The two «no compromise»
factions in the abortion debate are, on the one hand, the 20 percent who favor the present unlimited abortion license and, on the other, those who would effect a national prohibition of all abortions, which is also about 20 percent of the population.
Considered collectively, official church statements on ethical questions seem to point to a possible solution to this
issue in the abortion debate, a solution that may even point toward a broader social consensus on abortion.
Grobstein knows that a great weakness of the prochoice
argument in the abortion debate is that it downplayed or dismissed concern about what it is, or who it is, that is being terminated in abortion.
The
participants in the abortion debate seem, most of the time, to presuppose that the beliefs (moral / scientific / religious / legal / philosophical) of the pro-choice and pro-life camps are widely divergent at many points.
First, he complained that the discussion of the pertinent ethical questions is today impossibly
embroiled in the abortion debate — including issues such as fetal transplants and experimentation, aborting the genetically defective, and so forth.
Bernardin's approach is one that I found deeply compelling three decades ago, and I thought it showed promise of breaking through the impasse between the two
sides in the abortion debate.
«He basically made a deal with the Canadian people saying «give me a majority and I promise you that I will not
bring in the abortion debate again.»
2) What is the significance of the language of «rights»
in the abortion debate?
In the abortion debate, do you identify with the woman who wants an abortion or with the fetus?