Ten years ago this year, I got a call from Nat Hentoff. Hentoff, who died in 2017, is not widely remembered now, but he was a legendary civil libertarian and journalist. His area of expertise was jazz. He wrote for the Village Voice, Washington Post, and many other publications.

Hentoff was also pro-life. He had called me from New York to thank me for some pro-life columns I had written. Hentoff was one of my favorite writers, and his reaching out was a tremendous honor. We talked about our jazz favorites, including our mutual favorite Duke Ellington.

I recall the tenth anniversary of our conversation both to celebrate Hentoff’s life and to lament the loss of the pro-life liberal. Hentoff was left-wing on most issues, but the science and his conscience led him to oppose abortion. He was not unlike my own father. I grew up in an artistic, intellectual, tolerant, funny ad loving Irish-Catholic family. We loved literature, movies, poetry, plays and the visual arts. We were pro-immigration and pro-environment, but within reason — i.e. legal immigration, and an environmentalism focused on being stewards of God’s world and not worshipping nature.

There was only one thing that separated us from our fellow liberals: the life issue.