Summa contra Kilpo

In writing The True Confession of One One-Issue Voter, I was not trying to prove the case against abortion. Had that been my aim, I’d have devoted most of the article to a discussion of what a fetus is. It would have been an article about biology and psychology and metaphysics, about heartbeats and brainwaves and fingerprints and pain. I would have painted a picture of the unborn child and placed it alongside the reader’s picture of a “human being” to show him how closely the two pictures matched.

But others have drawn these pictures better than I can. Besides, how could I hope to persuade with a word-picture someone to whom even a real picture of a fetus is nothing but a symbol or a slogan, a badge of zealotry to be ignored or ridiculed?

GR

About the Author

Grover Rees III

In writing The True Confession of One One-Issue Voter, I was not trying to prove the case against abortion. Had that been my aim, I’d have devoted most of the article to a discussion of what a fetus is. It would have been an article about biology and psychology and metaphysics, about heartbeats and brainwaves and fingerprints and pain. I would have painted a picture of the unborn child and placed it alongside the reader’s picture of a “human being” to show him how closely the two pictures matched.

But others have drawn these pictures better than I can. Besides, how could I hope to persuade with a word-picture someone to whom even a real picture of a fetus is nothing but a symbol or a slogan, a badge of zealotry to be ignored or ridiculed?