Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
The debate over abortion in America is at a standstill. The pro-life and pro-choice groups, having settled firmly on incompatible premises, have nothing to say to one another. Their “debate” is only “a battle of bumper stickers between people with their minds already made up.” More importantly, they have nothing to say to all the people in the middle who feel uncomfortable with both positions. If the crux of the abortion issue is choosing between being pro-life and pro-choice, then the undecided citizen who sincerely wants his country to act rightly has the dismal opportunity of deciding whether to be anti-choice or anti-life.
1 “Abortion: An American Dilemma,” Newsweek, 5 June 1978, p. 47.
2 Garn, Jake, “Debating Abortion,” National Review, 11 11 1977, p. 1299Google Scholar.
3 Rockefeller, John D. III, “No Retreat on Abortion,” Newsweek, 21 06 1976, p. 11Google Scholar. See also, “Abortion and the Law –II,” New Republic, 22 June 1974, pp. 5–6.
4 Rockefeller, , “No Retreat on Abortion,” p. 11Google Scholar.
5 “Abortion and the Law,” New Republic, 18 May 1974, p. 33.
6 Jaffa, Harry V., Crisis of the House Divided (Garden City, New York, 1959), p. 33Google Scholar.
7 The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Basler, Roy P. (New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1953), II: 461Google Scholar.
8 Jaffa, , Divided House, p. 438Google Scholar.
9 Collected Works of Lincoln, II: 266.
10 Jaffa, , Divided House, pp. 29–30Google Scholar.
11 Collected Works of Lincoln, III: 12.
12 Ibid., II: 265.
13 Ibid., pp. 493–94.
14 Ibid., p. 266.
15 Ibid., p. 492.
16 Ibid.
17 Wertheimer, Roger, “Understanding the Abortion Argument,” in The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion, eds. Cohen, Marshall, Nagel, Thomas, and Scanlon, Thomas (Princeton, 1974)Google Scholar.
18 Collected Works of Lincoln, II: 265.
19 Wertheimer, , “Understanding the Abortion Argument,” p. 41Google Scholar.
20 Ibid., pp. 42–49.
21 Ibid., p. 50.
22 Callahan, Daniel, Abortion: Law, Choice, and Morality (New York, 1970), p. 4Google Scholar.
23 Wertheimer, , “Understanding the Abortion Argument,” pp. 50–51Google Scholar.
To send this article to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Dropbox account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you used this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your Google Drive account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.