Hedging and trimming on abortion

In an essay that is not primarily about the abortion issue, Richard John Neuhaus once again emphasizes the importance of "the greatest human rights question of our time":

....From the early years of the Church’s life, Christians distinguished themselves from the surrounding pagan society by their refusal to abort or expose their children. And when, centuries later, they were in a position to influence public policy, their conviction that every human life was created and loved by God, and therefore ought to be cared for and protected by us, became the law. As it remained the law in the West until the 1970s.

Yes, there were times when people did not understand the biological facts of life. Some thought that a human life began at forty days or at the moment of “quickening” when the life of the child was physically felt in the womb. Science now leaves no doubt that life begins at conception. The smallest embryo—barring natural disaster, as in miscarriage, or intervention to destroy, as in abortion—will become what everybody recognizes as a human baby. When each of us says “I” we are speaking of the “I” that was once an embryo.

But now we see Christians hedging and trimming and tying themselves into intellectual and moral knots in order to support candidates, including a presidential candidate, who explicitly and adamantly support an unlimited legal license to kill the unborn. They are fearful lest they be perceived as “one-issue” voters, although the one issue is the greatest human rights question of our time. Namely, should it be permissible to kill human beings because of their location, dependency, stage of development, or burdensomeness to others? [more]

FIRST THINGS: A Journal of Religion, Culture, and Public Life