Zowie. The radicals are coming out of the woodwork today. First up, a Notre Dame philosophy professor (yes, that very Catholic Notre Dame right in our own back yard) says the pope really should rethink this whole objection to abortion thing:
There is, then, a strong case for thinking that abortions always bring about some bad results — at a minimum the loss of potential human life — and that for most pregnancies abortion would be morally wrong. But this conclusion is limited in two ways: A woman’s right to control her reproductive life can, as in the case of rape, offset even a person’s right to life; and at least at the earlier stages of pregnancy, the embryo has only the moral standing of potential, not actual, human life, which may be overridden by harm to humans with full moral standing.
Whew! Catholics should stop objecting abortions. I can almost see where he's going with that "moral standing of potential human life" vs. an "actual human life" argument, but he completely loses me with "a woman's right to control her reproductive life" offsetts even a person's right to life? Really? If abortion is morally acceptable, then his argument doesn't matter. If it is as morally unacceptable, it is because the innocence of the unborn baby trumps the adult's right to choose. That innocence is not lost just because the baby resulted from a rape. I've never really understood the exception for rape victims, even advocated by some staunch pro-lifers. It seems morally incoherent to me.
And next up, this lecturer at Northwestern Univeristy says it is too bad that a judge was so cowed by the Second Amdnment and all those gun nuts that he wouldn't let Chicago ban all gun sales:
His senseless killing happened just a few days after a federal judge gave Mayor Rahm Emanuel six months to figure out how and where guns can be sold in the city. The court had ruled Chicago's ban on gun sales was unconstitutional.
This scenario tells you all you need to know about the gun control conversation in 2014. There isn't one.
But then he writes:
Of the 1,375 guns used in crimes between 2008 to 2012, one in five was legally purchased from one shop about 20 miles outside of the city. Also, a Chicago Police Department report found that 30% of the 17,230 guns recovered between January 1, 2008, and March 31, 2012, were bought in Cook County, where Chicago is located. Many more were bought elsewhere in Illinois. And nearly 60% of those guns were bought outside Illinois, in states with weaker gun laws, such as Indiana and Mississippi.
So, to recap: 60 percent of guns come from outside Illinois, so close all the gun shops in Chicago. Talk about incoherent.
