To be and not to be

May 04, 2008 12:26 am

— Senator Hillary Clinton is confused. Recently on CNN’s Compassion Forum, she was asked about her views on the morality of abortion. She said that the fetus was “potential life” and that abortions should be “legal, safe and rare.”
She’s clearly trying to have it both ways, and trying to have it both ways is clearly incoherent.
Look, either the fetus is a human baby, granted a very small one or it is just a lump of inconsequential “tissue.”
If the fetus is a human baby, then it is a grave moral wrong to kill it. If it is a grave moral wrong to kill innocent human life, then abortion should not be legal. Why, then, is Clinton saying that abortion should be “safe” and “legal?”
If, on the other hand, the fetus is just “tissue,” then there is no moral wrong done in “removing” it. Why, then, does she tell us that it should be “rare?”
Clinton is clearly trying to have it both ways on this issue, and in trying to have it both ways she’s incoherent. Undoubtedly, she’s banking on the fact that voters are not smart enough to notice how confused and incoherent her position is.
Sorry Clinton. We’re on to you.
Mark R. Discher
Stillwater