The Taking of a Human Life

In today’s On the Square , George Weigel takes issue with Ruth Marcus’ comment that abortion does not qualify as “the taking of a human life”:

Well, one wants to ask, what is it, then?

What, precisely, are those creatures whose spinal cords Kermit Gosnell cut with scissors? Why did all of Great Britain ask “Is it a baby girl or a baby boy?” when the Duchess of Cambridge became pregnant? Why did no one ask of the former Kate Middleton and future Queen of England, “Is it a male fetus or a female fetus?” Why does a widely-used embryology textbook state what every first-year biology student can see, absent ideological blinders: that the product of human conception is a human being with a unique genetic identity, capable of self-directed development so long as neither nature (in the form of miscarriage) nor technology (in the form of abortion, chemical or surgical) intrudes?

Read the rest here .