It was a false analogy after all

The mighty Amazon lets us peek into the contents of Southern Slavery, As it Was. Published eight years ago, it spells out what George Bush was up to with his allusion to Dred Scott. The terrible case that said black Americans were not citizens was likened to the terrible case that legalized abortion. The unborn and the enslaved became powerful metaphors for each other among the Christian right. It's just the rest of us who were clueless at first.

But according to this book,

The only problem was . . . [the comparison] wasn't true. For the sake of a convenient argument against the monstrosity of abortion, we abandoned the clear teaching of the Bible on another subject--how slavery was to be understood.

Today, if a doctor who performed abortions "presented himself for admission to your church," of course you would turn him away. But if "this same church was moved back in time, and a man presented himself for membership along with three of his slaves," it would be a different story.

So there we have it. Abortion is less forgivable than slavery.

UPDATE: See Paul and commentary on "The Friendly Face of Slavery in Cary."