EXTRAORDINARY – AT 11:07 A.M. ET:  I'm generally not a fan of Ross Douthat, a "conservative" columnist at The New York Times.  Call him "conservatism lite."  The Times, under its current management, would not have a conservative in the spirit of William Safire today. 

And yet Douthat has written, and the Times to its credit has published, the most extraordinary essay on abortion that I've read in recent years.  It will cause trouble.  There will be people who want Douthat to be fired for upsetting their "Sundays in bed with The Times."  Must not upset the New York liberals.  From Douhat: 

IN an essay in his 1976 collection, “Mortal Lessons,” the physician Richard Selzer describes a strange suburban scene. People go outside in the morning in his neighborhood, after the garbage trucks have passed, and find “a foreignness upon the pavement,” a softness underfoot.

Looking down, Selzer first thinks he sees oversize baby birds, then rubber baby dolls, until the realization comes that the street is littered with the tiny, naked, all-too-human bodies of aborted fetuses.

Later, the local hospital director speaks to Selzer, trying to impose order on the grisly scene. It was an accident, of course: The tiny corpses were accidentally “mixed up with the other debris” instead of being incinerated or interred. “It is not an everyday occurrence. Once in a lifetime, he says.”

And Selzer tries to nod along: “Now you see. It is orderly. It is sensible. The world is not mad. This is still a civilized society…

“But just this once, you know it isn’t. You saw, and you know.”

And here is how Douthat ends:

But the reluctance to look closely doesn’t change the truth of what there is to see. Those were dead human beings on Richard Selzer’s street 40 years ago, and these are dead human beings being discussed on video today: Human beings that the nice, idealistic medical personnel at Planned Parenthood have spent their careers crushing, evacuating, and carving up for parts.

The pro-life sting was sweeping; there are reportedly 10 videos to go. You can turn away. But there will be plenty of chances to look, to see, to know.

COMMENT:  No matter where you stand on abortion, and we have both sides represented in our readership, this is required reading.  It may be the most important column you read this year, so please read it all.

July 26,  2015