What’s Wrong with the World

Excellent post, Maximos.

The only thing I would add is that the first approach is utterly anti-Catholic/Christian in nature. It is the very language of the Enlightenment, in other words, of modern moral philosophy.

I cannot speak for Fleming, but I would say that there is a danger that proceeds from confusing the approaches in order to defend the immorality of abortion. People are tempted to draw the conclusion that all of us share an equal responsibility to prevent all abortions regardless of the personal circumstances in which we find ourselves. Fleming actually uses this example in The Morality of Everyday Life. If the evil of abortion can be deduced from rational application of universal and objective laws, then I have just as much of a responsibility to stop a woman from aborting her baby as she does. The status of her personal circumstance, in this case her motherhood, has absolutely no bearing on the demarcation of moral responsibility. Taken to its logical conclusions, this type of ethical thinking is poisonous to normal human beings. Notice, though, that none of this entail that abortion not be considered an intrinsically grave evil.

I do not really disagree with the analysis of the question in The Morality of Everyday Life. I am not under an equal obligation to prevent any and all abortions. Public authority, however, is under the obligation to proscribe the practice, since the proscription of abortion quite plainly falls under the common good.

If the evil of abortion can be deduced from rational application of universal and objective laws, then I have just as much of a responsibility to stop a woman from aborting her baby as she does.

First, good main post, Maximos.

Second, I regard the quotation above from Edward to be confusing and potentially misleading. I don't really understand why abortion should be used as an example at all. Why shouldn't we start talking about people's shooting adults and five-year-olds? Hmm. "If the evil of shooting innocent adults through the heart with the direct intent of killing them can be deduced from rational application of universal and objective laws, then I have just as much of a responsibility to prevent Mr. Fleming from being shot as does his office-mate." No, hmm. That won't work. "If the evil of tearing the arms off of five-year-olds can be deduced from rational application of universal and objective laws, then I have just as much of a responsibility to prevent a five-year-old in Burma from having his arms and legs torn off as does the person standing next to him." No, that won't wash.

See, I think abortion has been picked as an example for a reason--namely, because of Fleming's notion (manifest in the post that first led Maximos to comment) that it is _just so hard_ to see that abortion is wrong. This leads into all this wussy stuff about how we should focus on converting the mother to Christianity so she won't abort her baby, about how it's all really about her _relationship_ with her child, and so forth, which just frankly obfuscates the point Maximos makes quite well in his comment about the responsibility of the public authority and the law. There is no _more_ reason to doubt the "universal" and "objective" evil of abortion than to harbor similar doubts about the universal and objective nature of murdering any other innocent human being; there is no more reason to treat the evil of abortion "relationally" and "communitarianly" than to do so regarding any other murder.

I notice, by the way, that in all the talk of the mother from the Fleming side there is no talk of the abortionist. Let's please remember that this isn't just a matter of the mother's not loving her baby or not acting very responsibly towards it. It's a matter of someone else's murdering her baby, and it is the someone else that pro-lifers want to have (at least) thrown in prison by the public authority just like any other murderer.

Lydia, besides sounding slightly aggressive, you are wrong. No one is doubting the evil of abortion. Your continued assertion of this demonstrates a commitment to look at this issue as if it was solely up to the law to determine what is morally licit and what is not. Abortion is an example because is an action that has moral implications, and Fleming entire point was that there is nothing Christian about liberal moral philosophy. And yes, if ethical rules can be deduced abstractly then you cannot justify one rational human being having different moral responsibilities than another. If this country outlawed abortion but still had droves of women desiring to kill their children then our problems would still persist. Even though the law should exist for the common good, including outlawing abortion, it should never usurp the moral obligations that mothers owe to their children. Finally, I would think that a conservative and Christian site would have more respect for Dr. Fleming, a man of good faith and strong intellect. When I read your comments, Lydia, I see a thinly veiled hatred that I think is entirely unnecessary.

I don't think Fleming had a point, other than "I really, really hate George Weigel".

No one is doubting the evil of abortion. Your continued assertion of this demonstrates a commitment to look at this issue as if it was solely up to the law to determine what is morally licit and what is not.

You know, honestly, Edward, I couldn't care less if I sound slightly or even a lot aggressive. I usually Fleming very little, and I am no respecter of persons. His article was poorly reasoned and confusing, and that on an incredibly important topic, and I will have no truck with him on this topic. If you don't like that, because I'm supposed to sound more "respectful" of a paleoconservative icon, too jolly bad.

