OPINION:
Abortion of a healthy embryo or fetus is destruction of life (“Abortion: GOP must get its head out of the sand as Democrats gain,” web, April 11).
Prenatal development is a continuum, and abortion — claimed to be legal by virtue of a fetus’s inviability outside the womb, the absence of a detectable heartbeat or an arbitrarily stipulated time from conception — is still termination of life. That is something we penalize in other contexts.
Third-trimester abortion is, of course, akin to infanticide. These are facts. Yet Democrats and Republicans differ with respect to the legality of abortion even when accepting the facts. Democrats are liberal universalists who affirm the sacrosanctity of life save when aborting a perfectly healthy life in the womb, convenience ruling. This contradiction is not just a logical one but a huge moral dilemma as well, one most vocal Democrats avoid.
Republicans find freewheeling abortion repugnant. Both sides are suffused with certainty, with the self-assurance of the possessed and the hubris of a religious know-it-all. We know from polling data that most of us, liberal and conservative alike, believe abortion must be legal.
Republicans should craft legislation that the majority of center-right voters will accept, including making abortion legal when pregnancy results from rape and incest and when severe fetal abnormalities are detected and maternal life is at stake.
PAUL BLOUSTEIN
Cincinnati
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