Go figure

According to a new Rasmussen poll, 50% of Americans consider themselves pro-choice.

Forty per cent consider themselves pro-life.

But 53% agree that "abortion is usually morally wrong."

Now, granted that it doesn't necessarily follow that one must believe that what is immoral should be illegal. But the question nevertheless is hard to avoid: if, as the majority of Americans apparently agree, most abortions are morally wrong, why?


How, precisely, does one reach the conclusion that what one considers to be the wrongful taking of human life, specifically (we're not talking about drinking too much, or lying to one's spouse here) ought to be legal?

Are there other categories of human beings besides the unborn who don't deserve the full protection of the law? Races? Religions? Ethnic groups?

And if abortion is not the (usually) wrongful taking of an innocent human life, then on what grounds is it (usually) morally wrong?

My problem here is the same as my problem with the "Cuomo dodge" so widely appealed to by Catholic Democratic politicians. There may be a great many things which, while immoral, ought not necessarily be illegal. But murder is not among them- and while I can ethically respect a pro-choice person who (rejecting the very scientific and lexical meanings of the concepts "human" and "life)  does not, somehow, believe that an unborn child represents a human life, I have a very tough time respecting anybody who believes at the same time that abortion is murder and that it ought to be legal.

Which is, of course, what a pro-choice Catholic (or Missouri Synod Lutheran, for that matter) by definition is saying when he or she claims to accept the teachings of his or her church on the subject personally,  but believes that Roe v. Wade should remain the law of the land.

HT: Drudge