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A tired justification for abortion

In her latest letter (“Pro-birth, no pro-life,” March 2, 2017, The Aspen Times), Jane St. Croix Ireland culminates her serial excuse-making. She began her series by accusing pro-lifers of not “comprehending.” We do not understand, she said, why abortion is OK. And that women need it to be “happy.” But her writing never employs pertinent facts, reason and morality to make a credible, comprehensive case. Instead she has done what people do when they have no case.

She meets my straightforward challenges with the usual distractions. She has imagined her own realities. She has inflicted therapese about “fulfillment” and “happiness,” along with some very tired politics. Finally she goes ad hominem, i.e., attacks the messenger (me). These devices having failed, her latest letter simply slams pro-lifers for daring to have an opinion.

In effect, she suggests that we just shut up.



Throughout, I have kept to the pertinent facts: that in abortion, one human being destroys another. That the stronger one kills the weaker, who is helpless to resist. No one’s personal “perspective” ever changed these facts. They are immovable. They clearly point to the reasonable verdict, based entirely in our civil morality, that abortion is evil.

Ms. Ireland’s empty responses have been historically predictable. Every defender of tyranny, torture, slave-holding, war-making, and sundry oppression has done a similar dance. They have “broadened the conversation,” as she says. They have clouded the basic injustice with differing “perspectives.” Every victimizer has had some half-baked “opinion” why it’s OK to beat someone else’s brains out.




However Ms. Ireland has behaved, still I have no personal beef. The pro-life case is so forthright, and so simple, it has been easy for me to state — without maligning her motives, or questioning her good will, minimalizing the problems, or marginalizing anyone.

But as I say, I am sick of hearing atrocity excused, and so lamely, by people who should know better. Ms. Ireland berates me for ignoring women’s happiness. She reminds us how experienced she is in producing such happiness. Surely such an expert can make her case without resort to fantasy, fallacy and finger-pointing. But no. Ms. Ireland insists on “broadening” a conversation she has already steered into every available rabbit hole.

As a pro-lifer, of course I have a simple mind. And yet my simple question goes unanswered. All I ever wanted was to comprehend — via fact, reason, and plain morality — how anyone becomes “happy” by bludgeoning the helpless.

Chris King

Aspen