matters … but this party also believes that we ought to significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country.”

Given the latter, I asked how he could square Barack Obama’s and the Democratic party’s support for public funding for abortion–which studies show significantly increases the abortion rate.