[shrinkermd]

This is a long, tortuously debate that merits serious reading if you are to understand how the pro-choicers think.

I only posted the first three paragraphs. In the artilce there is a section on the Pope allegedly acting only on "natural law" rather than Biblical precedent.

Finally, the article does not mention the ancients, long before Christ, condemned abortion. See the Hippocratic Oath (500 b.c.) prohibition to abortions. Physicians took this oath for thousands of years.

[SittinYonder]

It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons.

Yes it is.

[SampleMan]

It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons.

Go to 1000 couples that are about to have a baby. Ask them if killing their fetus is the same as killing their baby. 100% will say yes.

The definition of murder should not be left to the perpetrator.

[mort56]

Thou shall not kill seems rather straight forward to me.

[ari-freedom]

About 10% of evangelicals, according to polls, allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest. But the circumstances of conception should not change the nature of the thing conceived.
-
whatcha talkin about willis? 10% is only 10%.

[ASA Vet]

if you are to understand how the pro-choicers think

I'm not interested in "understanding" how pro infanticide liberals "think."

[SampleMan]

Evangelicals may argue that most people in Germany thought it was all right to kill Jews. But the parallel is not valid. Killing Jews was killing persons.

Leftists are such idiots that they don't even understand the crux of the arguments they are making. The fact is that black slavery and the holocaust were both justified on the same principal that this writer is making, that the victims are NOT FULLY HUMAN. What an idiot.

[muawiyah]

The pro-abortion crowd could be dealt with quite readily if the pro-life crowd made a "one time exception" and rose up and exterminated the pro-abortionists.

Then we (the survivors) could return to being normal people in a normal world with normal rules.

Obviously we are not going to do that. The fact that we do not threaten to do so merely emboldens them, and that's where you get articles like this piece in the LA Times.

[Earthdweller]

Hello...it’s a political issue because there are already laws governing abortion.

What grade is this author in?

[HuntsvilleTxVeteran]

I do not think the planned murder of the most helpless is a religious issue, it is a moral issue.

A person who has no morals should not be trusted at anything.

[Sherman Logan]

Killing Jews was killing persons. It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons.

I'm disappointed in Wills. This is shooting fish in a barrel.

OK, so I redefine the legal term "person" to exclude Jews. Now I can kill all the Jews I want without killing a person.

Neat, huh?

[Rudder]

It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons. Not even evangelicals act as if it were. If so, a woman seeking an abortion would be the most culpable person.

Women kill their babies just so they can fornicate without the 18-yr-long consequences.

[paltz]

But is abortion murder? Most people think not

But is abortion murder? Most people think not. Evangelicals may argue that most people in Germany thought it was all right to kill Jews. But the parallel is not valid. Killing Jews was killing persons. It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons.

The writer makes statements like these without any supporting evidence whatsoever. He doesn't even point out the fact that a pregnant woman will decide her child is a human by giving it a name, decide which schools the baby can go to, the room the baby will have up until the point she decides to have an abortion...then all bets are off and the baby is no longer human according to the psychology of the woman...even though the biology of the baby hasn't chnged. Liberal bull!!!

[P8riot]

It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons. Not even evangelicals act as if it were. If so, a woman seeking an abortion would be the most culpable person. She is killing her own child. But the evangelical community does not call for her execution.

Of course we don't call for her execution, we would rather see her restored and whole. We preach forgiveness from sin, not vengeance.

[TommyDale]

This is Rudy Giuliani propaganda.

[Hornitos]

"It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons," says the superstitious Garry Wills.

His ancestors probably used the same humanist defense when enslaving Africans, who were looked upon as less-than-human: "It is not demonstrable that chaining Negroes is chaining persons."

[Friendofgeorge]

Preaching mostly to the choir I assume, but here is my 2 cents anyway......

Anybody that votes or suggest they will vote for Rudy G, is simply not pro life!!! Case closed the fat lady has sung

[N3WBI3]

“About 10% of evangelicals, according to polls, allow for abortion in the case of rape or incest. But the circumstances of conception should not change the nature of the thing conceived.”

How true this is, the position that ‘in case of rape or incest’ ignores the humanity of the unborn..

[WashingtonSource]

Gary Wills bent so far backwards in his “reasoning”, he stuck his head up his butt. This is beyond twisted logic. It’s deliberate self-delusion.

[mware]

Without the right to life, there are no other rights.

[steadfastconservative]

Gary Wills is conveniently ignoring several historical facts here and he also is failing to look at this issue from any kind of reasonable historical perspective. First the early Church condemned abortion in a first century document, the Didache. Although it did not consider abortion to be murder until much later in history--because of the lack of knowledge about human reproduction and embryology--the Church has always condemned it. Also, he purposely has misinterpreted the pope's comment on natural law. Natural law is not something demonstrated by science: it is a knowledge of right and wrong that can be recognized by most people. It is not up to science to "prove" that abortion is murder. Moreover, since John Paul II explicitly condemned abortion as murder in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, this subject is no longer open for discussion by Catholics, including Wills. And this brings me to the point about Wills' lack of historical perspective. Since Aquinas did not know how conception occurred and since no one knew that the fetus really existed until the mother could feel its movements, which was in the fourth month of pregnancy and which was called "quickening," he concluded that ensoulment occurred at quickening and that that was when the fetus became a person. But Aquinas always considered abortion to be a sin because he saw it as a kind of birth control. Finally, let's get to the issue of personhood. Those who argue that the fetus are not persons are arbitrarily separating the idea of personhood from the biological existence of a human life. There is no good, logical, or compelling reason for them to do this, however. By doing this, they turn personhood into a subjective concept, so that it no longer means that there as a human life whose existence can be empirically demonstrated but that a person is someone who possesses certain qualities, such as autonomy, intelligence, the ability to think, feeling, etc. This is a convenient way of denying that entire categories of human beings, such as the unborn, those who are disabled, those in comas, are not persons. It is scandalous for Wills to continue to portray himself as a faithful Catholic when he is nothing of the sort.