Daily Caller: Are You Pro-Mengele or Anti-Women’s Health?

Are You Pro-Mengele or Anti-Women’s Health? Can You Explain Why?

The series of Planned Parenthood hidden camera videos being slowly released by the Center for Medical Progress has reopened raw wounds around what had been a relatively quiescent debate about abortion. The images are indeed shocking, yet public opinion could not be more polarized.

Anti-abortion activists are using the videos to mount another attack on Roe v. Wade, while abortion defenders circle the wagons. Conservative politicians are trying to cut off taxpayer funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider, while liberal politicians stoke fears that this would deny needed health care services to the poor. “Shades of Mengele!” shouts one side; “War on Women!” the other.

Welcome to the world of pluralistic democracy, where believers and atheists must learn to live and govern together. In such a polity, on what grounds does one argue for regulatory limits on abortion? Or legally restrict the use of fresh fetal tissue for scientific research. Or decide what is and is not appropriate to be funded with taxpayer money?

Notice how carefully I word the question: “How does one argue?” Not, “What is the correct answer?”

I’d like to take a different approach to this fraught conversation by not attempting to argue morality. Instead, we need to sit down together as reasonable people and draw some clear lines. Here’s how.

To read the rest of the column, click here.