A Thousand Time Yes!

The ques­tion posed to me by a dear friend: Do you believe that gov­ern­ment should have a right to inter­fere with a woman’s right to choose?

I should qual­ify my answer. The fed­eral gov­ern­ment is granted no power to con­sti­tu­tion­ally inter­fere with — or for that mat­ter pro­tect — abortion.

But should state gov­ern­ment exer­cise such power? A thou­sand times yes!!!

I have tried to under­stand the opposition’s point of view. Most claim it is impos­si­ble to know when life begins… then assert they can there­fore define it to be at birth. Many refuse to con­sider the life of the baby at all, deem­ing it an incon­ve­nience imped­ing women’s aspi­ra­tion to equal­ity in the workplace.

First, let us be clear. From the point of con­cep­tion, there is unique human life. Gen­er­a­tions ago, it was the­o­rized that life began at “the quick­en­ing” (when the woman could first feel her baby). It was thought, at that point, God breathed life into a lump of clay, and the cells sprung to life and evi­denced them­selves to the mom by notice­able move­ment. That has long been debunked. Every sci­en­tific require­ment for life is met at con­cep­tion. Most sig­nif­i­cantly, growth through metab­o­lism. Fur­ther, this is unique life. It has DNA unique from its mother. Sci­en­tif­i­cally speak­ing, there is no ques­tion as to the unique human life that is a one cell organ­ism that orig­i­nates inside the mother.

There is legit­i­mate debate of when that life becomes a per­son. This is dis­tinct of the ques­tion of life, but it is what the pro-​choice advo­cates often con­fuse for that debate. A “per­son” is a life sig­nif­i­cant enough to merit pro­tec­tion under the law. So when is a life sig­nif­i­cant enough to merit pro­tec­tion from murder?

Does a life only become a per­son at birth? What exactly adds value to a life that is one day removed from the womb? It breathes oxy­gen that has not been fil­tered through the mother’s body? Under cur­rent law, a baby may be deliv­ered three-​quarters of the way from the birth canal, scis­sors inserted into the base of the skull, the brain “extracted”, and the remain­ing one-​quarter of the newly life­less human body removed to a bio waste con­tainer. It was a unique human life, fully viable, but not wor­thy of legal rights. “Come on” the oppo­si­tion protests. “We don’t sup­port that. We only seek to allow it to pro­tect the ‘health and life of the mother’”. Please. Give me one exam­ple of when the “health or life of the mother” could not be more effec­tively pro­tected by deliv­er­ing the baby the remain­ing one-​quarter of the way from the birth canal, and not delay­ing that process to kill the baby. Oh, that is right. The “health of the mother” includes the “men­tal well being” of the mother. If she might be dis­ap­pointed in the birth of her baby, that dis­ap­point­ment can be pre­vented by the bru­tal mur­der of her child.

Should per­son­hood begin at via­bil­ity? Let’s agree that “via­bil­ity” is the point where the baby no longer needs to reside in the mother’s womb to develop. When exactly is the point of via­bil­ity? That date has been mov­ing ear­lier as med­ical advances develop. Babies have sur­vived as early as 20 weeks. Who knows what sci­en­tific advance­ments tomor­row holds that will fur­ther change that date? Is an arti­fi­cial womb pos­si­ble? I don’t know, but do really define the value of a human life based upon sci­en­tific advance­ment? Today, via­bil­ity is gen­er­ally accepted as 22 to 23 weeks, but is unknow­able on an individual basis.

I’ve seen the pic­ture of the Samuel Armus in his 21st week of devel­op­ment reach­ing from his mom’s womb to hold Dr. Joseph Bruner’s fin­ger. I can not accept that this life is not wor­thy of rights because he was not yet viable.

I’ve seen the pic­ture of the rent arms of an 8-week unborn never-​named baby lay­ing on a dime. I’ll call her Grace, because I truly pray that is what God gives to her mother. Out of decency, I will not show the pic­ture here, but you can not under­stand the issue of choice until you under­stand the con­se­quences of that choice. I encour­age you, get a bucket and click the link. You won’t be thank­ful, but you will understand.

I’ve seen the pic­tures. I am unwill­ing to declare these babies unwor­thy of pro­tec­tion under the law. I am unable to declare them non-​persons to con­ve­nience their moth­ers. I do not dis­count the wants of the mother, but I do not accept that they merit the butch­ery that is abortion.

Camille Paglia deliv­ered the most hon­est case for the pro-​abortion posi­tion I have found:

Let’s take the issue of abor­tion rights, of which I am a firm sup­porter. As an athe­ist and lib­er­tar­ian, I believe that gov­ern­ment must stay com­pletely out of the sphere of per­sonal choice. Every indi­vid­ual has an absolute right to con­trol his or her body… I have always frankly admit­ted that abor­tion is mur­der, the exter­mi­na­tion of the pow­er­less by the pow­er­ful. Lib­er­als for the most part have shrunk from fac­ing the eth­i­cal con­se­quences of their embrace of abor­tion, which results in the anni­hi­la­tion of con­crete indi­vid­u­als and not just clumps of insen­sate tis­sue. The state in my view has no author­ity what­ever to inter­vene in the bio­log­i­cal processes of any woman’s body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman’s entrance into soci­ety and citizenship.

I have an affin­ity for the lib­er­tar­ian ideal of small gov­ern­ment. I believe that government’s nature is to grow to usurp indi­vid­ual rights and enforce tyranny over her sub­jects. This must be vig­i­lantly opposed. Despite this risk, we need gov­ern­ment. Can we not agree that our top need from gov­ern­ment is the pro­tec­tion of the pow­er­less from the pow­er­ful? Is there any more legit­i­mate government power?

So, do I believe that gov­ern­ment should inter­fere with a woman’s choice to take the life of her baby? Emphat­i­cally, yes. But in case you were won­der­ing, none of this mat­ters. The Supreme Court of the United States has found a pri­vacy clause in the Con­sti­tu­tion that alluded us for 200 years. Five Jus­tices have decreed that this is none of our damned business.