Are you sitting down? You should probably try to find a chair. Otherwise, you might faint from the shock of seeing Real Conservative Tom Nichols regurgitate tiresome pro-abort talking points.

Let’s start here, with NYT opinion writer sharing this embarrassingly bad take on anti-abortion legislation:

I'm glad this line of thinking about the tension between abortion bans and the First Amendment's Establishment Clause is getting aired. I remain astonished that it has not been more fully developed in legal scholarship.https://t.co/bdCClWIU2b — Will Wilkinson ? (@willwilkinson) May 23, 2019

There is no necessary connection btwn religion and opposition to abortion. One need only think rights are grounded in innate human dignity (a view held by many secular people, maybe even you) and know enough about modern medicine to realize that a fetus is a (tiny) human being. — Damon Linker (@DamonLinker) May 23, 2019

You can come up with a secular pretext for any bid to impose sectarian religious doctrine. But so what? As a matter of fact, these draconian laws are transparently grounded in a minority religious conviction and injure the liberty, dignity, and welfare of citizens who reject it. — Will Wilkinson ? (@willwilkinson) May 23, 2019

It's interesting to reread the First Amendment as a special disability to be imposed on religious people. Whereas, you can impose your metaphysical beliefs trading under any other brand. — Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) May 23, 2019

It's not a special disability imposed on religious people. The whole point is that people don't agree about religion, so religious people in particular will be harmed if some religious views are allowed to trump the freedom live according to other views. — Will Wilkinson ? (@willwilkinson) May 23, 2019

This is just reheated Liberal League propaganda, where Mainstream Protestantism gets legal sanction and statue support, but any thought of sharing citizenship with Catholics in a meaningful way is described as a concession to sectarianism. — Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) May 23, 2019

Enter Tom Nichols:

"Sharing citizenship" meaning "pass laws that conform to our religious beliefs?" Because as neither a Catholic nor a Protestant, that's what that sure sounded like. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

It means we get to vote and make our arguments too, just as other people trading under the name “secularists” “liberals” “feminists’ and “egalitarians” do. All of them have metaphysical commitments. Why should theirs be privileged? — Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) May 23, 2019

Exactly. A normative proposition like "don't kill" doesn't become invalid just because it is supported by religious traditions. Greenhouse's view of the Establishment Clause doesn't get more respect in legal scholarship because it has no basis in the Establishment Clause. — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2019

It’s not the pro life side that believes the magical personhood fairy comes out of the sky at some arbitrary time in a pregnancy and bestows humanity on a fetus (or newborn, or toddler, or whenever it is a person becomes a person). — Daniel Kalamaro (@dkalamaro) May 23, 2019

Beginning from "don't kill" is already prejudicing the answer in the direction you want. Your opponents don't see it as killing, and saying it in this way just ensures that you look like you're trying to bring your religious belief that it *is* killing through the side door. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

Do you have to be religious to think that killing a living human being is killing a living human being?

1. If you don't have laws against killing humans, you don't have a government. 2. If you have laws against killing people, those laws need to decide who is human or you don't have a law. 3. Must the definition of who is human exclude any definition used by a religion? — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2019

Every time you start from "this is killing humans," you've ended the discussion. That means no abortion, never, no exceptions. There's no debate. I respect that consistency, but I don't agree with it. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

This is basically "America should be pre-2019 Ireland," and that, to me, is a religious proposition. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

I would argue that "America should not be pre-2019 Ireland" is no more or less a religious proposition. But my question remains unanswered: can we have laws about killing humans & not define in law who the humans are that the law applies to? — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2019

I think it's unanswerable and that we will have two choices: draw an arbitrary line (the status quo since Roe) or say: No abortions, ever. I think the latter does more harm than good. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

So the definition is legitimate only if it is arbitrary? Again, we're not discussing what is the *right* definition but whether one definition is legitimate & another is not. You're conceding here the necessity of having a legal definition. — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2019

Of course I am. I'm objecting to you end-running that by saying "we need to agree that this is killing." You moved the goalposts from one of the field to the other. Are you saying there are times when it's *not* killing? — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

Come on, Tom.

You misunderstand my point, which is that we need to agree that *something* is killing, and this requires us to define who is a person for purposes of law. The need for such a definition fatally undermines Greenhouse's view that limits who can be heard on that question. — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2019

Unfortunately, I don't think any of this is about babies or women or rights at this point. And won't be for some years to come. It's about power. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

Oh, is that what the pro-life cause is all about?

I’m sure this insight will come as a great surprise to literally everyone paying any attention whatsoever to the abortion debate. https://t.co/44OByQES4x — Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) May 23, 2019

Razor-sharp insight as usual, Tom.

Right. A conspiracy theory. Where does Putin figure in? Has he been faking the writings of the Patristics and Scholastics and inserting them into our history books. — Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) May 23, 2019

What a stupid comment, Michael. I think it's about people passing laws they know will become controversial in order to land the court fight on TV in 2020 and pump turnout for the elections. I think it's evil and cynical. Not a conspiracy. Just shitty politics from bad people. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

The pro-life movement wasn't invented when you gave up on the GOP, Tom. — Michael Brendan Dougherty (@michaelbd) May 23, 2019

Bingo.

The Occam's Razor answer to "why now?" is that (1) there weren't pro-life majorities in the state legislatures & Gov mansions until very recently & (2) there is only since 2018 what looks like a possible anti-Roe majority on SCOTUS. — Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 23, 2019

And so the way to approach this existentially important question is to pass laws that you know can't be enforced to see if you can troll SCOTUS into ruling on the. It's not just "now," there's a cynicism to this that is breathtaking and recent, imo. — Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) May 23, 2019

Here’s a newsflash for Tom: It’s actually possible to be wary of anti-abortion legislation like that in Georgia and Alabama but still believe in the humanity of unborn babies and that abortion kills a living thing, not because religious faith says so but because science says so. This shouldn’t be difficult to grasp. But Tom seems to be having a hell of time grasping it.

Tom Nichols hasn’t given us too many reasons to respect him, but we could at least respect him a little bit if he’d just come right out and admit that he’s a grifter and a fraud.