In my last blog I explained how some opponents of abortion misappropriate my work on dehumanization, and why their argument doesn’t work. But if we understand dehumanization as the denial that some human beings are really human, this conception seems to serve the anti-abortion cause much better.

From time to time, pro-life advocates appropriate my work on dehumanization to argue that those who take a pro-choice position routinely dehumanize the unborn, paving the way for murder-by-abortion. I want to show why these arguments don’t hold any water.