Life Links 1/11/11

At Public Discourse, Christopher Kaczor reviews a supposedly objective book about the abortion debate entitled "The Fetal Position" by Chris Meyers and finds its selection of prolife arguments to be less than objective.

Unfortunately, The Fetal Position fails in its stated goal because it caricatures the most common defenses of the pro-life view. Rather than address the philosophical arguments that all human beings prior to birth should be protected by law and welcomed in life, Meyers misconstrues the mainstream pro-life position as if it were based on a theological belief in the soul......

Finally, Meyers’s book has an uneven quality. Some sections reflect on sophisticated philosophical positions such as various conceptions of the human soul and the implications of these positions for the moral status of unborn human life. Other parts of The Fetal Position extensively critique sophomoric defenses of the pro-life view presented by Meyers’s students, such as that forbidding abortion is the just punishment for women who have engaged in illicit sexual behavior. A rational approach to this debate must engage the best arguments on the opposing side, not caricatures. The contemporary discussion would have been enriched by an accessible, reasonable survey of the various positions in the abortion debate, but this book does not provide that service. By not engaging the best arguments to the contrary, The Fetal Position neither presents both sides fairly nor justifies its own implicit defense of abortion.

SecularProlife's blog writes about an IVF sex-selection case in Australia where a couple aborted twin boys conceived via IVF because they wanted a girl. The couple now wants to select the gender of the next group of embryos they implant except that's illegal in Australia so they might come to the U.S. The couple had a little girl who died a few days after being born.


MercatorNet covers the release of Abby Johnson's book unPlanned.

Abby Johnson’s story spread rapidly back when she went from being a leader in Planned Parenthood and one of their clinic directors, to a committed pro-life advocate, in short order. After witnessing the horrifying sight of one abortion on an ultrasound screen. Now, she tells her compelling and dramatic story in unPlanned, a new book about to be released. Great title, heart-stopping drama. It should certainly be a debate changer.