Is the Abortion Debate Over?

Micah Watson, over at Public Discourse (where some of the clearest and best writing on social issues on the net can be found) claims that the abortion debate is indeed over. Questions that were fuzzy 40 years ago when abortion was legalized are now clear and progress in science has steadily supported the pro-life position. Here is part of his argument.
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"Consider the basic pro-life argument as it has developed over the last thirty years. Though there are many versions and several sophisticated philosophers who have made the case in more formal terms, the argument rests on three simple fundamental beliefs. The first is normative, the second medical or scientific, and the third is political.

The normative premise is that human life is a fundamental good and all human beings have a right to life. Some philosophers hold that this is a right not to be intentionally killed, though the killing of a human being may be accepted if it is the foreseen but unintended consequence of another justified action. Other philosophers do not completely rule out intending to kill a human being, but would take culpability and desert into account. Regardless, pro-lifers generally agree that unborn human beings have a right to life that cannot be violated.

The scientific belief that ties into the normative premise is the simple medical fact that embryos and fetuses are human beings. There is no longer, strictly speaking, any debate about “when life begins.” That question has been answered not by religious authority but by the disciplines of human biology and embryology. A human life begins at the moment of conception when a distinct and complete, though immature, human being forms from the joining of her parents’ gametes.

What follows from the conjoining of the scientific and normative beliefs is disarmingly simple: all human beings have a right to life; unborn human beings are human beings; thus unborn human beings have a right to life. When you add the basic political belief that the purpose of governments and laws is to protect fundamental human rights, you arrive at the basic pro-life position.
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Read it all here.

I sense discouragement among pro-lifers during these days. Yes, the Republican Party has let us down. That was to be expected. Yes, the Democratic Party is trying desperately to pretend that the war is over and they have won, just like the ayatollah's in Iran. But the truth is hard to keep down forever. Those Americans who will not surrender to nihilism and violent self-will need to persevere in the culture wars. They must keep on praying, believing and working. The rest of the Western world has run up the white flag on sanctity of life issues. But America remains in play; the last act has not yet been written in our civilization. Pray that God will hold back judgment because of a righteous remmnant. And pray for revival. We have won the argument; what a pity it would be to lose the war.