Controversy Over Abortions

Having been deeply involved in the ongoing abortion debate for some 20 years now, I am quite familiar with the pro-abortion arguments of Hardin. Believe me, nothing new, useful or redeeming is to be found in this article. In fact, these arguments are merely tired retreads of previously well-refuted arguments. Nevertheless, they should not go unchallenged.

Let me deal with just a few examples (among many) of Hardin’s own “biological and linguistic nonsense.”

Hardin cavalierly blurs the distinction between the individual and the race. The abortion question is concerned with the biological life history (and its onset) of the human individual--not that of the entire human individual--not that of the entire human race, taken as a whole.

All honest biologists know, quite unambiguously, that the life history of each individual member of the species begins with the union of the gametes and the formation of the zygote.

Hardin himself is guilty of attempting to obscure the issues involved here through a crass manipulation of concepts, terms and definitions.

Our common law tradition (going back even to ancient Rome) has always recognized the legal rights and status of the “conceived but unborn child” (e.g., rights of inheritance).

Early Jews (B.C.) and early Christians (as early as 200 A.D.) condemned abortion as a serious moral evil, if not outright murder.

Conservatives surely do have a keen appreciation of the future. But it is this very keen appreciation that makes them, also, most reluctant to lightly discard the time-tested values and accumulated wisdom of the past.

In conclusion, let me observe that an apparent, overweening need for self-justification, on the part of many pro-abortion advocates like Hardin, has led them so far astray in their use of specious and self-serving rationalizations that they have seriously jeopardized their intellectual integrity, if not their credibility.

JAMES H. FORD, M.D.

Downey