Zealots And Logic Rarely Mix Well. A Great Read On The Mississippi Abortion Debate

The recent referendum in Mississippi showed that many Americans — including many strong opponents of abortion — are reluctant to treat a fertilized egg as a human person. They are, in particular, unwilling to extend the full protection of our laws against murder to a fertilized egg. This might seem to be just a common sense reaction to an extreme position, but rejecting the personhood position has important consequences for the logic of the abortion debate.  (In formulating these logical consequences, I am not taking a position on the morality of abortion.  As always, logic can only force a choice between accepting a conclusion and denying the premises from which the conclusion follows.)

via On Abortion and Defining a ‘Person’ – NYTimes.com.