Why "Reducing the Number of Abortions" not Necessarily Prolife

A recently established website is  www.moralaccountability.com. It is well worth a visit if you are interested in the intellectual underpinnings or orthodox or traditional Judeo-Christian ethics. 

Below is a brief commentary by Professor Francis Beckwith with a provocative title. It's only four paragraphs long; we excerpt the second paragraph under the link. 

Why “Reducing the Number of Abortions” not Necessarily Prolife | Moral Accountability

I and other pro-life activists have worked tirelessly over the years to reduce the number of abortions, but a numerical reduction is not our only goal. The prolife position is that all members of the human community, including the unborn, have inestimable and equal worth and dignity and thus are entitled to the fundamental protection of the laws. “Reducing the number of abortions” could occur in a regime of law in which this principle of justice is denied, and that is the regime that President Obama wants to preserve and extend. It is a regime in which the continued existence of the unborn is always at the absolute discretion of others who happen to possess the power to decide to kill them or let them live. Reducing the number of these discretionary acts of killing simply by trying to pacify and/or accommodate the needs of those who want to procure or encourage abortions only reinforces the idea that the unborn are subhuman creatures whose value depends exclusively on someone else’s wanting them or deciding that they are worthy of being permitted to live. So, in theory at least, there could be fewer abortions while the culture drifts further away from the prolife perspective and the law becomes increasingly unjust.

Comments

[Gerald Yeung]

Working for just laws and improving the conditions for choosing life are not mutually exclusive. They both promote the human dignity of mother and child. We should do both, not one or the other.

Until the just laws that we seek are enacted, the latter has the potential to save lives.

[tom faranda]

Gerald

I'm sure Beckwith agrees with you, and says so in the full article.