Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision which granted a woman the right to have an abortion at any time in her pregnancy for any reason whatsoever. The occasion caused me to think.
Isn't there something odd about the overwhelming reaction of horror and grief to the terrible massacre of children at Newtown when similar massacres occur almost daily in abortion clinics all across the country? Aside from the fact that the Sandy Hook children were wanted and loved, what's the difference? Why should whether the child is wanted and loved make a difference? If any of the Sandy Hook children were not wanted and loved would their deaths be any less tragic?
Even if one argues that there's a qualitative difference between a six year old child and a six month old fetus what exactly is that difference, how significant is it, and how does it account for the horror we feel when contemplating the shooting?
Is it not really that the difference in our reactions comes down to little more than that one set of slaughters was done publicly while the other is done privately?