Francis Beckwith: Let us define pro-life for you

Here's a guest column by Francis Beckwith in the Waco Tribune which is a response to this editorial by John Young. Beckwith writes,

If we are intrinsically valuable beings now, we were intrinsically valuable beings then. We don't become less intrinsically valuable because others think it is in their interest to destroy us.

Moreover, the differences between our prenatal and postnatal selves carry no moral weight: Size, level of development, environment and dependency do not impart to us moral status. We continue to be ourselves as we undergo these changes.

Young and Planned Parenthood seem to believe that absolute power over the consequences of extra-marital sex will make us a freer and more compassionate people.

I am far less sanguine. For it is a posture that treats sex and the children that arise from it as instruments of our wills rather than as gifts that ought to be treated with respect and dignity.

That is neither liberating nor loving.