Abortion: Chestertonian Reflections on a Debate
In the last few decades, few aspects of the practice of medicine have been more debated than the topic of abortion. Often, the very terms used by one side of the debate differ from the terms used by the other side, to the point that clear communication is almost impossible. What is needed now is someone to clarify the terms of the debate—someone like Gilbert Keith Chesterton, whose brilliant, sometimes paradoxical observations were often based on careful attention to the very words people use in everyday speech. Presented here are a number of reflections, in the spirit of Chesterton, on some of the terms central to the abortion debate: 1. Abortion The very word “abortion” is a point not sufficiently heeded in the debate that centers on it. People speak of aborting a fetus, but a thing cannot be aborted, only a process. People abort missions, they abort computer operations, but they do not abort computers or cars. When one aborts a pregnancy, it is like aborting any operati...