A loss for the Abortion Lobby
By Ramesh Ponnuru

The abortion lobby was able to get only fifteen members of the House to vote with it against the proposition that a baby who survives an abortion should, once outside its mother's womb, enjoy legal protection. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat who voted for the bill, nonetheless complained that its purpose was "only to get the pro-choice members to vote against it. . . so they could say we support infanticide." Well yes: Someone who votes against a ban on infanticide can reasonably be described as pro-infanticide. NARAL, the leading abortion-rights group, took the pro-infanticide position because it could not abide the granting of "legal personhood to a pre-viable fetus" under any circumstances. As NARAL reminds us, the abortion debate isn't really about "terminating pregnancies," and never has been. It's about terminating human beings.

© Ramesh Ponnuru, 2000

Mr. Ponnuru is a senior editor at National Review.

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