"Can We Talk About Abortion?"

The most recent issue of Commonweal includes a conversation among Peter Steinfels, Dennis O'Brien, and my colleague Cathy Kaveny about the morality and regulation of abortion. 

O'Brien insists, as others sometimes do, that strong opposition to abortion (such as that expressed by those called to serve and lead the Catholic Church) is rendered less convincing by the fact that most who strongly oppose abortion are, in O'Brien's view, reluctant to use the law to punish those who perform or procure abortions in the same way as those who intentionally kill persons who have been born.  I've never thought this was a powerful argument, and Steinfels does a good job of responding to it.

In Cathy's essay, she helpfully reminds her readers of something that, in my experience, is often forgotten in the abortion debate, namely, the radical character of the Roe decision, and the extent to which it is Roe, more than the witness of those Bishops with whom O'Brien apparently disagrees, that has made it so hard to "talk about" abortion.

There's more . . .  Check it out. 

 

 

regulate abortion in the same way that