Dan quotes Jill Filipovic, who has written:

There are millions of men whose lives would have been much worse without abortion. Men who wouldn’t have found their big loves, wouldn’t have their kids, wouldn’t have been as successful, wouldn’t have taken big risks.

I agree with Dan (and, by proxy, with Ross Douthat) that this is far too simplistic, and may not even be true. But the thing is: Even if it were true, so what? There are many things I want out of my life. Some of them I’ll achieve. Some of them I won’t. But at no point can it be acceptable for me to kill my children in pursuit of them. The pro-life claim is that unborn children are human beings and that we don’t kill human beings. “But I wouldn’t have been as successful if I hadn’t killed my kids” is not an adequate rejoinder to that. “But I wouldn’t have taken big risks if I hadn’t killed my kids” is not an adequate rejoinder to that. “But I wouldn’t have my kids if I hadn’t killed my kids” is . . . well, I’d kindly suggest Filipovic workshop that one a little more.