Now: I didn't say (though I can't help wondering) Fleming was doubting the evil of abortion but that he is saying that it is _so hard to see_. Not to him, of course, because he thinks you can know it by Christian teaching. But to anyone who goes there via the natural light, he does indeed write like it's so very, very hard to see that it's wrong.

What's all this nonsense in your quotation about the law's determining what is wrong and right? The law should _reflect_ the moral law, and particularly when it comes to protecting infants from being torn limb from limb.

What's with all of this hostility towards passing _laws_ against abortion? I see it in Fleming, too. Converting women so they make a choice not to have their children murdered is supposedly the truly conservative thing to do, but trying to get the law justly to protect the children from the abortionist is "trivial" (according to him) and implies (according to you) that the law determines wrong and right. Rubbish. And pernicious rubbish, too.

Abortion is an example because is an action that has moral implications,

No, that isn't why it's an example.

If this country outlawed abortion but still had droves of women desiring to kill their children then our problems would still persist.

I'm sorry to have to say this, but this sounds an awful lot like standard pro-choice rhetoric: "What good would it do to outlaw abortions?" It downplays the importance _in itself_ of legal protection of the unborn. Our very important goal is, or should be, that every child should be _protected in law_ as well as welcomed in life--a statement no less true and important for having been uttered often by that noted neoconservative, Richard John Neuhaus.

**this sounds an awful lot like standard pro-choice rhetoric: "What good would it do to outlaw abortions?" It downplays the importance _in itself_ of legal protection of the unborn.**

Actually it doesn't, as "What good would it do?" doesn't follow from Edward's statement. The point is that the underlying problem is with the morality of the thing, not the legality. Changing the laws is a good thing, but that won't solve the root problem, which is moral, i.e., women wanting abortions and believing it's a valid moral choice to have them. As the old and often misapplied saying goes, you can't legislate morality. Hence, changing the laws, while a positive step, can only take us so far.

Same is true of anything, Rob. Rape, for example. But no one ever even bothers to bring the point up about rape. "Even though rape is outlawed, we still have so many problems, because people still _want to rape people." I wonder why?

Again, I think it's very significant that the _abortionist_ tends to disappear in some of these discourses. People talk about the disappearing child, and that can be true, but the disappearing abortionist--the actual perpetrator, so to speak--is also an interesting phenomenon. I think myself that this is because people have more sympathy for the mother and that the downplaying talk about natural law people and seeking to make abortion illegal (which I do see in both Fleming and Edward but am not attributing to you, Rob) sounds better when we're talking about "convincing women not to abort their babies." It doesn't sound so good when we're talking about "convincing abortionists not to abort babies." That's because the abortionist, like many murderers, bears a relation to the child *only insofar as he is seeking to murder it*, and so all the talk of a relational approach to these things, of not legislating morality, and the like, sounds hollow when applied to the abortionist.

Lydia:

Same is true of anything, Rob.

I'd like to see more paleos explicitly and unequivocally disavow this unhinged nonsense from Fleming, as Maximos had the integrity to do. Because if more don't do that, that doesn't bode well for paleoconservatism at all, and I'd hate to see an important voice die by suicide.

"Same is true of anything, Rob. Rape, for example. But no one ever even bothers to bring the point up about rape"

Culturally speaking, we still believe that rape is wrong; no sane person believes that there is a "right," either moral or civil, to rape. Such is, unfortunately, not the case with abortion. That is the difference between it and rape and red lights. Of course there are always scofflaws, but the acceptance of abortion in our culture goes beyond that. It's not as simple as "you always have people that are going to do it." If you made abortion illegal tomorrow, you would have a large percentage of the population that believes that it is still a moral right despite its illegality, and that its prohibition as a civil right is both a travesty of justice and a temporary anomaly. It would be like the reaction against Prop 8 writ large. Worse, actually, as it involves a 35 year old "right" as opposed to a new one.

And that delegitimizes the both/and pro-life approach exactly how? It isn't as if pro-lifers are saying "change the law, but make sure the culture doesn't change". This is the straw man of the leftists dressed up for the paleo ball. Which, again, does not bode well for paleoconservatism.

...no sane person believes that there is a "right," either moral or civil, to rape. Such is, unfortunately, not the case with abortion.

I wouldn't say it that way. The way I would say it is "in our culture, a lot of people are morally insane". No sane person believes that there is a moral or should be a legal right to abortion.

