Ryan ChartrandArlo White’s guest column concerning abortion was absolutely correct in pointing out that many facts upon which our modern lifestyle depends are unavoidably unpleasant. The things we want and use do not appear out of nowhere, and there is a price to pay for what we get.
However, the column does make the assumption that morality is purely personal; if I really really want something, it’s right (for me), if I really don’t like something, it’s wrong (for me).
Our feelings and beliefs certainly do determine our sense of morality, but if external truth exists, morality has value only where it converges with that external truth. If I am the center of my moral world, then I can justify anything I want to do. It’s pretty simple; I am No. 1, after all. But if I am not the source of my own moral truth, my feelings and justifications are not as important as determining the requirements of external morality.
It comes down to this: either absolute right and wrong exists, or it does not. Either the unborn are human, or they are not. If they are human, then abortion is murder, and if murder is wrong, then abortion is wrong. No amount of convenience or personal difficulty would erase that fact. If they are not human, or if they are but murder is not wrong, then there is nothing wrong with abortion. No amount of dismay or revulsion would change that fact.
Eric Baldwin
Electrical engineering senior