gressor and for the passive victim, thernwoman has the greater right to rid herselfrnof the transgressor by whateverrnnreans are necessary.rnThe grand and vicious irony is thatrnwhen the pro-hfe side rails against Roe v.rnWade, it accepts the moral rationalityrnthat necessarily leads to the conclusionrnof Roe and its companion decision DoernV. Bolton: that a woman has the right tornterminate a pregnancy for any reason sherndeems sufficient, up to the moment ofrnbirth. The pro-life side cannot win therndebate by framing its argument againstrnRoe in this way, since this moral rationalityrnwas designed specifically for thernconclusions to which it leads.rnThe problem is that the pro-life sidernwants to communicate its opposition tornabortion in terms that the pro-abortionrnside will accept. (This desire is decidedlyrnnot reciprocal; pro-abortionists havernno desire to convince anyone of anything,rnwhich is, ironically, another reasonrnwhy they arc winning the war. Asrnthe bumper sticker says, “Abortion: OnrnDemand, Without Apology.”) But inrntheir attempt to make themselves intelligible,rnthey must adopt the morallinguisticrnscheme that ineluctably leadsrnto radical pro-abortion conclusions.rnThat is, in their pursuit of a universalist,rninclusionist rationality accessible andrnreasonable to everyone, the pro-life sidernsuccumbs to the highly particular, exclusionistrnrationality of secular Enlightenmentrnliberalism.rnThus, Elizabeth Mensch and AlanrnFreeman’s The Politics of Virtue: Is AbortionrnDebatable? is less an exploration ofrnthe subtitled question than an intelligentrnand convincing explanation of itsrnnegation. The problem is not the difficultyrnof getting the two sides to talk dispassionatelyrnto one another, but ratherrnthe lack of the sine qua non of real debate:rna shared moral rationality and language.rn”Our goal is not to advance onernside or the other in the abortion debate,”rnMensch and Freeman explain at the outset,rn”but rather to explore whether wernare necessarily stuck with the grim andrndestructive fact of moral incommensurability.”rnThe authors hope their bookrnwill be seen “in the service of replacingrnstark incommensurability with somethingrncloser to mutually respectfulrndialogue.” But try as they might, and asrnloath as they are to admit it, their bookrnis testament to the fact that, indeed,rnabortion is the supreme symbol of mutuallrnintolerant modes of moral and politicalrndiscourse in America today.rnIf this is ever to be overcome—especiallyrnfrom the antiabortion side—it willrnnot be in the current terms of the “debate,”rnnor will it be in service to a universalistiernmorality. The only way forrnthe antiabortion side to “win” is for it tornabandon all hope of convincing the proabortionistsrnon their own terms, and tornreaffirm a better moral rationality, whichrnwould never accept abortion as a viablernmeans of birth control or as a legitimaternexpression of a woman’s moral being. Itrnmust give up on the supposed moralrnuniversalism that has, ironically, led tornthe highly fractious and subjective individualismrnof current American moralrnand political debate.rnMensch and Freeman do an excellentrnjob of accounting for this irony in theirrndiscussion of “natural law” in 20th centuryrnpolitical discourse. Often mistakingrna Kantian epistemology for a trulyrnThomistie one, many Catholic scholarsrnhave aggravated the situation by appealingrnnot to a Thomistie dialectic ofrnnatural law and revelation, but ratherrnto a lowest-common-denominator-—orrnuniversal—rationalist moral system tornwhich every human could subscribe, regardlessrnof the moral or cultural communityrnhe represented. The problem isrnthat this appeal to universalism ends uprnby divorcing morality from the authorityrnof tradition, which finally leads tornrampant individualist subjectivism andrnrelativism. If sheer reason, unaided andrnuntutored, is the basis of ethics, then everyrnindividual is his own moral universe.rnThe appeal to particular, normativernmoral traditions, embedded in authoritativernrational communities, is a violationrnof universalism and thus of individualismrnas well.rnThere have been many contemporaryrnattempts to make the Roman CatholicrnChurch relevant to the prevailing politicalrnand moral ideologies. For in order tornspeak in supposed “universalist” terms tornthe prevailing moral and political culture.rnChristian theologians have been allrntoo eager to embrace foreign moral languagesrnin place of their own—a subjectrnwhich brings us back to the contradictoryrnaspect of “right to life” arguments.rnAlleged appeals to natural law or (morerncommonly) to “natural rights” are, in effect,rnappeals to particularistic moral languagesrnwhich have been highly successfulrnin selling a very seductive bill ofrngoods. When theologians attempt torn”translate” the language of Christianityrninto the language of prevailing rights arguments,rnthey effectively abandon anyrnstanding to criticize the ideologies thatrnspring from these concepts. As Menschrnand Freeman note, many denominationsrnand theologians offer “no explanationrnfor their actions except an increasinglyrnsecular political vocabulary of social justice.”rnThe “increasingly secular vocabularyrnof clergy, while not necessarily offensive,rnhardly differentiated the churchrnfrom liberal secular culture generally.”rnTheology thus is rendered incapable ofrnsaying “more than what atheists alreadyrnAdams’ Amazing Discovery:rnBaptists, Fundamentalists, and Orthodox Jews are right: The Bible is literalrntruth. The world was created, fossils and all, in 7 days.rnHOW? He made it out of 3-D Fractals. In the beginning was the Word.rn3-D Fractals are the visible echoes. They make all we see.rnWHY? Catholics are right. We have free will. So, Creation had to bernmade in such a way that we couldn’t tell if He made it.rnCRATS! explains it. And tells us where the races come from. It introducesrnthe Brain Rank Theory of Reality. See yourself as the CRATS see you,rnas a mid-level Field Beast (taxpayer) whose sole purpose is to be enslaved.rnCRATS!, the novel so novel it needs its own glossary.rnIf you thinkyou’re tired of excessive government,rnwait ’til you see what the Sons and Daughters ofrnShem, Ham, and Japeth do about it in . . . CRftlS!rnan Adams book.rnTo order call: 1-800-OLD-DRUM VISA/MC acceptedrnOr send a check for $9.95; Two copies, $18.00 (includes postage & handling) to;rnOld Drum Publishing, Box 401, Portersville, PA 16051.rnAPRIL 1995/33rnrnrn