But so what? I mean, really, so what? What you say there, Rob, really doesn't support anything that Fleming said in the original article--the use of "trivial" for legal restrictions, for example, or the strong implication that we should try to convert women to Christianity _instead of_ working politically towards outlawing abortion. It doesn't support Edward's strange accusation above that I seem to be inclined "to look at this issue as if it was solely up to the law to determine what is morally licit and what is not." Why even think a thing like that about anybody--Weigel, me, or anybody--who has said the things we have said?

And let's remember too that the law teaches. Roe v. Wade teaches. There are feedback loops here. How many people are influenced in their opinion of abortion _because_ they have been told that "it is a constitutional right" and _because_ it is legal? A whole lot.

"And that delegitimizes the both/and pro-life approach exactly how?"

That's precisely the issue, I think. The pro-life movement hasn't really been "both/and" -- its efforts have been primarily legal and political (and, I might add, tied to the fortunes of the GOP) as opposed to cultural.

**It isn't as if pro-lifers are saying "change the law, but make sure the culture doesn't change".**

Of course not, but what many seem to be saying is something along the lines of "Change the law, and the anti-abortion stance will thus filter out into the culture."

"And let's remember too that the law teaches. Roe v. Wade teaches. There are feedback loops here."

True, but they tend to teach in the direction of liberalization, not the other way around. How many people, after all, made a moral decision to become teetotalers because of Prohibition?

Rob, how many people think or have come to think that discriminating on the basis of race is immoral because it is illegal? Lots. Whether it would work that way on abortion is something we can find out only if we try.

Meanwhile, the implication that pro-lifers have not been both-and on the culture is about as false as false gets. Christian schools, home schooling, think tanks, journals, the blogosphere, Christian institutions of higher education, crisis pregnancy centers, feel-good pro-life ads ("Life, what a beautiful choice"), crisis pregnancy hot-lines, the list goes on and on and on of venues in which Christians have worked at teaching, helping women, and cultural change.

Frankly, I get really rather tired of the whole "we have to change hearts and minds first" talk. I cannot help pointing out that Roe _locks out_ the use of the political process. We can't even _find out_ in practice what the people would support, what restrictions on abortion would be passed by the democratic process, as long as this is a purely hypothetical. Polls only show so much, and as far as they go, they seem to imply not that the culture is "pro-life" (as sometimes people exaggeratedly say) but at least that the culture is, astonishingly after all these years, still _less pro-abortion_ than the Roe regime.

A few years ago there was a very good column by (yes) Ann Coulter. She was speaking sharply, and rightly so, about some talk from GWB to a pro-life rally about changing hearts and minds. She said something like, "We've had such-and-such many years of changing hearts and minds. I think we're ready for the big leagues now. How about giving the people a chance to have a say on whether to restrict abortion? How about giving that a try?" Words to that effect. It was very good. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns: The longer Roe remains in place, the more liberal the culture _does_ get.

Lydia, I'm aware of all the cultural efforts of the pro-life movement to change hearts and minds, and I applaud them. Still, there is a sense among many pro-lifers that I've talked to that too much stock has been placed in political efforts, in attempting top-down changes. I'd love to see Roe v. Wade overturned and the issue turned back to the states; but I don't think that's necessarily the cure-all some of us pro-lifers think it is, given the state of the culture.

Well, I just think "pro-lifers think overturning Roe is a cure-all" is a mischaracterization of pro-lifers generally. I don't know anybody who thinks that.

What _is_ true is that there is going to continue to be a burning injustice in this country until and unless Roe is overturned or defied by the states or the U.S. government and the unborn protected in law. And I would add that I suspect the continuation of Roe's power will continue to have a _negative_ cultural effect until and unless that happens. That is to say, overturning Roe and starting to put some meaningful legal protection for the unborn in place are _necessary_ conditions for any sort of general cultural justice and right-mindedness on this subject even though not sufficient conditions.

Given that this is the case, it makes sense to be mentally anguished over the continuation of Roe and to consider that seeing its overturn in one's lifetime would be a huge deal. I certainly do. It would be both a sign of cultural change and hopefully a cause of further cultural change. It would remove a blatant and obscene lie about the meaning of our country's Constitution from the center of our political life. And it would permit us to get on with the business of turning "hearts and minds change" into practical application with legislative action to protect the unborn.

I think there confusion going around to the effect that pro-lifers wouldn't think overturning Roe and legally protecting the unborn such a big deal if they didn't think it a cure-all. I don't see any reason to believe this.

