What We Can’t Not Know

Great article at Catholic Exchange about the alarming abortion statistics from New York City:

The statistic has everyone reeling: According to a recent survey, forty-one percent of pregnancies in New York City end in abortion. Forty-one percent. Nearly half.


As you might expect, pro-lifers are deeply concerned, and already trying to find ways to bring that number down. Archbishop Timothy Dolan to name one, called a news conference to say that the church would be stepping up its efforts to encourage and help women in crisis pregnancies.


But pro-choicers weren't too excited about this news either. The New York Times—hardly a pro-life bastion—reported, "No one is exactly celebrating. . . . Even abortion rights advocates expressed some concern about the numbers, trying to change the conversation to a broader one on reproductive health."


The Times noted that the easy access to abortion makes the city a "magnet . . . for doctors who wish to practice without restrictions [and] for women who want to live in an atmosphere of sexual self-determination."


Those are, of course, noble and laudable desires according to the pro-choice folks. And yet the tone of the article is distinctly uneasy. It quotes late-term abortionist Dr. Robert Berg, who says his patients tend to be "hostile" to him, treating him like "a punching bag" even though he's providing a service that they've asked for.


If abortion is a morally neutral medical procedure, as the pro-choicers would have us believe, why all the angst coming from people who are getting abortions? I think it all comes back to what J. Budziszewski calls "what we can't not know."