Title: Abortion: round 2 [letter]

POPLINE Document Number: 095840

Author(s):

Wilson JQ

Source citation:

COMMENTARY, 1994 May;97(5):11.

Abstract:

The author of this letter is responding to some of 32 letters written in response to an essay the author published about abortion. The author believes that abortion is such an emotionally-charged issues that it prevents many people from reading what is actually written on the subject. He sets some critics straight about his intent and challenges the apparent cost-benefit analysis used by others to justify abortion on demand. Critics who reject the author's view about when a morally significant human life begins would seemingly favor a strict legal ban on all abortion, which is a situation not found in any nation in the world. What the author is asking for is the development of a moral environment in which decisions about life and death are taken seriously. He believes that this is virtually impossible in the US. Finally, the author believes that arguments that life begins at conception will not reestablish abortion as a moral issue, and that matters might change if people were asked to see, and not merely to imagine, an 8-week human fetus.

Keywords:

Critique
Abortion
Ethics
Fertility Control, Postconception
Family Planning