How not to argue about abortion

It is either dishonest or ignorant to claim that the pro-life argument is “that an embryo is a person because it contains the DNA of a potential person,” and then to refute this straw man by noting that every human cell contains DNA. Every pro-lifer who has ever given any thought to the matter or expressed a view on it acknowledges, indeed proclaims, the difference between a human organism and a human cell that is not a human organism. And the fact that what Gopnik calls “fertilized eggs” often die naturally does not have any logical bearing on whether it is morally permissible to act with the intention of bringing about their deaths, any more than the fact that many 90-year-olds die naturally implies that it is all right to kill them.

Gopnik’s claim that the way (“the only way”!) to assess the validity of a belief is “by observing the conduct of the people who claim to hold it” is frankly bizarre (even if it is a dumbed-down version of Dworkin’s argument). Most abolitionists in the U.S. in the 1850s, to say nothing of the broader antislavery movement, did not follow their view that black people had inherent dignity, worth, and rights and were made in the image of God to its logical conclusion. They did not, for example, back interracial marriage. This fact reveals nothing about the soundness of either their premise or the conclusion they did draw.