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New Abortion Laws are Splitting the Right, Too
Compared to many of you, I’m new to the abortion discussion and am self-conscious about taking positions on it. I have never been pregnant nor have I had an abortion. Until about 15 years ago, I was pro-choice. Gradually I have found myself soundly in the pro-life position. Yet the arguments that are occurring, even among those on the Right, have caused me to take a closer look at my
beliefs. I thought our having that discussion here about the abortion laws might help many of us learn from each other and clarify our views.
First, there are many states that have decided, with exceptions and no exceptions, to ban abortion. There are a whole range of criteria for whether abortions should be banned and when and how abortions might be legal:
Multiple states such as Kentucky and Georgia have passed bills that ban abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, around six weeks of pregnancy, while Alabama recently passed the strictest abortion law in the country, banning the procedure with few exceptions.
Several other states are considering “trigger” laws that go into effect to ban abortion should Roe v. Wade be overturned, while other states like New York have passed bills that enshrine abortion rights.
In most of the states that have passed legislation regarding abortion, those laws will go into effect in the next month or two; in many cases, legal actions, particularly by the ACLU, have already been issued. And several other states are in the process of reviewing the status of abortion in their states to determine whether to take action.
The most intense controversy seems to be whether or not exceptions have been included in these laws for rape, incest, or the health of the mother. The Alabama Senate wrestled with this issue:
The Republican-majority chamber adjourned in dramatic fashion when leaders tried to strip a committee amendment that would have added an exception for cases of rape or incest. Sponsors insist they wanted to limit exceptions because the bill is designed to push the idea that a fetus is a person with rights, in a direct challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision that established a woman’s right to abortion.
Whether this approach would have the intended impact at the Supreme Court is difficult to discern.
The controversy rising among those on the Right is how to address exceptions to these bills:
Reporters on Capitol Hill have peppered Republican lawmakers with demands to know whether they agree with Alabama’s law, which forgoes the rape and incest exceptions.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said that for him personally, the Alabama law goes too far and that his position is in line with the views held by both President Trump and former President Ronald Reagan, who favored the exceptions. But Minority Whip Steve Scalise said that when he was in the Louisiana legislature, he supported anti-abortion legislation that only had exceptions for when the life of the mother was in danger.
‘I am strongly pro-life and I do believe we ought to try to protect life at every stage and that is why protecting the life of the mother was an exception I’ve always supported,’ he said.
There are some people who feel that after the horrendous experience of a rape or incest, a woman should not have to carry a baby to term; if her life is at risk, how does one decide which life to save? In some cases, the woman’s health at risk has included her mental health.
On the other hand, no matter how the baby was conceived, the baby is a human being, too. It didn’t choose to be conceived by rape or incest. It doesn’t bear responsibility for causing the mother’s health to be at risk.
And finally, if both lives are to be considered, should the mother be expected to carry the baby to term and take the option to relinquish him or her through adoption? Wouldn’t this choice be the most moral and fair for both?
A number of questions can be gleaned from this discussion—
*What criteria should be included in an abortion ban law, in your opinion?
* Should the potential impact on the Supreme Court be a consideration?
*What are your thoughts about exceptions to be made?
Published in Culture
The law should be designed to go to SCOTUS to overturn Roe. Otherwise, what is the point. GA’s law is crafted to do that. As for what I want morally, that is s different matter.
Abortion should be legal when it threatens the physical health of the mother. Like, she can have the baby or do chemo for the cancer she has (I know someone who had the baby and the cancer eventually killed her, 5 years later).
They day is coming when this will all crash down because of technology.
Someday in the future, either killing babies will be the norm, or we will be seen as barbarians. I pray and believe we will see the latter.
Planned Parenthood just took Kentucky and Indiana to court because they passed laws saying that you couldn’t get an abortion on the basis of race, color, ancestry, sex, or diagnosis of potential disability.
It seems to me that with the number of pro-life democrats, there is a bigger division on the left. But you won’t read about that on CNN.
For me, and I have been “in the abortion discussion” for decades, it has always seemed straight forward. It is a separate life. It is a baby. From the moment of conception. It is not just tissue or a fetus. Regardless of how conceived. And yes, that could mean great hardship for some mothers to carry to term (although the rape hypothetical is a PP lie – see @kozak comment). No different than other crosses in life that are ours to bear. After all, this is a new, unique and distinct life that Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence fully applied to …
Those words should protect fully the most vulnerable of our citizens in the womb.
