Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the
opinion of the Supreme Court in upholding the ban on partial birth abortions on
April 18, 2007. It is astonishing to read the opinion. The detail with which
abortion is discussed exceeded my expectation. Kennedy's own descriptions of the
various forms of abortion are explicit and extensive. Descriptions of the
procedure of partial birth abortion ("intact dilation and extraction") are given
from both doctors' and nurses' perspectives.
For example, one nurse
described the procedure on a twenty-six-week-old "fetus" as follows-and remember
this is a quote from Justice Kennedy's official Supreme Court
decision:
Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby's legs
and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby's body and
the arms-everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the
uterus. . . . The baby's little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his
little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his
head, and the baby's arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch,
like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall. The doctor opened up the
scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the
baby's brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. . . . He cut the umbilical
cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the
placenta and the instruments he had just used. (p. 8 of the
opinion).
There is a certain irony to the argument for the Supreme
Court's ruling. One argument against the necessity of a health exception for the
mother was that alternative methods of abortion are legally available, if
necessary, even at this late stage in the pregnancy. For example, the ordinary
D&E (dilation and extraction). The irony is that the Court concedes that the
"the standard D&E is in some respects as brutal, if not more, than intact
D&E" (p. 6 ofthe opinion). In other words, in normal, legal abortions, the
baby is torn apart limb from limb while still in the womb, but in a partial
birth abortion, the baby is mercifully spared the dismemberment and his brains
are quickly sucked out of his head.
Such are the contorted conditions in
which we find ourselves: The proposal of a manifestly barbaric law (permitting
the dismemberment of a partially born child) is defeated by the legal standing
of a more barbaric law (permitting the dismemberment of a child in the womb).
But the history of Providence has many such stories to tell-great evils finally
being self-destroyed, like a python swallowing its own tail.
Pro-abortion
politicians tremble as they see it coming. Barack Obama worries that "this
ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a
woman's right to choose." The Supreme Court erred, he said, because partial
birth abortion is "a matter of equal rights for women."
This use of catch
phrases is surely tired. "Right to choose." "Equal rights for women." The
grandchildren of the sixties are waking up to the vagueness and danger of those
phrases. Right to choose what? Anything? All laws that protect children limit
the rights of moms (and dads) to choose. You can't choose to starve them. You
can't choose to lock them in closets for three weeks. You can't choose to
abandon them. You can't choose to strangle them five minutes after they are
born.
And "equal rights for women"-equal with whom? Equal with the
irresponsible dad. Dad has sex and bears no responsibility for the baby. Mom
should be equally able to have sex and bear no responsibility for the baby.
Young people are looking at this and saying: Something is wrong with this
picture. Maybe our lives are as broken as they are because our parents have
twisted their hearts and minds so deeply to justify equality in
irresponsibility.
Hilary Clinton opposes the Supreme Court decision
because "the rights and lives of women must be taken into account." Yes. That is
mainly what this forty-page opinion of the court does. Read it. And it will be
interesting whether Senator Clinton will have any opinion about moms and dads
who want to abort their little girls, but not their little boys. I think the
younger generation may ask the senator: Should the life of little women be taken
into account, or only big women?
There's your choice.


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