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As any responsible pro-lifer knows, we are a peaceful, law-abiding lot, which drives our benighted opposition to tear out their hair. Their strategy for 30+ years has never changed: keep people's attention off of abortion's inhumanity. Their two most successful stratagems are (1) insist abortion is about "who chooses?" rather than what is chosen; and (2) insist that those who oppose the killing are beyond the pale.

Most times this latter strategy is straightforward name-calling. But not infrequently it's marginally subtle and often rears its unfriendly head in major media outlets. Consider...

"Watching How the Brain Works as It Weighs a Moral Dilemma" appeared in the New York Times September 25. Written by Sandra Blakeslee the story drew on a fascinating article published in the September 14 Science. But to obtain the conclusion Blakeslee wants requires that she goes far beyond the cautious conclusions drawn there.

The Princeton study dealt with two groups of nine people who were asked to wrestle with 60 hypothetical moral dilemmas. They used buttons to indicate whether the proposed action was appropriate or inappropriate.

Blakeslee's story begins with two of the moral quandaries, both of which require the participant to consider whether it is appropriate that one person die to save five others. One scenario is more "impersonal" (requiring only that a switch be thrown), while the other is more personal (requiring the direct killing of someone to save the five).

Most people agree that the first action is appropriate but not the latter. Blakeslee writes,

"After many years of debate, moral philosophers have never been able to arrive at a set of principles to explain why people treat the two situations differently. But now a new study suggests that at least part of the answer lies not in philosophy but in the working of the brain."