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A Critique of the Pro-Choice Argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

William J. Voegeli Jr
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Extract

The debate over abortion in America is at a standstill. The pro-life and pro-choice groups, having settled firmly on incompatible premises, have nothing to say to one another. Their “debate” is only “a battle of bumper stickers between people with their minds already made up.” More importantly, they have nothing to say to all the people in the middle who feel uncomfortable with both positions. If the crux of the abortion issue is choosing between being pro-life and pro-choice, then the undecided citizen who sincerely wants his country to act rightly has the dismal opportunity of deciding whether to be anti-choice or anti-life.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 560 - 571
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1981

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References

1 “Abortion: An American Dilemma,” Newsweek, 5 June 1978, p. 47.

2 Garn, Jake, “Debating Abortion,” National Review, 11 11 1977, p. 1299Google Scholar.

3 Rockefeller, John D. III, “No Retreat on Abortion,” Newsweek, 21 06 1976, p. 11Google Scholar. See also, “Abortion and the Law –II,” New Republic, 22 June 1974, pp. 5–6.

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13 Ibid., pp. 493–94.

14 Ibid., p. 266.

15 Ibid., p. 492.

16 Ibid.

17 Wertheimer, Roger, “Understanding the Abortion Argument,” in The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion, eds. Cohen, Marshall, Nagel, Thomas, and Scanlon, Thomas (Princeton, 1974)Google Scholar.

18 Collected Works of Lincoln, II: 265.

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21 Ibid., p. 50.

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23 Wertheimer, , “Understanding the Abortion Argument,” pp. 50–51Google Scholar.