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Christianity Today, February, 2008 |

Dismantling Roe

In Defending Life, philosopher Francis Beckwith argues with the sword tied behind his back.

Review by Douglas LeBlanc | posted 2/18/2008 08:56AM

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Thirty-five years and 50 million abortions later, Roe v. Wade stands as a nearly sacred text for the sexual revolution. Just as Christianity has its apologists, so does Roe. Philosophers and ethicists such as David Boonin, Eileen McDonagh, and Judith Thomson either defend associate justice Harry Blackmun's reasoning in Roe or build further justifications for what Roe established. Francis Beckwith, associate professor of philosophy and church-state studies at Baylor University, spends much of Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge) taking on these abortion-rights apologists.

This is important work. If the Supreme Court ever seriously curtails the laissez-faire abortion environment established by Roe, abortion-rights arguments will shape the movement that surely will persist. Beckwith, who last year reconverted to Catholicism, builds his argument without appealing to Christian revelation. Thus, he challenges the notion that restricting abortion would be tantamount to imposing Christian dogma on American law.

Defending Life is not the sort of book that a crisis pregnancy center can hand out to its younger clients in hopes of saving a life. It is a heavily technical debate with other specialists. Beckwith does, however, lighten the load with an occasional pop-culture reference. In the context of a discussion about the scope of the human community, here is one of his wittiest turns: "After all, if Christopher Reeve was identical to his embryonic self, then we were no more justified in killing an embryo to acquire its stem cells so that Mr. Reeve might walk again than we would be in stealing Mr. Reeve's eyes so that Stevie Wonder might see again."

Beckwith performs a most effective demolition job on the pro-choice movement's more hackneyed arguments. For instance, part of his answer to the annoying "Don't like abortion? Then don't have one" bumper-sticker position is "Don't like murder? Don't commit one." Beckwith argues forcefully that pro-choice advocates who offer such suggestions are practicing a subtle and patronizing intolerance that expects pro-lifers to act as if their "fundamental view of human life is false."

Beckwith's work is worthwhile reading for pro-life thinkers who wish to track Roe's deadly march through the American intelligentsia. It's more worthwhile still for pro-life thinkers who know that, while Roe may have won many battles since 1973, the war is far from over. Defending Life will equip pro-life activists to make a logically sound defense of human dignity.

The battle for American hearts, though, may require even tougher work. The challenge for the most talented pro-life activists will be to take the arguments in these pages and translate them into concepts readily grasped by gum-smacking teenagers who suddenly wonder whether a baby is in their immediate future—especially those teens raised in the shadow of the modern altar to Roe.

Douglas LeBlanc, CT contributing editor.

Related Elsewhere:

Beckwith keeps up with pro-life news on his blog.

Defending Life is available from Amazon.com and other retailers.

Christianity Today's coverage of life ethics issues and Beckwith's conversion are available in our full-coverage sections.

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February 2008, Vol. 52, No. 2

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Joe Grickis

Posted: February 18, 2008 12:47 PM

Unless the Church starts confronting sin and exposes the tragedy of abortion it will never be abolished. I was heavily involved in Operation Recue in California when it first started. OR did confront the tragedies of abortion but most churches did not. I remember convasing by phone the churches in the Orange/LA county areas for support against abortion. The majority would not support any action against abortion! About half of the country is Democrat, many Christians included, who have pro abortion as part of their platform. How could any REAL Christian support the slaughtering of inocent babies? Most would not let their dog be treated and tortured like a pre born baby is with an abortion. WAKE UP CHURCH "Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter......"

Gene Maddox

Posted: February 18, 2008 8:16 PM

Regarding the thoughts of Sam D. I do not at all accept your premise that removing anti-abortions laws will not significantly reduce the number of abortions. However, even if you were correct, is not an important function of the law in a just society to declare that which the society values just or unjust? Even if a law is sometimes or often broken, that law still stands as a declaration and beacon of that which a society declares and believes to be right or wrong. Thus, those such as children and youth who look to societal laws both to protect and educate them are both protected and educated well. May I also suggest that a very strategic and major part of the "real battle ground," is to be found in any society whose laws value convenience as being more sacred than any and all human life.

John	Posted: February 19, 2008 7:51 PM

"Beckwith argues forcefully that pro-choice advocates who offer such suggestions are practicing a subtle and patronizing intolerance that expects pro-lifers to act as if their 'fundamental view of human life is false.'" What Beckwith and other pro-lifers need to come to terms with is the fact that many, if not most, Americans simply don't share their "fundamental view of human life." He may not like crass pro-choice bumper stickers (and I don't either), but many like me are tired of being told that a fetus is a full-blown human being. I simply don't agree, and I won't agree to any law that attempts to impose that viewpoint on me. Hence the critical question of CHOICE. Which brings me to my second point... Beckwith is guilty of patronizing pro-choice citizens by his own parody bumper sticker slogan: "Don't like murder? Don't have one." I don't see a big (or even minute) debate over whether a person with a birth certificate is a human being, so such a question is absurd.