Post-Roe, Pro-Lifers Should Use ‘Eyeball Test’

As far as America’s political war over abortion is concerned, the overturning of Roe v. Wade is, in Winston Churchill’s phrase, not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. One of the elemental political realities that both sides will now need to face is how abortions by various methods and at various stages fare when put to the eyeball test.

Human beings are inclined by nature to make moral judgments of right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, justice and injustice. Our senses of conscience, altruism, and grievance are driven in part by our reasoning, in part by our emotions, and in part simply by our instinctive gut reactions. We should, of course, educate and elevate that sensibility by the study and application of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and moral theology. But the political reality of a democracy is that we will always be ruled in good part by the sensibilities — the common sense, if you will — of the population at large. And that means a lot will always depend on people who call things as they see them, often without a rigorous philosophical consistency.

About the Author

Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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As far as America’s political war over abortion is concerned, the overturning of Roe v. Wade is, in Winston Churchill’s phrase, not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. One of the elemental political realities that both sides will now need to face is how abortions by various methods and at various stages fare when put to the eyeball test.

Human beings are inclined by nature to make moral judgments of right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, justice and injustice. Our senses of conscience, altruism, and grievance are driven in part by our reasoning, in part by our emotions, and in part simply by our instinctive gut reactions. We should, of course, educate and elevate that sensibility by the study and application of moral philosophy, political philosophy, and moral theology. But the political reality of a democracy is that we will always be ruled in good part by the sensibilities — the common sense, if you will — of the population at large. And that means a lot will always depend on people who call things as they see them, often without a rigorous philosophical consistency.