Observations on Abortion and Politics.

ABORTION; RELIGION; PRO-choice movement; PRO-life movement; BIRTH control; UNWANTED pregnancy; REPRODUCTIVE rights; PROHIBITION of alcohol; POLICY sciences; WOMEN'S rights; SOCIAL policy

The article offers a discussion on abortion and politics in 2004. For the last generation, no issue has generated more sustained controversy, and none has produced more anguished appeals to conscience than has abortion. There are both theological and philosophical reasons for rejecting abortion and for holding that it is indeed the destruction of innocent human life; but it is the philosophical reasons that have to be presented as the proper basis for public policy. Catholics, Baptists and other religious opponents of abortion must attempt to persuade their fellow citizens by appeals to reason, to shared values and to common interests. It makes clear the continuity and identity of human life from conception forward, and it has made it difficult to separate the acceptance of abortion from the acceptance of infanticide. Directing attention to the Catholic Church's prohibition against abortion and invoking internal church discipline against those Catholics who hold contrary views suggests to many people that the primary issue in the public forum is not one of natural law, but rather of obedience to church teaching. Continuing and intense public disagreement does underline how far we are from having a broad public consensus against the practice and how difficult it would be to enact and enforce a legal prohibition against it. Pro-life advocates need to recognize that while the philosophical arguments they make against abortion may persuade many honest people that abortion is indeed the taking of innocent human life, they are extremely unlikely to persuade the general public to accept an absolute and universal ban on abortion.