Selective Morals
It makes me sick to my stomach that the American people require a Supreme Court ruling to tell them that partial-birth abortions are an abomination. Consider this short, unemotional description of the procedure:
The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman’s uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.
Read that one more time.
If that isn’t upsetting enough, consider the alternate procedure that is left as the most preferable alternative now that this particular method has been outlawed:
Abortion opponents say the law will not reduce the number of abortions performed because an alternate method—dismembering the fetus in the uterus—is available and, indeed, much more common.
Of course, the Chinese have had an alternate procedure for years, made popular by the country’s single-child ordinance. Why bother pulling the baby out during a medical procedure before crushing its skull or dismembering it, when such operations can be much more readily performed after a natural birth?
A 3-month premature baby with a skull mashed in is murder, and a good enough human interest story to get capital punishment discussed. A 6-month fetus with a skull mashed in is legal, and apparently preferable to adoption. Perhaps a child becomes human when the mother sees it outside her body.
“Women’s rights” groups are outraged that partial-birth abortions have been banned. I wonder what the level of public support for these groups would be if middle-school health/sex-ed classes forced youngsters to view videos of abortions in the same way that drivers-ed classes show the bloody aftermath of car accidents?
I think what baffles me the most is that enough doctors are willing to actually perform such a procedure that it has gained such widespread popularity. At the risk of redundancy, here’s that short description of partial-birth abortion one more time:
The procedure at issue involves partially removing the fetus intact from a woman’s uterus, then crushing or cutting its skull to complete the abortion.
(optional disturbing image)
You could not pay me enough to do that. And I mean that sincerely. If I knew someone that could be convinced to do that for money, I would stop being friends with that person.
As of 1996, 1.37 million abortions were being performed each year. I won’t bother comparing that to war-related or holocaust deaths. How can we as a country, and as human beings, countenance this as a concession to human rights?
April 21st, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Another weird thing in this country—how illegal is it to disturb unborn baby bald eagles (i.e. eggs)? Are unborn creatures meaningful to society or not? And humans have LESS protection?
And you know that partial birth abortions “for the health of the mother” are only done when the mother does not want the baby. Otherwise, everything possible is done to save the baby. Certainly many can be saved at that stage of development, and in fact many babies must be delivered early to save the mother, but they don’t have to kill the baby to do it.