In an op-ed piece published in Boulder Weekly, Jill Hopke laments the horrible state we’ve come to in America, writing “In 2003, Bush signed into law a federal ban on late term abortions, called the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act…This law does not include any exceptions for medically necessary abortions…”
On this topic, the former president of Planned Parenthood, Alan Guttmacher, weighs in: "Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal disease such as cancer or leukemia, and if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save the life of the mother.i"
In other words, medical necessity is rarely a factor in making a decision about whether or not to abort a child.
Hopke, in an attempt to undermine the partial birth ban, goes on to say “partial-birth abortion is not a medical term used by the American Medical Association..” Why is this important? Semantics matter when you’re talking about killing children. That’s why they’re referred to as “fetuses” instead of babies. Hopke would rather refer to partial birth abortion as a “professionally accepted procedure such as intact dilation and extraction.” Sounds better, doesn’t it? What does it involve?
From Wikipedia, here’s a synopsis: “The fetus is turned to a breech position, if necessary, and the doctor pulls one or both legs out of the birth canal, causing what is referred to by some people as the 'partial birth' of the fetus. The doctor subsequently extracts the rest of the fetus, usually without the aid of forceps, leaving only the head still inside the birth canal. An incision is made at the base of the skull, scissors are inserted into the incision and opened to widen the opening,[9] and then a suction catheter is inserted into the opening. The brain is suctioned out, which causes the skull to collapse and allows the fetus to pass more easily through the birth canal. ii” Let’s put that in layman’s terms: The doctor pulls the baby part way out, cuts open the skull, shoves in scissors, then sucks the brain out before pulling the baby out the rest of the way. When you hear in plain language what is involved you can see why semantics matter to pro-abortion activists.
Let me ask another question – if the baby can be delivered that far, why can’t it be delivered all the way? Certainly, if there’s a life threatening condition, with the child hasving reached a viable stage of development he or she can be delivered via c-section to end the pregnancy without ending a life. As said on the American Life League site: “Essentially, both mother and child should be treated as patients. A doctor should try to protect both. iii”
The answer is that abortion is not about reproductive rights or reproductive “justice” as Obama calls it; it’s actually about convenience. As Obama says himself: "Look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
That says it better than I ever could. Abortion is about avoiding the consequences of one’s actions. Whether it’s going to negatively impact a career, a college education, or anger parents of a young or unwed girl, an unexpected child is hugely inconvenient. The liberal first line of defense is abortion – it’s quick, easy and until later term abortion was outlawed, easy to access. They never talk about other options like adoption unless they’re pushed.
This year, congress is going to try to reopen the partial birth door with the Freedom Of Choice act. Introduced by Barbara Boxer, the stated purpose is “To protect, consistent with Roe v. Wade, a woman's freedom to choose to bear a child or terminate a pregnancy, and for other purposes. iv” The bill is thick with scary language like the following: “Prior to the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, an estimated 1,200,000 women each year were forced to resort to illegal abortions, despite the risk of unsanitary conditions, incompetent treatment, infection, hemorrhage, disfiguration, and death. Before Roe, it is estimated that thousands of women died annually in the United States as a result of illegal abortions.”
This is not true in the least. Bernard Nathanson was one of the founding members of NARAL, and in his “confession of an ex-abortionist v” he says: “This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.”
The FOCA also quotes the World Health Organization as saying that 600,000 pregnancy deaths occur world-wide every year, 80,000 of them from illegal abortions. The intent is to make us think that if this act isn’t passed, those numbers could be applied here in the US. Again, this is a feint to mislead anyone who would actually take the time to read the bill.
However, also according to WHOvi , 97% of these deaths occur in developing countries in Africa and Asia where hospitals lack proper sanitation, health care in general is poor and access to medical facilities problematic. The most common complications leading to death both in a pregnancy and an abortion in the developing world include hemorrhage, sepsis, peritonitis, and trauma to the cervix, vagina, uterus, and abdominal organs. WHO also states that the main barriers to proper care include:
- frequent shortages or lack of medications, essential supplies and equipment;
- inadequate blood transfusion services;
- inefficient laboratory support services;
- inadequate staffing, shortage of appropriately trained personnel and lack of staff supervision;
- shortage of operating theatres for obstetric emergencies, resulting in delays in surgical interventions;
- weak policy on delegation of authority for the management of obstetric emergencies, and
- mismanagement of obstetric complications as a result of staff incompetence, negligence or poor attitude.
The truth is that the worldwide deaths related to pregnancy (roughly 10% are from “unsafe” abortion – WHO does not use the term “illegal”) have more to do with the quality of medical care in the developing world. In America both the quality of care and the access to it are among the best in the world – it is only the convenience of abortion on demand that liberals feel is lacking. The fact that they must dress up their argument with bogus statistics and muddy the waters with global, third-world data should tell people this piece of legislation should be sent to the shredder.
i http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10216
ii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction
iii http://www.all.org/article.php?id=10216
iv http://www.nrlc.org/FOCA/FOCA2007S1173.html
v http://www.aboutabortions.com/Confess.html
vi http://www.who.int/whr/2005/overview/en/index4.html
vii http://www.afro.who.int/press/2003/regionalcommittee/pr20030904.html
POST SCRIPT:
I got this from the "against the so-called freedom of choice act" group on facebook.
What can you do to stop FOCA?
1. Sign the petition: http://www.fightfoca.com
2. Take part in the peaceful protests for life in January 2009 - more info here http://www.facebook.com/gr
3. Leave a comment on President-elect Obama's website about FOCA: http://change.gov/open_gov
4. Find your Senators and Representatives here http://www.congress.org/co
No comments:
Post a Comment