Returning to partial-birth abortion
John J. Kwiatek / Sitting In
Friday, December 12, 2003
I received a letter this week from a reader of my past commentaries asking why I have been so silent lately about two big issues which have drawn much attention by the media. He asked me why there hasn't been more outcry by Roman Catholics about same-sex marriage and partial birth abortion? He questioned the silence of folks like myself in the face of judicial overreaching and interference in these matters. I had no good answer to give. I have to admit that I have been silent for too long and so I'll try again.
Consider the quantum leap the courts have taken in justifying same-sex marriage and partial birth abortion. What they propose is greater weight to privacy and less to openness to the propagation of human life. Since when has truth been served by fostering untruth through judicial activism? Today, I hope to restate my objection to abortion on demand and, if permitted to do so by this paper, in the near future, I will address same-sex "marriage."
Consider the "truths" and "choices" asserted by the pro-abortion lobby and their allies in the judiciary. They tell us that a woman has "a right to choose," but to choose what? A fetus is called an "appendage of the mother" over which she has a life and death right to decide, but can a female who bears a son have a male appendage?
They tell us that partial birth abortion should be allowed in cases where the life and health of the mother is at risk, but if the mother's life is at so great a risk, why is the procedure not performed in a hospital but rather in a clinic? Why is it performed over a three-day period and with the mother going home overnight? Those who are against abortion are labeled "anti-choice," but why aren't we entitled to choose to abide by strongly held religious objection to infanticide?
When are we going to tell the painful truth about abortion? No rhetoric should divert our attention from the facts about this procedure. An abortion stops a beating human heart. Many will debate the quality or development of that human life, but it is life.
Ultrasound photography is a window on the womb. Tonight I saw an ultrasound of my first grandchild. There is no doubt in my mind that what grows within the womb of my daughter is a baby. No medical procedure gives so little information on the risks to the health and welfare of the woman as does abortion. Women considering an abortion deserve to be as fully informed and free of family pressure to make an educated choice. Truth must take precedence over expediency.
The two women most responsible for today's laws on the right to abortion call the last three decades "Thirty Years of Lies." Both Norma McCovey, plaintiff in "Roe v. Wade," and Sandra Cano, plaintiff in "Doe v. Bolton," claim to have been used as pawns in these cases which were deceptively presented to the Supreme Court. They were misled by their counsel about the facts of the case and in both suits wish that they had had nothing to do with this ruling.
Late Gov. Robert P. Casey asked a piercing question in his book "Fighting for Life": "Who ever envisioned that the banner of 'equal rights' would be unfurled over the abortion clinic? Who expected that we would ever think of a mother and a child as having separate interests, as rivals in a dispute over power, much less enshrine the idea into law?"
Please let me conclude with the following anecdote. Recently, a young mother, with the assistance of a health counselor, had her baby rather than following through with an abortion. She said: "Not going through with the pregnancy, you'll never understand how much better of a person you could have been." She went on to say, "They (babies) transform you in such a tangible way. Without going through it, well, I can't explain it to somebody. Having been this being as small as a zygote transform into this gift inside you is extraordinary. They're a work of art. It heightens your level of humanity to a place I didn't think existed."
John J. Kwiatek lives in Beverly.