On Being "Pro Choice"

Professor Robert George of Princeton University on the Glenn Beck Program.
October 17, 2008

"Well, ['pro choice' is] a mistaken label because it pushes off stage the real issue that determines where a person stands on the question of abortion and that is the legitimacy of the choice. If abortion is, as I believe it is and as I believe you can prove it is very easily as a matter of scientific fact, the intentional killing of a living human being, a member of our species, one of our tiny brothers and sisters, then if you believe that that killing is a legitimate choice, whether you call yourself pro choice or not, you are favoring abortion. You are favoring the legitimacy of abortion. It's a legitimate choice. It's not an injustice. If you are on the other side, on the pro life side, then, of course, you are opposed to abortion. So it's not a question of choice. It's a question of whether we think the action is killing an innocent person, is a grave injustice, is an ill legitimate choice or not. If you think it's legitimate, then you are for it. If not, you are against it. Compare it with slavery. Just take another example, another moral issue. Compare it with slavery. There were plenty of people at the founding of the United States -- Thomas Jefferson was one -- who said, look, slavery is a bad thing. It's terrible that we have it. I prefer a world without slavery. But the world we have is one with which slavery is integrated into our economy and into our culture and there would be dire consequences for farms and businesses where slavery is used and for the society as a whole if we abolish slavery, therefore reluctantly I'm going to support the choice of people to have a slave. But that wasn't being pro choice on slavery. That was being pro slavery. It was treating slavery as a legitimate choice. Again the issue is, is it legitimate or is it a grave injustice. If it's legitimate, then you're for it, whether it's slavery or abortion. And if it's illegitimate, then you are against it."