However, in order to help resolve the self-conscious human aspects of taking a firm position on this most controversial of public issues, I go to science. I have posted this video multiple times before, but I never get tired of watching it. A NASA scientist utilized “visualization” tools used in other applications to “visualize” God’s creation … from conception to birth. This was at a TED talk, and you can tell how nervous and self-conscious Alexander Tsiaras was to deliver these scientific facts. Please note at the 7:00 minute mark (through minute 8:00) of the video, where he explains the mystery, the miracle, the magic of creation … and makes a scientific case for God Himself … “The complexity of these mathematical models … is beyond human comprehension. I marvel … it’s a mystery, it’s magic, it’s divinity”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKyljukBE70
Exactly. To forbid the killing at that stage in other scenarios is to admit that there is an unborn baby deserving of life. Therefore, what those exceptions propose is the killing of a baby either to spare the mother pains or to end the child’s potential genetic defects. If it is not okay to kill a born baby for those reasons, why would it be okay to kill a baby in the womb?
We do not kill innocents to spare anyone pain.
Emotionally, it would be easier to accept this simple logic if the Left did not hide stories of hope. Women have raised their children fathered by rape and not been tormented like the Left assumes. I shared such a story months ago on Ricochet of a mother who did not see her rapist in the face of her child, but joyfully loved the boy. The mother looks back in horror at the many people who advised her to kill her son.
Thanks, @columbo. The video does indeed demonstrate the miraculous.
The Innocents …
I saw this movie. Such courage, such love, great faith. I highly recommend it, too.
State laws are allowed to be as varied as the states that pass them.
This isn’t a national law and should not be subject to the same scrutiny as such laws by us.
I would rather rape exceptions in a Florida bill, but if there is the political will in my state to pass any limits, I’ll support them.
That does seem to be where the general public not focused on the issue are — they’re accepting of abortion in certain areas, but have more and more drawn the line where viability outside of the womb is now possible. That’s why other states have gone with 20-week limits in their bills, because it meshes with the technological advances (meanwhile, people on the left celebrated technology 25 years ago, when it came to the RU-486 “Morning After” abortion pill, but want to pretend it’s still 1973 when it comes to technology at the other end, that makes the viability of a baby delivered in the late second trimester possible).
A couple of points.
The rape argument is pretty much a straw man. Less then 5% of rapes result in pregnancy. In real rapes, like what I would see in the ER (rape rape as Whoppie would say) the number should be close to zero. Any woman who shows up at an ER is offered post coital contraception which is extremely effective.
The health of the mother argument is just a way to legalize almost all abortion. When you can argue that the woman is upset by being pregnant, that affects her mental health, and Shazam! you have a ticket to abort. Only very rare cases where pregnancy results in a real physical threat to the mothers life.
Personally I want to see Roe overturned and the issue sent back to the States. Then, Alabama can protect almost all children, and New York can offer them up to Moloch if the people of NY so decide.
The post-rape “burden” is a social construct. We could change the social construct (remove the stigma) rather than kill the baby. Genetic issues from incest have to be super rare and can probably be tested for.
Most pro-abortion arguments are really just social constructs.
I think this is where I’ll end up, @kozak. It should always have been a state issue. Even Justice Ginsberg has said it should have been with the states and pro-abortion rushed getting it to SCOTUS. I just wonder what state bill, if any, will be taken up by SCOTUS.
Yes!
Our country has effectively banned the Confederate Battle flag, because some racists flew it. Yet, we have Planned Parenthood that was created to kill the black race and 100 years later, we not only tolerate its existence, we fund it and some celebrate it!
A quote from BlackGenocide.org:
The first question is whether it is OK for any individual state to outlaw abortion under any and all circumstances? I think most people would say “no”, that you cannot deny the mother’s right to life to give the baby a chance to be born. This suggests then that there will be a nation-wide minimum and that must be founded either in federal legislation or a court decision that finds such a right in the mother.
The question then is how far does it go, where and how to balance the interests between mother and child.
Hope so. But Roe is the Holy Grail to the Left and I think they will pull out every stop to make sure it isn’t overturned.
