Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence Emeritus at Amherst College and the Founder/Director of the James Wilson Institute on Natural Rights & the American Founding. …
Note: The following text is much longer than normal for The Catholic Thing, even for our occasional longer pieces on Saturdays. But we believe – in these hours immediately after the annual March for Life – that it brilliantly focuses on what ought to be the next phase in the pro-life movement. Some pro-lifers have shrunk from public acrimony by falling back on arguments that, well, abortion is still available in certain States. Others have turned to measures for supporting women in difficult circumstances, which is important but does not go to the heart of the matter. Hadley Arkes, one of the founders of The Catholic Thing, reminds us that the child in the womb is a living human being who deserves legal protection at the federal level, initially if “born alive,” but let us pray, at some not distant day, from the moment of conception. We commend his arguments to your attention. – Robert Royal