The abortion battle and world hunger

Abstract

By fighting one another over whether and to what extent abortions should be legal, we are wasting a lot of good will and political effort. We would do better to concentrate on another task of at least equal moral priority: overcoming world hunger. The moral urgency of this latter cause is less doubtful. And supporting it is less wasteful, and less costly for civil harmony and for the standingof morality in our culture. Various counterarguments–invoking considerations of cost-effectiveness, or the distinctions between doing and letting happen or between compatriots and foreigners–can be refuted.