Do you mean “legitimate” rapes?
Should laws on slavery have remained with the States?
Amanda Berry, one of the girls held captive by Ariel Castro in Ohio, felt her baby fathered by Castro, was a blessing, a gift.
No. The Constitution says that all men are created equal, along with other federal requirements in constitutional amendments regarding slavery.
Well, the Constitution was amended in order to give Congress specific power over the States, as opposed to the Federal Government just doing it.
It seems then that it’s critically important to determine when a fetus becomes a person falling under the protection of the Constitution. If you’re saying that it’s okay to leave it to the States to determine, then why wasn’t it okay to leave it to the States to determine whether African-Americans qualified? I’m not trying to be smart, I really don’t see the distinction.
I get the argument that returning the issue to the States would be preferable to status quo, as many states would greatly restrict abortions beyond what the Supreme Court allows now, but to argue that that’s the optimal solution just makes no sense to me. At some point in development (conception, heartbeat, viability, birth, feel free to argue) a baby is protected by the Constitution. I don’t see how the identification of that point can be left to the States. In Georgia, the 7 week old with a heartbeat is a person with rights but in New York they’re not?
Yes, abortion and slavery boil down to the same essential question: How do we identify an American citizen inherently deserving of certain rights?
It was decided that the most basic liberties must be defended nationally, without regard to federalism. If it’s true for defending blacks, it is true for defending babies.
Federalism on abortion might be easier to secure. But it was similarly pragmatic to let federalism and persuasion take their course in the situation of slavery.
Until there were the requisite Constitutional Amendments? Yes. And the same with abortion.
As for me, I support rape exceptions; its a balance between an unborn’s right to life, and the physical liberty of the mother. For me, the voluntary nature of the inherently risky act of recreational sex is not an unimportant detail when it comes to this balancing act.
And also like slavery, for those that really care there is no compromise. A little bit of slavery is not acceptable. A little bit of baby killing is not acceptable versus little bit of friction/cost to abortion is not acceptable.
That doesn’t help the mother. It compounds her pain by following a horror inflicted upon her with an evil in which she is complicit.
From Lifesite News:
I fall on the heartbeat standard, as it is easy to understand and grounded in medical practice – having a pulse generally means you are alive. Prior to the onset of the heartbeat, abortion is treated as an elective medical procedure. That means:
After the heartbeat is present, abortion is only allowed for the mother’s physical health. Two physicians must concur and sign an affidavit stating why the fetus is being killed. Fetal remains are treated as human remains under the law.
Nonsense. The child is clearly, evidently alive at conception. A heartbeat is not necessary to establish that other multicellular microscopic organisms are alive. Nor is a heartbeat particular to humans, so it does not identify the being’s humanity.
Y’all are just rationalizing from cheap compassion for the mother at the expense of the child. If you want to be honest, at least phrase your ethics in terms of: “I believe a baby can be killed by his or her mother when…”
I would prefer that rape victims choose to carry such children to term, and believe those who do so demonstrate great moral fiber, and those who are able raise the children themselves demonstrate uncommon emotional strength.
Above all else, however, the baby in question is blameless with an equal right to life as other unborn children……and nonetheless I hold my position cognizant of that fact. Perhaps it is fair to characterize my position as similar to the ostensible position of moderate pro-choicers, but with the valuation of competing rights weighted far more heavily on that of the unborn.
Do not presume my thought processes or question my honesty, sir. I honestly did not consider the mother or any compassion for her in my thinking on the issue.
When is a person dead? We declare people dead when most of their cells are alive – otherwise heart transplants would be impossible. You could culture stem cells with a person’s DNA for years after they are dead and buried, or freeze them and revive them. Even in very clear, traumatic deaths such as decapitation, some cells will remain alive for quite a while after death, even without preservation.
It’s not just the unique DNA – cancers commonly have different DNA from the host.
That was why I settled on heartbeat. It is a clear and understandable line that people can understand, it is reliably detectable, and to the best of my knowledge it is seen before fetal brain activity, giving a margin of safety. I am willing to error on the side of caution here. However, I am not going to ride to the defense of a clump of cells. Do people actually view the zygote as having the full rights of personhood? If a zygote fails to implant or is shed early on, does it get a name and a funeral?