Choose love over hatred

Thanks for your reply. I still think that there are issues with your interpretation of Bradley's argument, but I can't really blame you, though, since he didn't clearly distinguish between what we might call "legitimate" or "true" justifications, and any possible justification which one might give for an action.

So, when he says "There is simply no justification for this...etc.," he is referring to the fact that no true justification can be offered in support of abortion, but it should also be understood that the same is the case with regard to the other forms of genocide. Hence, when he later talks about the "justifications" given by the dictators perpetrating genocide (which he also refers to as "their philosophies"), his point is that no one thinks those so-called "justifications" are legitimate. At that point he asks, "What does that say about us and ours?" which implies that we (America / women who choose abortion, as you put it) do give justifications for abortion (which sound eerily similar to those given by the dictators), even though we find those of the dictators to be completely abhorrent.

I think his argument can be stated somewhat more concisely like this: These men killed millions of innocent people, all the while lying to themselves that they were justified in doing it. We now understand their justifications to be totally illegitimate and false-- there is no true justification for genocide. But the same general form of justification that they gave is also offered by those who support legalized abortion, namely, "the existence of such people will hinder my ability to attain the end I seek." So if we recognize the evil of the dictators' actions and the illegitimacy of their justifications, why do we refuse to recognize the evil of abortion and the illegitimacy of the justifications that are given for it.

I hope that makes it a bit clearer. I realize that the fact that I had to flesh out the argument in his article points to it's having a problem, but the problem isn't that it's offensive or lacks empathy for the women who are put in a position in which they feel they must have an abortion. Rather, his statement of it was just unclear.

His point was with regard to the reasons for acting which were offered by those evil men. Think of it this way: the rhetoric with which those dictators justified their slaughtering of innocent people wasn't of the form "Hurray, let's kill some innocent people because it's enjoyable!" Rather, the rhetoric used to justify these mass-murders was aimed at dehumanizing the innocent victim, so that those actually performing the act of killing would be able to justify it to themselves and be able to go through with it. This sort of rhetoric is routinely used by supporters of legalized abortion whenever they argue that an embryo or a fetus isn't a human being, even though any embryology textbook will tell you that there is a distinct human organism in the womb from the moment of conception.

With that tactic having been ineffective and contradicted by science itself, proponents of legalized abortion moved on to say that the organism in the womb isn't a "person," and therefore doesn't have the rights which human "persons" have. Their only problem with this tact is that their criteria for what constitutes a "person" is completely arbitrary, while the pronouncement of science that there is a distinct human organism in the womb is anything but.

Michael wasn't condemning women by any means: he literally did not even mention the women who actually choose to have abortions. In fact, the implication of his argument is that the women who choose to have abortions have been duped/ lied to/ deceived with regard to the evil of this action, a position which is very clearly pitiable. Instead, he was bemoaning the fact that nobody seems to ever draw this entirely legitimate parallel between the two sorts of case. For, if they did, then they would not sit idly by as the genocide continues, but would act to end it.