Questions About Conception on PA Primary Day

This Pennsylvania Primary Day, political science Professor Paul Kengor points to a larger question that both abortion-friendly Democratic presidential hopefuls consistently avoid answering.

In "Conceiving Conception at Messiah," Kengor writes of Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's evasive responses to the question of when human life begins during the candidates' "Compassion Forum" at Messiah College on April 13. (Kengor's commentary was posted on Grove City College's The Center for Vision and Values website and published in Philadelphia's The Bulletin today.)

As Kengor noted, Clinton stated that "the potential for life begins at conception," then added:

But for me, it is also not only about a potential life.... And, therefore, I have concluded, after great, you know, concern and searching my own mind and heart over many years, that our task should be, in this pluralistic, diverse life of ours in this nation, that individuals must be entrusted to make this profound decision.... I think abortion should remain legal.

"Even more ambiguous," wrote Kengor, was Obama's response:

This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So, I don't presume to know the answer to that question. What I know, as I've said before, is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we're having these debates.

I hear an echo. Clinton's and Obama's evasiveness in answering a critical question concerning abortion reminds me of another abortion-friendly voice that I noted in my book Abortion: A Mother's Plea for Maternity and the Unborn (Liguori Publications).

"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins." wrote Justice Harry Blackmun in his Opinion of the Court on the Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion across the nation in 1973.

There's only one word to describe the mindset that would dare to legalize abortion, or defend the right to abortion, without answering "the difficult question of when life begins."

Audacity!

God help us if such audacity keeps passing for leadership.