The Uneasy Conscience of the Pro-Choice Apologist

Monday, June 22, 2009
Joe Carter

Excerpt:
Similarly at Salon.com, Frances Kissling, a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania and the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, worries about the effect of ceding moral arguments about abortion in favor of rights-based discourse:

But tough questions come up more frequently than they did in the first years after Roe, as more is known about the choices some women and couples make, and fetuses have become as visible as women. Sex selection is only one of many tough issues. Abortion when the fetus has mild disabilities—or even when the fetus has no disability—is another. What about deaf couples who do not want a hearing child? Or as Ayelet Waldman reported on DoubleX, the woman in her support group who had an abortion because her fetus’ hands were deformed. These things should make us pause and think hard.

While Saletan is content with encouraging people to simply acknowledge that the choice they are making might be killing a human being, Kissling is willing to admit that some abortion choices should be actively discouraged: “I think it’s important for us to be able to say: When a fetus reaches the point where it could survive outside the uterus, is healthy, and the woman is healthy, and she has had five months to make up her mind, we should say no to abortion.” the rest