Opinion: 'Heartbeat bills' are wholesome provocations in the abortion debate
By George F. Will George F. Will Columnist covering politics and domestic and foreign affairs Email Bio Follow Columnist May 3 at 4:57 PM While constitutional lawyers, ethicists and theologians — in descending order of importance in the abortion debate — have been arguing in the 46 years since the Supreme Court attempted to settle the debate, some technologists have been making a consequential contribution to it.
But why should “viability” be the dispositive criterion? Viable means capable of surviving outside the womb, which no infant can do without constant help that others must give. Must. No infants are “viable” in that all are helpless, and the law requires that help be given by those responsible for the infant.
The “heartbeat bills” are wholesome provocations: One of their aims is to provoke thinking about the moral dimension of extinguishing a being with a visibly beating heart. Furthermore, pro-life people are being provoked in different ways. The 1850s debates that propelled Abraham Lincoln to greatness concerned not whether slavery should be abolished forthwith, which was neither a constitutional nor political possibility.
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