So telling have pro-life arguments been that the pro-choice movement must now simulate them. The new pro-choice writers admit, even insist, that the slaughter is wrong; they merely require that it be permitted. Thus, though “stunned by the voice of the left,” writers like George McKenna, Naomi Wolf, and Noemie Emery remain “unmoved by the right’s plea for legal barriers.” Abortion should be reduced, they allow, but only through “voluntary and non- coercive means.” Haven’t we seen all this before? “Safe, legal, and rare” cried New Democrats in 1992. New Republicans now respond, “The same for us — but we mean it.”
Emery’s confusion is not just tactical, but logical and moral. She describes the unborn child as “life, but just barely . . . live, but not viable . . . hum an, but not fully dev eloped.” If viability means ability to survive outside the womb unaided, then neither is a toddler viable. If lull development means complete maturity of organs, then neither is a teenager fully developed. And calling a child barely alive is like calling a woman barely pregnant.
J, BUDZlSZEWSKI, AUSTlN, TX
