There's a picture of the President with his fist clenched as he makes a strong point: "Clinton, on Thursday, angrily defending his veto of legislation to ban partial birth abortions and accusing his Republican critics of being willing to sacrifice a woman's health for political gain."

The reporter says, "His voice shaking, his face flushed with anger and his fingers jabbing the air for emphasis, Clinton said that presumed GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole and other critics of this veto were telling women, `It's okay with me if they rip your body to shreds and you can never have another baby, even though the baby you were carrying couldn't live.' I'm always a little skeptical when politicians piously proclaim their morality."

I wonder why that is? Some might say it's because President Clinton has little morality to piously proclaim. The irony is that he says in the next sentence, "I fail to see why his [speaking of Bob Dole] moral position is superior to the one I took." That sounds to me like he's proclaiming his morality. In any event, I want you to see the argument he's making.

Even though the partial birth abortion bill has been vetoed--at least on a federal level-- it may come back. It certainly is timely here in California because in just a couple of days, there will be a vote on the Assembly floor on a statewide bill dealing with this issue.

It's important for more reasons than that. It's important as an example of how we do moral reasoning--how we do moral thinking. President Clinton wants to argue that partial birth abortion is justifiable when the mother's general health--not her life, but her general health--is threatened. I emphasize "not her life" because the ban on partial birth abortion did not apply to a woman whose life was in danger. If you disagree with the President, then you think it's okay to, in the President's words, rip her body to shreds and she could never have another baby.

Now, that isn't exactly my position and I don't think it's the pro-lifer's position. We do care what happens to a woman. Let me underscore an absolutely vital but often ignored step in making decisions like this, a step the President apparently is not aware of.

You must first ask the question, what is it that we kill when we perform an abortion? before you can ask the question, is this procedure morally permissible--is it okay for me to destroy this? If I ask you the last question, can you answer it? Of course not. You'll have to ask another question first. You're going to have to ask, what is the "this" you want to destroy?

You don't say that we have a right to destroy anything we want, that we have a right to choose, no matter what it is. No, you must first know what it is I plan to destroy before you can give permission. Isn't that right?

For inanimate things, the main issue is ownership. If its yours, you can do with it what you want, generally speaking. It's your car--smash it up if you want to.

For living things, though, the standards are different. You don't even have the liberty to destroy your own pet in this state, unless it's a goldfish. The government has to do it for you or you're breaking the law. You can't put your kitty cat down, you've got to take your kitty to the Humane Society and let them do it for you.

So you can destroy your own property if you want to, as long as it's inanimate, but you can't choose to destroy living things even when you own them, generally speaking. Living things have a different standard.

Do you see what I'm doing? I am simply trying to be careful in analyzing this question and slowly build a line of reasoning in a principled fashion to answer the question, can I destroy this? The answer requires the answer to a prior question--what is "this"--because different rules apply depending on what it is we want to destroy.

Can I destroy human beings? That's the issue in abortion. Can we destroy this human being? That kind of depends. Under what conditions can we destroy human beings?

Clinton was offended because Bob Dole postured like he was taking the high moral ground in the partial birth abortion issue. The President felt his stance was moral because it protected the health (not the life) of the mother, including her ability to reproduce. For the President, that is a sufficient justification for partial birth abortion.

How does one answer a question like this? How does one deal with the issue? Is it adequate to simply say that the mother's health can be improved? No, you have to ask some other questions first. That justification isn't adequate in itself. It depends on what it is you want to destroy. What is the "this" in question?

When it comes to human beings, the government can destroy human beings who are guilty of capital crimes. Private citizens can destroy human beings who pose an immediate lethal threat to them. I don't know any other circumstances where we generally say we are morally justified in destroying another human being.

Note this in the issue of self defense: We can't automatically kill, even in this situation, unless our life is in danger. We can't take the life of an assailant just to preserve our health. We can only use lethal defense if there's a threat to our life.

So I ask President Clinton, why should partial birth abortion remain legal? Does partial birth abortion qualify as one of those circumstances in which it is justified to destroy another human life? He answers, because it protects the health of the mother. In some cases, it allows her to have children again in the future.

For the sake of argument, I'll concede two things. First, all partial birth abortions are done to protect the health of the mother. (This is actually false, statistically speaking, but I will concede it for the sake of argument.) Second, I'll also concede that it's an undeniable good for a woman to be able to retain her ability to have children. It's a tragedy if a woman loses that capability.

Even if we grant the President both of his presuppositions, is his moral thinking sound? His view looks something like this: Women should have the right to kill their innocent children (and it's undeniable that they are children in the case of partial birth abortion) because it will protect their general health and may make it possible for them to bear more children in the future.

That's his rationale. Here's a question I ask you: Is it morally acceptable to take the life of another innocent human being to improve your health or to insure your future ability to conceive? Can we kill other people to improve our quality of life? That's the question. The President says yes. There is some obfuscation in the way this argument is expressed. It isn't always clear because of the emotional language that's tossed about, but it's the very argument when all of the rhetoric and emotional language is peeled away. It's the moral reasoning the President offers, make no mistake about it.

There's only one element I've left out of the analysis: Can we kill other people to improve our quality of life? The President thinks so, and in this case, the baby is going to die anyway. Some people think this is a very relevant consideration. In order to determine whether it is a relevant consideration we have to modify our original question: Is it okay for me to kill another human being if he's going to die anyway and his immediate death at my hands will benefit me?

Consider this: You have a child with incurable cancer who will die in about a month. Her 21st birthday is tomorrow. If she dies before she turns 21, a large trust in her name will automatically be transferred to you. However, if she lives another 24 hours, you get nothing.

Now, she's going to die anyway. She won't die tomorrow, but certainly she'll die next week or next month. Can you kill her tonight to get the money because, after all, she's going to die anyway? Can you kill your daughter tonight to gain this benefit for yourself because sometime in the very, very near future she's going to die anyway? Is that morally acceptable?

It is not. It is not morally acceptable to kill another human being just so you can benefit from it, even though the child will die in the very near future anyway.

What do we usually call it when we take an innocent life to improve our health, wealth, or well-being? We call it a crime! And we call those who do it criminals. Criminals kill other people to improve their quality of life. The President doesn't see it that way, though.

Let me pull this together for you. It all boils down to this: Is the life of a human child precious enough that no possible personal benefit can justify taking it? The answer used to be yes. No longer.

The sad irony here is that the President actually argues that he is taking the high moral ground. Killing an innocent human child for my personal benefit--even when the benefit is something very good--is not the high moral ground because it's based on a rule that turns out to be selfish, barbaric, and immoral. We can't kill other people to make our own life better. We can only take another life when that person is guilty of some serious crime-- which the child isn't--or when it threatens our own life, which is not the case in this legislation regarding partial birth abortion.

The bill the President vetoed simply treated the unborn child like the human being he or she is. The President is willing to sacrifice a child for a woman's personal benefit and he says, "I fail to see why [Bob Dole's] moral position is superior to the one I took."

The reason, Mr. President, is that we can't kill other people in order to make our own life better.