A woman I know told me recently how she came to see abortion in a different light: “I was pro-abortion without thinking much about it. I just took it for granted that abortion was okay—women’s rights, the right to control your own body, the usual stuff. Then one day my mother told me she’d intended to abort me. She changed her mind when I started kicking. And hearing that, I changed my mind, too.”
She paused, then added, “I guess I’m still kicking.”
This woman was lucky. Sixty million unborn children—the number aborted in America since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973—weren’t so fortunate.
As the November 8 election nears, preserving legal abortion is said to be one of the top issues on many people’s minds. If so, that reflects a decision by Democratic candidates to capitalize on negative reaction—whipped up by pro-abortion groups and major national media —against the court’s June ruling overturning Roe.
We shall have a much clearer picture after November 8 of what the congressional landscape on abortion is going to look like for at least the next two years. As matters stand, two pieces of pending legislation stand at opposite ends of the political debate.
One, backed by congressional Democrats and President Biden, is the misleadingly named Women’s Health Protection Act, which the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops calls “the most extreme abortion on demand bill our nation has ever seen.”
The bill would establish an unrestricted national right to abortion up to viability and then allow it any time after that on a health care provider’s word that continuing the pregnancy would harm the woman’s mental health. It would override virtually all state restrictions on abortion, undermine conscience protections for care providers who object to abortion, and allow taxpayer funding of abortion under Medicaid.
The other bill, introduced in the Senate by Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and in the House by Chris Smith (R-NJ), would establish a nationwide minimum standard for the protection of the unborn by barring abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy. Individual states would be free to adopt legislation providing tougher protection if they wished, as some have already done.
Unless one party has ironclad control of both the House and the Senate in the next Congress, neither bill has much immediate chance of passage. And even if by some miracle the Graham-Smith bill was adopted, Biden would be certain to veto it. In the short run, nevertheless, the bills do provide talking points for their respective sponsors.
From the prolife point of view, the best solution in the long run would be legislation—or, ideally, a constitutional amendment—declaring that the unborn child possesses the rights of legal personhood, including the right to life. Looked at realistically, there is no possibility of that in the foreseeable future, but as one prolife lawyer put it to me privately, “After all, it took the Supreme Court 50 years to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
That underlines the fact that lasting success of the prolife movement will require the patient, persevering work of education and motivation. Laws and court decisions are of crucial importance, of course, but in the long run, restoring a prolife culture in America will be essential.
The woman quoted above changed her mind when she realized that the unborn are human beings at an early stage of development. That’s the message. “I guess I’m still kicking,” the woman said. Prolife Americans have to keep kicking, too.
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Has anyone played a fetal heartbeat outside a termination clinic?
Even decades prior to the Lambeth conference, Resolution 15 on contraception, America’s capitulation of absolute Truth and Divine authority had been creepily growing. The “free love” movement of the mid to later 1800s, along with the eugenics emerging in the early 20th century was a bow to that “individual” conscience that–if we are honest–will always give us our way. There must be an outside (ourselves) immutable authority that transcend development and group–if not mob–influences. W know it as the Magisterium of the Church. Regrettably, though, our country is pluralistic…even now agnostic and leaning atheistic. However, one could well state that the most dangerous enemy to natural law are those who claim devoutness to Catholicism/Christianity. It seems that we keep forgetting that the devil knows Scripture all too well. So, excuse me if I doubt that matters will improve, mostly anticipate the absolute dissolvement of the Republic and foresee intense persecution by enemies both domestic and foreign. However, I will strive to remain theologically hopeful…faithful…and charitable, even of good cheer.