Lydia:

Well, I just think "pro-lifers think overturning Roe is a cure-all" is a mischaracterization of pro-lifers generally. I don't know anybody who thinks that.

How many people, after all, made a moral decision to become teetotalers because of Prohibition?

**I just think "pro-lifers think overturning Roe is a cure-all" is a mischaracterization of pro-lifers generally. I don't know anybody who thinks that.**

True -- perhaps 'cure-all' is not the right term for what I have in mind then. What I'm thinking of is the notion that a reversal of Roe v. Wade should be our primary goal, as it will somehow automatically or magically clear the way for the remainder of the work to fall into place. This isn't to say that prolifers think that reversing it would solve all the problems, but that the solutions to the rest of the issues are all "downstream" from that reversal. I know quite a few prolifers who hold to this notion, or something very similar to it.

I think that protection in law for the unborn should be one of our primary goals and that any significant new protection in law for the unborn is downstream from either overturning Roe or (probably even harder) finding a way to defy it in the legal realm and convincing the relevant people to do so.

I think, too, that it is possible (hard as this is to believe) for the legal situation for the unborn to get _worse_ than it presently is--for example, the overturning of parental consent laws, the requirement that all doctors and/or hospitals perform or refer for abortions, etc.--and that talking down the legislative angle encourages us to put people in place who will crumble when these push-backs come from the other side.

**I can understand "morality is just preferences" liberals not understanding that; but those of us who are supposedly steeped in an understanding of the natural law, whatever quibbles there might be between us, ought to understand that.**

I understand it perfectly; my point is that passing laws against abortion will no more make pro-lifers out of liberals than Prohibition made teetotalers out of drunkards. Laws can make people behave, but they do not make people good. That's what "you can't legislate morality" means.

...my point is that passing laws against abortion will no more make pro-lifers out of liberals than Prohibition made teetotalers out of drunkards.

And "you can't legislate morality" is just plain false. The reform of the legal regime and of the culture proceed together in a necessarily connected way. They cannot be separated. I thought paleos understood this; but with some exceptions like Maximos, I guess I was wrong.

Winning legally and culturally happen together. I don't know of a single pro-lifer who thinks otherwise; not one. So attacking the advocacy of legal changes alone is attacking a straw man. I don't know of any pro-lifer, at all, who advocates sola Roe or some such straw man. As far as I can tell, the straw man is put forward in this case just to give Fleming an excuse to tell us yet again how much he despises neocons. I get it that he despises neocons. I'm not all that fond of them myself. That doesn't excuse his article.

I'm surprised, Zippy -- you are generally more perceptive than this. Didn't I just correct my initial accusation of 'sola Roe'?

"And again, there are not-trivial differences between drinking a beer and murdering a child. They are incommensurate, in every way"

Of course they are, but that's not the point. The issue is that in our culture there are large numbers of people who believe that the "right" to an abortion is of the same sort as the "right" to a beer, and that making abortion illegal will not convince them otherwise.

**And "you can't legislate morality" is just plain false.**

No, it's not. Laws only command outward obedience; they do not make people moral.

Laws can make people behave,

Well for cryin' out loud in a hay field! Could we try that, then, please??? I mean, honestly, I care _far less_ about whether people sit around dreaming of a career as abortionists than about whether they _become_ abortionists. Again (again, again), let's stop letting the abortionist disappear from the scenario. If it's illegal for a doctor to be an abortionist, fewer doctors are going to be abortionists, making abortion harder to come by. Instead of which, our Democrat-controlled legislatures are trying to push us so far in the other direction that there are no doctors who _aren't_ abortionists or at least aren't complicit in abortion. Making people behave is a big, big deal. Again, no one really even bothers to talk this way about rape or theft: "You can't make people the kind of people who don't think about rape just by having laws against rape." I mean, big, fat, hairy deal. Seriously. What's important is that people are prevented from or punished for _actually raping people_.

I give up. I think we're talking past each other here, and it grows wearisome.

I want again to echo what Zippy says about credit to Maximos for putting up these posts. Paleoconservatism needs that kind of internal critique on this issue, especially.

"Paleoconservatism needs that kind of internal critique on this issue, especially."

Conservatism in general, no matter which stripe, certainly ought not eschew self-evaluation. When it does it will become either ideological or moribund (or both).

