Colorado’s whitewashing of Aurora Wilkins’s murder seems like the sort of thing people of conscience would find unacceptable.  Yet here we are, accepting it.

On March 18, Dynel Lane savagely attacked Michelle Wilkins, butchering her to get at Aurora.  Ms. Lane had been telling people she was pregnant when she wasn’t, and now she wanted a young corpse that she could pass off for a miscarriage so that she could avoid the impending awkwardness of a prenatal checkup.

After luring Ms. Wilkins to her home, Dynel proceeded to stab her repeatedly with a knife.  Dynel then left Michelle for dead in the basement, but not before tearing Aurora from her womb.  Fortunately, Michelle managed to survive the attack.  Her daughter – being an utterly defenseless seven-month fetus – was not successful in her struggle for life.  Whether or not Aurora survived the initial attack is, of course, a moot point.  Dynel needed a dead baby, not a live one to show off.

The people of Colorado, however, want to shield Dynel Lane from accusations that she actually murdered anyone.  They believe that pretending that Aurora was not murdered is something they, as a people, have to do in order to provide Planned Parenthood with the legal cover it needs to feel comfortable savagely ripping apart other babies like Aurora who might not be as loved by their mothers.

The people of Colorado should be credited with their understanding of how biology works.  They realize that fetuses do not magically acquire humanity simply by virtue of their mothers’ wanting them.  So a wanted child is no more a human being than an unwanted child.  The moral and legal status of one stands and falls with the status of the other.  If Dynel Lane is a murderer, then so too is any and every abortionist who takes the life of a fetus for reasons other than protecting the life of the mother.  Kudos to the people of Colorado for getting this right.

Nevertheless, it is obvious to anyone not blinded by pro-abortion ideology that Aurora was murdered.  She was alive; now she’s dead.  She’s dead because someone wanted her dead, plotted to kill her, and executed the plan – successfully.  That’s generally what we call murder.

This is not a complicated technical point that we need lawyers to figure out for us, nor is it an abstract conceptual argument we need philosophers to settle for us.  Aurora was a healthy living human being safe in her mother’s womb one minute.  The next, she was a bloody corpse in a tub.  Assuming you are not a sociopath, you are probably thinking to yourself, Yeah, that kinda sounds like murder.

Coloradans know this, of course.  They understand that Aurora was murdered, even if they pretend to think the issue is complicated.  But at the end of the day, they judge that refusing to admit that Aurora was murdered is preferable to conceding that ripping a child from her mother’s womb, killing her, and tossing her body aside might have an effect on the victim that society should be worried about.