I was pro-“choice” before I became an analytical person in my late teens. I simply could not find that second in time where I could say “there, now this is a human being”. The only time I could point to that something was not human yet was BEFORE the joining of the sperm and egg. After that, life grew. However, balanced against that knowledge is the fact that we all accept justified homicide in defense of self or others. THAT, in my opinion, is the major moral battle we are engaged in. We can no more say NO KILLING EVER of humans outside the woman, forbidding self and other defense, than we can say NO KILLING EVER of humans inside the womb, when in the extremely rare case that enwombed human may result in the death of the mother. For example, I knew a woman once who was advised to abort so she could have radiation and chemo for her newly discovered cancer. She refused, a model of self-sacrificial love for her child, but can we actually legislate that? Or a severely cognitively impaired woman, pregnant, who would suffer immeasurably from being pregnant and then being forced to give her baby up. Can we legislate that? Or an enwombed baby is found to have a genetic disorder which will cause daily horrific physical pain until their death, what is the moral choice? When I was pregnant, I told God that if my baby had one of those disorders, to save my baby from the immense daily suffering I had seen in my work, I would accept hell and abort. And yes, these disorders exist. I am talking ONLY of disorders of immense pain and suffering of the CHILD. This is such a morass of morality choices. Though I am deeply opposed to abortion and know it to be murder, and I am deeply opposed to killing anyone and know that to be murder, I also understand there are times of “justified killing” in different horrific circumstances. I wish we could shift the conversation to this, with wise legislation, versus all or none, black or white, “no abortion after 15 weeks period with no exceptions” or “no restrictions ever on any abortion” This makes me absolutely shudder with horror. Brings to mind Peter Singer, an “ethicist” at Princeton, who once advocated for “abortion” after birth for some time if the baby was defective.
One step at a time please Pauline. Why not law that asks us to accept,help and love the imperfect. The course you feel so deeply about is honorable, yet it will allow all abortions, forever. How many have to die before we at least take the first steps?
“From the prolife point of view, the best solution in the long run would be legislation—or, ideally, a constitutional amendment—declaring that the unborn child possesses the rights of legal personhood, including the right to life.”
The natural right to life is already recognized in the Constitution. It is highly likely that it is recognized in every state constitution. As such, “legislation” permitting abortion is void (And this would be the case even if the right to life wasn’t recognized in constitutions.), and amounts to complicity with murder.
“That underlines the fact that lasting success of the prolife movement will require the patient, persevering work of education and motivation. Laws and court decisions are of crucial importance, of course, but in the long run, restoring a prolife culture in America will be essential.”
This ought not to be the case. Do we believe that it is necessary to educate and motivate to convince people that murder is wrong? Of course not!
What is most needed is clear-headed just prosecutors and media publication of the prosecution(s).
Once the humanity of the unborn is recognized, it should be possible in law to protect that life, with recognition that such life is entitled to a legal advocate. If the decision to take that life is only between the mother and her doctor, the unborn child has no one to speak for him or her. As in self defense, our legal system should be able to weigh the needs of the child and the mother in those few extreme and horrific cases where natural human compassion calls for some leniency. This is not to say that an abortion in such cases is good or right, but is an example of where common sense and thoughtful legislation might bring some balance between widely divergent views.
Even after 60 Million lost souls of Gods creation.That’s still not enough for the Devil in his workshop.We still have far too many Catholics at MASS with hearts of stone.That continue to vote for men & women with a {D} after their name.The {D} is the “Brand” of the Devil.
Abortion is Anti GOD! We are:”One NATION under GOD!” GOD IS the GIVER of LIFE! Thus, what is Anti GOD is Anti USA! A NATION FOUDED UNDER JEWDEO – CRHISTIAN PRINCIPLES! Those are our ROOT! Anything that is away from its’root dies in the fullness of time! Would you like to see the flag of other country flying over our sky? Some GODLESS nations are waiting….
“One NATION under GOD, indivisible, with Liberty and justice for all!”
God is LIFE! He is the CREATOR OF EVERY LIVIING AND EVEY LIFELESS THING within the UNIVERSE that he created for all!
“If you love me, keep my COMMANDMENTS!” John 14:15! God is MASTER OF AL THINGS! HE is JUST! His JUSTICE wull be served in the FULNESS OF TIME! OBEY HIS LAW!