I hope a reader can show me where I’ve gone astray in the sequence steps that constitute this argument against abortion. I honestly wish a pro-choicer would someday show me one argument that proved that fetus are not persons. It would save me and other pro-lifers enormous grief, time, effort, worry, prayers, and money. But until that time, I will keep arguing, because it’s what I do as a philosopher.
It is my weak and wimpy version of a mother’s shouting that something terrible is happening: Babies are being slaughtered. I will do this because, as Edmund Burke declared, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do thing. ” I doubt there are many readers of this magazine who are pro-choice. Why, then, do I write an argument against abortion for its readers? Why preach to the choir? Preaching to the choir is a legitimate enterprise.
Scripture calls it “edification,” or “building up. ” It is what priests, ministers, rabbis, and mullahs try to do once every week. We all need to clean and improve our apologetic weapons periodically; and this argument is the most effective one I know for actual use In dialogue with Intelligent pro-choicer. I will be as upfront as possible. I will try to prove the simple, common- musical reasonableness of the pro-life case by a sort of Socratic logic. My conclusion is that Roe v.
Wade must be overturned, and my fundamental reason for this Is not only because of what abortion is but because we all know what abortion Is. This Is obviously a controversial conclusion, and Initially unacceptable to all preschoolers. So, my starting point must be uncontroversial. It Is this: We know what an apple Is. I will try to persuade you that If we know what an apple Is, Roe v. Wade must be overthrown, and that If you want to defend Roe, you will probably want to deny that we know what an apple Is.