For Fleming, this appears to be the bottom line:

Catholics who call themselves Neoconservatives are truly “the kind of person” who reduce truth to questions of “political correctness and partisan political advantage.” They have nothing to offer anyone except conservatives and Christians who wish to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage.

Fleming's paleoconservatism appears to be nothing but a reaction against the dreaded neocons. Whenever Weigel says black, Fleming says white. If paleoconservatism has no content of its own, and is merely "whatever the neocons are not", then what really is the point? I can get all of the content of paleoconservatism just by observing the neocons and taking the negation of it. Paleoconservatism itself is intrinsically meaningless: I can get all the benefit without any of the mistakes just by figuring out all the places neoconservatism goes wrong, which are indeed legion.

I haven't seen so much as mild criticism of Fleming's contemptible piece in articles by prominent paleos, other than Maximos. Maybe it is there, and I just haven't seen it. There is a lot out there that I don't read. But if it isn't, then something is most definitely rotten in the state of Denmark.

Well, here's a question to which I quite honestly don't know the answer. (I could guess, but Sherlock Holmes tells us that guessing is a shocking habit and destructive of the logical faculties.) Is abortion an issue in paleoconservative articles? I suppose we cd. try to get some definition of "prominent" paleocons, but anyway, my point is, do the paleo bell-wethers lead on this issue at all in the pro-life direction, or are they mostly focused on other issues? If the latter, then it ends up being, at the _most_, "Yeah, I didn't think that was one of Tom Fleming's best pieces, but he and I are allies on 'our issues'."

I would asseverate, in response to Lydia's query, that for most paleoconservatives abortion is not the "thing in itself", but a particularly grotesque symptom of American cultural declension.

I have to admit that I don't quite know what that means, Maximos. Surely we can have lots of issues that are things in themselves. There doesn't need to be just one, though we'll all have our priorities. But abortion should be _a_ thing in itself--that is to say, an issue that is super-important in itself.

I guess my conjecture, and my question, was that perhaps what Zippy notes--other paleocons' not calling Fleming on his original piece--is a result of a relative absence of talk about abortion _generally_ in paleocon circles, articles, etc. In one sense I suppose we could see lots of things, in fact, almost any concrete bad policy, as a symptom of something else--including, for example, open-borders immigration.

...for most paleoconservatives abortion is not the "thing in itself", but a particularly grotesque symptom of American cultural declension.

I expect that there is a lot of correspondence between many paleoish cultural issues and pro-life commitments: perhaps moreso than many pro-lifers, who on average have rather conventional political views and wouldn't recognize the word 'paleoconservative' let alone could name a prominent paleoconservative if it came up in casual conversation, at first realize. That represents something of an opportunity, it seems to me, for paleoconservatism or something like it to become the 'home' of the pro-life movement. Certainly neoconservatism is at best hostile territory with shaky alliances.

But if Fleming wants to send pro-lifers running from paleoconservatism in disgust, much as Guiliani-neoconservatives send many pro-lifers running from neoconservatism in disgust, he is off to a good start. I appreciate Rob G as a commenter here very much, but I'm just baffled that he doesn't appear to see this: see why pro-lifers who read a column like Fleming's would find it disgusting and despicable.

"I appreciate Rob G as a commenter here very much, but I'm just baffled that he doesn't appear to see this: see why pro-lifers who read a column like Fleming's would find it disgusting and despicable."

I guess because I'm a pro-lifer and found it neither? At least one of us, Zippy, is misunderstanding Fleming's piece, obviously. Maybe it's me. But if so, I'm not getting an answer as to why.

BTW, did you read down the thread where Fleming responds to some of the comments? The responses are helpful, I think.

I'm no paleocon shill. Although I definitely lean in that direction, I'd consider myself more of a Kirk/Weaver type of guy. I do read and enjoy Chronicles, but if anything, I'm much more of a cheerleader for 'Modern Age' and ISI.

Okay, so I believe I have now read every comment by TJF in that thread. I saw nothing valuable. (Like he got from Leon Kass-nothing valuable.) Just stuff about how Aristotle invented logic and didn't think abortion was morally wrong, how "many highly intelligent rational people" (I believe those are his very words) in history have not seen that abortion is wrong. What argumentative purpose does this serve other than (as I've pointed out) to denigrate the natural law approach to the abortion issue and to imply that it's _just so hard_ to see that abortion is wrong? It's also a very facile way to talk: "Abortion can't be contrary to reason, because so many intelligent people have not thought it was wrong." What a thin, thin, shallow concept of reason and the natural light. And it's meant to support the claim that Weigel is _lying_ (what an incredible claim) when he says that abortion is not just some "Catholic hocus pocus." This is just Not Good. It's both false and also demoralizing to pro-lifers.

