Don’t miss Kevin Williamson’s moving personal testimony on the occasion of House Republicans’ unwillingness to vote on an abortion measure because a tiny handful of its caucus members couldn’t take the political heat. One trimester before Roe was decided, Williamson was conceived as an unplanned pregnancy (“though, as a Hayekian type, I do not object to being the ‘result of human action, but not the execution of any human design’”) and given up for adoption.
I never went through any naturalization ceremony—if I wasn’t an American the minute before I was born, I don’t see how I became one the minute after. If I’m to live under a government that considers my life nothing more than an accounting entry, then there are any number of states that might claim my allegiance. The Swiss at least know how to keep a proper ledger.
Williamson diagnoses the cowardice of the Republican “leadership”:
This is especially shameful considering that the vast majority of voters support the provisions in the bill. This bill was not a problem for Republicans, but for a handful of House members. Majorities of men support these changes, as do majorities of women—for that matter, only 17 percent of the people who describe themselves as “pro-choice” support the current anything-goes abortion regime. On a question that really matters, the House of Representatives had a rare chance to take “Yes” for an answer. I can only conclude that that was not the answer you want.
Read the whole thing.
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