From one of my longtime liberal reader guys in response to today’s column :

Subject: Terrific column! Will Ramesh Ponnuru take issue with your correct observation that the question of when human life begins is a moral one?

Me: I dunno what Ramesh will think of my column. But I don’t think he would disagree that the question of when life begins is a moral one. And I don’t think I would disagree with him that it can be — must be — informed to some extent by science.

Where I think some people might miss the point is that saying it’s a moral question hardly helps or hurts either pro-choicers or pro-lifers on the abortion question. Abortion is a moral question no matter what. Period. Full stop.

For example, the liberal line on abortion — that ostensibly pro-life politicians (Mario Cuomo et al) can’t impose their morality on others — is quite simply absurd in my view.

We know it is a moral question when we as a society decide to execute convicted murderers. After all, the science on whether or not a given convicted criminal is “alive” is pretty well settled. But nobody relies on the dodge that it would be wrong to “impose” our morals on somebody else in such cases. Rather, sincere opponents of the death penalty argue that executing anybody is morally wrong (and procedurally dangerous).

That’s an honorable argument, even if I find it flawed. But it’s very different from the argument that the state and the society have no right to impose their morality on others. If that were the case, a great deal of the modern state — including vast swaths of environmental policies, criminal justice, affirmative action, you name it — would have to be illegitimate because the state is imposing moral judgments, ultimately at gun point, in all of these areas. That’s why the smarter pro-choice arguments revolve around the question of whether abortion is so intimately tied to the sovereignty of the individual — like say prayer or, until recently, speech — that it should be exempted to some extent from the moral will of the majority.

In short, the question of when it is legal to abort a fetus, or embryo, is a moral one no matter what, and the state is making a moral decision no matter what position it takes — as are the rest of us by consenting to it. The question remains, Which moral imperative triumphs?

Update: A reader offers an important correction (in his first point). The question of when it is legal to abort a fetus is not a moral question, but a legal one. I misspoke. In his own words:

Dear Mr. Goldberg:
A sober article and post. Just to pick nits, you say in a corner post:
“In short, the question of when it is legal to abort a fetus, or embryo, is a moral one no matter what,”
I’m sure you admit that this isn’t quite correct. The question of whether it SHOULD be legal is a moral one, no matter what. The question of when it is legal is merely, and unsurprisingly, a legal question. And of course, both of these are different questions from that concerning whether aborting a fetus is moral or not.
Just to raise a further point about science and values, there’s been a lot written recently claiming that science itself is not value-free (concerning say, where to allocate funds for research, etc). So, any values one might “derive” from science will likely depend on any values already contained therein.
And one final note, if science is value-free, it would be impossible to derive any values from science without running afoul of Hume’s famous Is/Ought gap (assuming a distinction between facts and values can be maintained).