I throw the needle right down the middle.

This is the one case where the middle is right — and I don’t mean the shrug. I mean the hardest place to stand: a full conviction, and a full refusal to make you less human for landing somewhere else.

My lines, named honestly

I should tell you where my frame comes from before I say a word: the River — a Catholic lens. And I’ll say the honest thing about it out loud: that isn’t necessarily the right lens. It’s the one I was handed. It’s the lines I happen to know. I hold it as mine — not as everyone’s, not as the last word, not as a truth I get to press onto you. A man should know which of his certainties he inherited and which he earned. This one I inherited, and I’m keeping it anyway — with both eyes open about what it is.

The needle

Both halves carry the same weight. The first is my conscience — my line, my money, my frame. The second is the floor — and the floor was never mine to move. I can hold what I believe and still refuse to turn you into a villain for believing something else. Those aren’t in tension. They’re the whole point.

Why the middle is right here

Everywhere else in this house, the only loss is the shrug in the middle — best and worst both score; the mush is the one thing that doesn’t. So why is this middle the exception?

Because the mush avoids the question. This answers it — twice, in the same breath. It says “no, I won’t join you” and “yes, you are still completely human” at once, and it refuses the trade where you have to delete one to keep the other. That’s not the absence of a spine. That’s two spines at the same time — and holding both is harder than picking a tribe and hating the rest. The comfortable middle ducks. This middle stands in the open and takes fire from both directions on purpose.

The dehumanizing is the enemy — on every side

This wing started with a comment that called a man a “traitor,” an “enemy,” “only good for Iran,” for a policy view. That’s one side deleting a person. But let’s be honest — the other side does it too: “clump of cells,” “forced-birther” — smaller, colder words for a person on the far end of them. The wing refuses both.

The dignity floor covers everyone in the room: the woman making the hardest decision of her life, and the person whose conscience says no. You do not have to agree with someone to refuse to erase them. That refusal is the one thing I won’t trade — not for my side, not for yours.

The duel

So here is the duel, and it has exactly one rule: no dehumanizing. Bring the strongest, most human version of your case — for life or for choice — and make it to a person you refuse to turn into an enemy. Only humans score.

And here’s the house’s standing verdict, before a single round is argued: whoever reaches for the dehumanizing word loses — regardless of which side they’re on. The position never loses here. The cruelty does. Win the argument if you can; you cannot win it by making the other person less than a person.

I will never pay for your abortion.
I will never dehumanize you for having one.
The needle, right down the middle.