On Imposing One’s Views

Subtracting Christianity, 1979 — I am sometimes asked, when in conversation it transpires that I oppose abortion, whether I am a Catholic.

That this is deemed a pertinent question is a mark of confusion — and of the success of the pro-abortion campaign, which has managed to get an ethical and political problem turned into a credal problem. The result has been to further embitter an already thorny issue.

By now that campaign has popularized the proposition that “when human life begins is essen...