Moral Challenges of Abortion | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary

Moral Challenges of Abortion | Doug Bandow | Cato Institute: Commentary: "U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is upset about abortion. Well, not abortion per se. But some abortions. Of girls. Apparently killing boys is okay. Abortion is one issue that is not amenable to easy political compromise. But the issue can't be avoided.

The bottom line of abortion is a dead baby. No amount of obfuscation and euphemism can hide the obvious. And if abortion is a legal right, then motivation is irrelevant. If you have a right to kill all babies, you have a right to kill girl babies."

"Some people apparently believe that there is no worse offense than to 'discriminate,' which makes sex-selection abortion so odious to some. National Post writer Barbara Kay says 'sex selection is a form of bias — arguably even a form of hatred — against an identifiable group.'

But how about abortion of the handicapped, whether physical or mental? Writer George Neumayr warned, 'Without much scrutiny or debate, a eugenics designed to weed out the disabled has become commonplace.' This is also discrimination."

"Why is it worse to decide that the baby's sex is 'wrong' than to decide that the pregnancy's timing is 'wrong.'

Clinton's apparent position, that people are free to choose abortion for any reason, except the one reason she finds distasteful, is intellectually unsustainable.

Perhaps the secretary still believes the procedure should be legal. Yet, she coupled infanticide with abortion, and presumably believes that more than persuasion is necessary in the former case. Again, there is no clear line between infanticide and abortion. The females are killed: the only question is when?"

"Clinton has grasped an essential truth: It is wrong to kill baby girls. But it also is wrong to kill baby boys."