A reader writes in response to this post: “It is the height of arrogance to presume that you know when life begins, much less state that it is a ‘fact.’” I had quoted Patrick Lee, a professor of philosophy at Franciscan University, who pointed out that it is a fact that abortion “is the killing of an innocent human being.”
That the human embryo or fetus is alive rather than dead or inanimate is indeed a fact. If you want to use “life” in a different sense, to refer to a type of being that the government should protect, then the government is going to have to “presume” to set a definition on which it will act. I’d say that it is considerably more arrogant to say that it is okay to kill some living human organisms because we think they count as “life” under some mysterious definition.
Earlier this week, NRO ran an article of mine on the Democratic party’s ever more enthusiastic embrace of abortion.