The legalization of RU-486 seems to be viewed by some supposedly pro-life leaders as an irrelevant event. Abortion is already legal so, they seem to reason, what is the special importance of the advent of this new method? But every individual abortion is a new evil and we must strive not to become numbed to this fact simply because there have been so many before it. In the same way, we must strive to see the arrival of new methods of abortion with the same eyes of principle that we have turned on the old methods.

The pro-life position is based upon respect for the God-given and unalienable right to life of all human beings. Even if one could make the case that RU-486 is safe for the mother, the drug is not safe for the child. It is intended to kill the child. As a matter of principle, therefore, RU-486 is inherently unsafe and unacceptable. The legalization of this human pesticide is a fresh and absolutely clear assault on the equality of the unborn. The discovery of new and "better" ways to commit evil should prompt us to a new and better understanding of that evil -- and a deeper resolve to end it.

No one would consider it acceptable if the EPA approved for general use a pesticide that invariably killed any children under five, but was safe for everyone else. Both the president and Congress would be obliged to act to correct such administrative disregard for the lives of our children. The pro-life position means, by definition, that we give the lives of innocent children waiting to be born the same status as those of children already born. Accordingly, we should be committed to opposing the FDA ruling with the same vigor we would presumably show if the agency had approved a poison for general use in the extermination of 10-year-olds.

Certainly, in the weird world of Roe vs. Wade, we can expect the courts to treat RU-486 differently than a pesticide intended to kill toddlers. A legal system that has accepted the lie of abortion rights will have to decide certain particular matters regarding the availability and mode of distribution of the new killer. But the pro-life community is obliged precisely not to make allowance for the lie of the pro-abortion position. We must strive to respond to the new method of killing as what it is -- an innovation in the technology of evil, exposing new millions to the danger of the ultimate injustice. We must be shocked anew by its arrival and respond with renewed proclamation of the principles that make it -- and all abortion -- so wrong.

And we must look, as well, for the opportunity that RU-486 offers for new arguments that help us make our fellow-citizens see the issue of principle more clearly. For example, it is likely that RU-486 will make abortion much more accessible. This means that many more women will be able to kill their children more easily, more casually, more secretly. What, we may ask, is the ultimate goal of the pro-abortion position? That every mother can, in a moment, "choose" to kill her unborn child? When science develops a pill, or a device, that immediately and safely "eliminates" the unborn, does the pro-choice reading of the Constitution oblige us to make this "choice" available to every morning-sick mother?

And what about the danger posed to children whose mothers do not intend to abort them but might be tempted by the presence of such easy methods to consider it? Is not an issue of justice raised, even to the pro-choice mind, by the prospect of "chosen" children being subject to instant annihilation by the sudden insistence of a boyfriend, the brief despair of a mother, or even the accidental consumption or use of the "easy" method of abortion? How far, in short, are they willing to go in order to subject the unborn child to the will of the mother?

These are questions we must raise not because silent and easy abortion is a greater or lesser evil than the surgical kind, but because asking them can prompt others to see the ultimate issue of principle -- whether our rights and equality come from human will or, as our national civic creed proclaims, by divine decree. The vision of an America where abortion is so "safe and legal" that it literally requires little more than the "choice" in order to become accomplished fact might aid us in showing our fellow citizens what is always wrong with every abortion.

There is controversy in America over the idea of equality for those waiting in the womb. In the face of the pro-abortion side's unwavering support for discrimination against those in the womb, we must never surrender the very idea of their equality, leaving them prey to endless slaughter so long as the means employed is sufficiently clean and invisible. Despite the gory pictures of the partial-birth abortion debate, it is not our aesthetic sensibilities that abortion most offends. Rather, abortion deeply offends and betrays the principles of equal rights and justice that America's Declaration of Independence promises and that, as Americans, we are supposed to believe in and respect.

The RU-486 debate has been dominated by an almost surreal discussion of the drug's safety for American women -- born women, that is. Pro-life leaders need to concentrate more on the argument that RU-486 is maliciously deadly to the innocent unborn in the wombs of those mothers. And they need to teach America that this poison is equally deadly to the survival of America's respect for the essential and immutable moral principles of liberty.