Throughout my life, I’ve spent a great
deal of time thinking about the issue of abortion.
With a lot of thought and prayer, I’ve
come to the conclusion that it is murder. It just totally violates my value
system.
Now, I’m a Catholic. That informs my views.
You might disagree because of your
religion, or for any of a million other reasons. Reasonable, decent people can come
to completely different opinions on this issue.
But what I find unreasonable and
indecent – in fact what I find disturbing – are the abortion laws taking hold or
even just being raised in states as different as New York and Virginia.
You’ve probably seen some of the
headlines about this.
New York used to permit third-trimester
abortions only if the mother’s life was in danger. Now, New York law will allow
third-trimester abortions if needed to protect the mother’s “life or health”
(italics mine). It will be up to the doctor, the patient and probably some
legal opinions, to determine what “health” means, and whether or not the doctor
can recommend aborting a perfectly healthy, viable baby.
The bill also “decriminalizes” abortion
by defining homicide based on the murder of “a human being who has been born
and is alive.” So New York law does not consider it homicide to kill an unborn
baby no matter how close it is to delivery.
What does this decriminalization mean
in practice? Well, just after the bill was passed, a New York prosecutor
dropped an abortion charge against a man who murdered his girlfriend when she
was 14 weeks pregnant because of this bill.
I cannot imagine that most Americans
think that charge should be dropped.
Virginia proposed a bill that went even
further than New York in easing its late-term abortion laws.
Like the New York bill, it lowered the
bar for when a third-trimester abortion could occur far below life and death.
But it also allowed, in the words of the legislator who drafted the bill,
abortion “through the third trimester.”
Here’s the relevant back-and-forth between
the legislator and one of her colleagues on the bill:
COLLEAGUE:
How late in the third trimester could a physician perform an abortion if he
indicated it would impair the mental health of the woman?
LEGISLATOR:
Through the third trimester…The third trimester goes all the way up to 40
weeks.
COLLEAGUE:
Where it’s obvious that a woman is about to give birth, that she has physical
signs that she is about to give birth, would that still be a point at which she
could request an abortion if she was so certified?…She’s dilating…I’m asking
if your bill allows that.
LEGISLATOR:
“My bill would allow that, yes…”
Virginia’s governor, who is himself a
doctor, stood by the legislation. And he went even further. In the governor’s
reading, the bill would allow an infant to be aborted after being born. Here are his exact words: “The infant would be
delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be
resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a
discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Thankfully, the people in the Virginia
legislator had the good sense to reject this law.
But I was, and remain, both shaken and
angered over these comments. I still can’t believe the bill ever got as far as
it did.
Abortion after a baby is delivered is
not “abortion.” It is infanticide. That is true whether you are a Catholic or
an atheist.
I tremble just thinking about this.
Human lives are precious.
Government’s job is to protect our
lives so we can pursue our happiness.
That our leaders would permit people to
murder the gift from God that is man simply shocks the conscience.
No matter your position on abortion, I hope you will consider just how disturbing these bills are at their core, and pause to think about what they say about the direction of our country.