Right on, Lydia. In fact I think this:

... arguments I have studied come down to well-intentioned lying, by which I understand not only a conscious and deliberate lie but the reckless disregard for truth engaged in by pseudo-intellectuals who pretend to learning and authority they do not possess.

Despicable.

The pro-life movement has many qualities of typical leftist cause. In fact, it is often referred to as the "right to life" movement. This title alone suggests that the argument against abortion lies within the same moral reasoning that liberals use to justify almost everything they believe. The phrase "right to life" reeks of liberalism in so many ways. It creates an image of a mother, one individual, who is pitted against her child, another individual, with only the law as arbiter of what is morally licit. The mother's "rights" are in conflict with those of her child.

Also, the pro-life movement does indeed use the language of universalism when speaking of the prevention of abortion. We are told that we have an obligation to end girl-abortions in China, when doing so might very well intrude upon our daily obligations to those connected to us by blood and kinship. I will ask this question again: What, besides the aim, distinguishes the pro-life movement from a liberal cause?

Of course the law has an obligation to protect innocent lives, but this is beside the point. The true horror of abortion is not just that children are being murdered but that mothers are murdering their children. Couching the abortion debate solely in terms of "rights" and the utilization of abstract reasoning dilutes the very real fact that mothers have a particular duty to their children and not an abstract duty to Law.

And again, I've argued against using rights-talk (among other things) myself on this very blog. That doesn't make Fleming's article even slightly less despicable.

If this is what paleoconservatism means then paleoconservatism can, and will, go to Hell.

I see the Amazing Disappearing Abortionist is still entirely absent from Edward's discourse.

Ah, yes, right--we have a responsibility to _end girl abortions_ in China. Who says that, again, please? And what is this all about? I cannot believe any self-respecting paleocon would be referring by this to our having a responsibility to cut funding for the UN Population Fund. I mean, what paleocon could love giving millions of dollars to a big UN fund? No, it must be _trade_ policy. Please correct me if I'm wrong. We aren't supposed to use China's horrific treatment of its own people as a consideration in trade policy. This, I presume, is coming from the paleolibertarian side, since paleocons per se are usually not thrilled about free trade with China anyway. No, Edward, the idea is that maybe we have a responsibility to consider _various_ horrific treatments by governments of their own people in our trade policy. Forced abortions (not just of girls, so I gather you are uninformed, but of all children not licensed to be born) in China are just _one_ such consideration. And guess what? The argument over whether to take such moral considerations into account can be framed entirely without reference to "rights" and does not follow from the claim that abortion is universally and objectively wrong. One could believe that it is and still not think we should cut trade with China. One could believe that it isn't and still believe that we should cut trade with China. And nobody is under any illusions about ending abortions in China. The idea that we are all responsible to "end girl abortions in China" is a strawman.

And honestly, I think getting all het up about the phrase "right to life" as though it meant something bad in this particular context is worse than petty and silly. As Maximos points out in the main post, nothing in this issue turns on different forms of natural law approaches. They do not come to different conclusions about it.

Lydia, Zippy, and Rob G.,

For what it's worth, I thought I'd bring some empirical data to the question of whether or not the law can be a moral teacher. Someone who has written extensively on this topic is the legal scholar Mary Ann Glendon, whose book Abortion and Divorce in Western Law influenced my own thinking on this subject years ago (before I was even convinced that abortion was wrong!)

In her book, she looks carefully at Western European laws against abortion, which do exist in most of these countries. These laws essentially suggest that the unborn have rights and the State has a duty to protect those rights. She goes on to note that these same countries also have provisions in the law to protect the health of mothers, which can be broadly construed to allow women to get abortions. In other words, there is a certain amount of looking the other way when it comes to women who decide to get an abortion. But what is amazing and important, at least when it comes to the practical protection of the unborn, is that these laws seem to actually work to make abortion much less frequent in Western Europe than here in America. In other words, the law seems to reinforce the notion that there is something morally problematic with killing a child in the womb.

So while perhaps the Western European laws are less than ideal from a perfect pro-life position, the fact that they exist, in an increasingly secular and liberal Western Europe, has some actual impact on the number of abortions performed.