The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly

Volume 22, Issue 3, Autumn 2022

Lawrence Masek
Pages 509-519

The Contralife Argument Revisted
A Reply to Dezort

In a recent issue of this journal, Steven Dezort criticizes two versions of the contralife argument, including my version and a version defended by some prominent new natural law theorists. In this essay, I argue that people should accept the contralife argument even if they disagree with other principles of new natural law theory. To defend this thesis, I correct some misstatements about the contralife argument and identify basic disagreements about defining actions and respecting human life.