This interesting post at Alas, a blog attempts to explore whether various legal rules proposed by various people who are against abortion are consistent with the claim made by various people (sometimes the same people) that abortion is murder.

Ampersand's conclusion is basically "no". According to Ampersand, the failure of abortion opponents to demand that an aborting woman be legally punished, the willingness to make compromises in case of rape or incest, the opposition to contraception and welfare benefits, and condemnation of those who bomb clinics are all inconsistent with a belief that abortion is murder.

This is all too simple and quick, I think. One can believe that it is murder for a doctor to abort a pregnancy without necessarily thinking that somebody who aids and abet that act for what many people believe to be understandable but misguided reasons ought to punished as a corollary. Similarly, one can believe that abortion is murder but nonetheless believe that some folks are in such desperate straits that even murder is permissible to get them out. (Relatedly, I wonder how many people who claim to believe that abortion is murder would actually permit abortion in the case of rape or incest in their ideal legal world. That people propose compromises should not be taken as evidence that they don't also hold deeper moral convictions.

And so on. Opposing birth control and welfare may be in tension with a belief that abortion is murder if, like Adrian Vermeule and Cass Sunstein, one abandons the act-omission distinction for governmental action. But many people do think that failure to take action that might reduce murders on a macro scope is not at all inconsistent with thinking that those murders are still murders. And so on.

Amp's post does go farther than most such arguments because it presents an alternative hypothesis that purports to fit the data better, but the attempt to prove all of this by analogy fundamentally comes up short because regardless of whether abortion is murder or isn't murder (I think it isn't), abortion is still a different kind of act than lots of the things one's tempted to analogize it to. And there's certainly no cardinal moral or psychological rule that says that all murders or murderers have to be treated alike. I guess I still fail to see what is lost by simply taking those who one disagrees with at their word.

[For a previous post of mine on this topic, click here. Thanks to Judy Coleman and Paige Herwig for the link; I am sure they agree with me that abortion is not murder, but I have no idea if they agree with me that those who claim that it is are being sincere.]

I have no real interest in blogging the contents of the YLJ symposium (whose papers will be coming next fall to a law journal near you anyway) and Tom Sylvester gives a brief discussion of the symposium's most controversial participant, who is oddly enough not John Yoo.

As Quaker notes below, the WaPo's new blogger, Ben Domenech, not known for his fancy prose style, but rather 'red-baiting' and a juicy Bush-hack-stic job, has been accused with serial plagiarism. He has now resigned (also here) following those allegations.

But let me be one of hopefully many to jump on the Ezra Klein-led bandwagon. Ross Douthat, of the excellent American Scene (which he pens along with badass conservative rapper Reihan), should absolutely replace him. Email Jim Brady, the Executive Editor of washingtonpost.com, and tell him so.