On aborting 'babies'...

Sometimes, folks' rhetoric gets ahead of their ideology, and they accidentally speak the truth. Case-in-point: the attacks on Bill Bennett's absurd hypothetical in his recent radio program, which he used to try (in vain, given the response) to explain why arguing morality from a so-called pragmatic viewpoint easily results in evil conclusions. Jonah Goldberg observed something interesting:

Notice how so many righteously offended liberals keep referring to fetuses as people. In the New York Times, Bob Herbert proclaims that Bennett considers "exterminating blacks would be a most effective crime-fighting tool." Schultz and McAuliffe say Bennett wants to exterminate "babies." Funny, I thought the bedrock faith of pro-abortion liberals is that fetuses aren't babies.


Oops. Yeah, they forgot that part.

Though, frankly, it probably doesn't matter to a lot of folks who hold a "pro-choice position". I actually had a coworker -- brilliant guy -- explain his pro-choice position by saying, "Well, sure, it's murder, but I'm not going to tell a woman what she should do."

When folks hold such a cavalier attitude toward what they freely grant is murder (while, usually, complaining at the same time about our president's use of the word "evil") I get really worried about the moral judgment coming from the average U.S. citizen.

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