I like what this article says about government and political morality.
Governmental respect for individual freedom and the autonomy of nongovernmental spheres of authority is a requirement of political morality. Government must not try to run people’s lives or usurp the roles and responsibilities of families, religious bodies, and other character-and culture-forming authoritative communities. The usurpation of just authority of families, religious communities, and other institutions is unjust in principle, often seriously so, and the record of big government in the twentieth century – even when it has not degenerated into vicious totalitarianism – shows that it does little good in the long run and frequently harms those it seeks to help.Law and government exist to protect human persons and secure their well-being. It is not the other way round, as communist and other forms of collectivist ideology suppose.Our foundational principle of the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every human being demands that all members of the human family be respected and protected irrespective not only of race, sex, and ethnicity but also of age, size, location, stage of development, and condition of dependency. To exclude anyone from the law’s protection is to treat him unjustly.
From Robert George, Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University
Also, I recently came across a crisp and convincing argument about the hard line on no abortion and no exceptions (as in the case of rape or incest)
This comes from an article by D. Wilson:
The “exceptions” concessions, far from acknowledging genuine exceptions to the principle, are actually concessions of the entire debate. Such concessions allow that in difficult circumstances we get to define who is and who is not a person. And once we have that authority, vested in our courts and legislatures, you can bet that the pressure to expand the jurisdiction will be unstoppable.So here is the answer to the “rape and incest” objection. When a woman conceives as the result of a rape, there are three parties involved. There is the rapist, there is the woman, and there is the child. Two of these parties are innocent, and one of them is guilty. What kind of sense does it make to execute one of the innocent parties for the crime of his father?