Fetal Murder: Abortion Contradiction

I feel rather proud of my new state this week. I saw an article in the newspaper this morning about a law, passed earlier this year, that comes into effect today. Be careful. Now, if you kill a pregnant woman in North Carolina, you can be prosecuted for two murders. Or, if you assault a pregnant woman and the unborn child dies because of it, you can be charged with the murder of the child.

This law has many good aspects to it.
1. It will help protect pregnant women from assault. Many pregnant women are abused by their partners if the women refuse to abort. This law will make their abusers think twice before hurting the mother.
2. The woman's friends and family can get justice not only for the death of their sister or daughter, but also for the death of their niece/newphew or daughter/son. Or if it's just the child that dies, the mother can get justice.
3. This law promotes a culture of life.

Abortion advocates rabidly protest laws like these. It puts them in an awkward position, and they don't like that.

1. They're against violence against women, women should have the right to choose whatever they want and nobody should stop them. Okay, granted. Nothing wrong here.

2. This is more sticky. I have heard abortion advocates say repeatedly that it's all about the choice of the mother. While they don't like to dwell on it, in general they say that the choice of the mother is what gives personhood to the child. If a three-week-old fetus is unwanted, it's a parasite. If a three-week-old fetus is wanted, it's a baby. They have to believe that, or be correctly labled as pro-abortion, not pro-choice. But they'd rather not remind people of this strange situation. This law brings it out into the open.

3. Here's the killer. "We're supportive of a law that would actually help women who are victims," said Carey Pope, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina. "But this particular law that passed in no way addresses the violence against women. The only thing it does is to establish personhood rights." Uh-oh! Uh-oh! Red alert! Personhood rights for unborn children?!? ABSOLUTE PRO-ABORTION NO-NO.

Because this law does do that, indirectly. While it makes the exception of abortion, it offers a glaring contradiction: if you kill a baby that the mother wants, you're a murderer. If you kill a baby that the mother doesn't want, you're a hero.

Huh?

Eventually people have to blink and realize that, wait a minute, the fetus didn't change at all. The only thing that changed was the mother's way of thinking.

Hmmmmm.







This law doesn't even contradict what most abortion advocates claim to believe: that it's the mother's choice that defines personhood. All this law does is make people look that contradiction in the face. That's why abortion advocates are scared of this law. If abortion advocates believe it's wrong (and criminally prosecutable) to force a woman to have an abortion, how is it any different when someone (indirectly as it may be) kills a woman's unborn child? Wait...there isn't a difference.

As I stated above, that this law actually does help women. If I was going to kill or hurt somebody, I'd think twice about it if I realized I could be punished doubly for it. This law also helps protect the women who survive the assault, but their baby doesn't. Punishing the offender won't bring their child back, but it's better than the hurtful alternative: "I'm sorry ma'am, I realize that you feel this man killed your child, but legally your child was a mere fetus, and therefore not a person, and therefore we cannot prosecute this man for the fetus's harm." Oh, thanks. Somebody killed my child and you're going to let him get away with it.

Planned Parenthood also opposes this legislation. So at least two huge pro-"choice" groups here in NC don't like this law: and why? Not because it doesn't protect women (because it does), not because it harms choice (because it doesn't), but because it illustrates how their beliefs make little sense.

(By the way, kudos to North Carolina's House Speaker Pro Tem Dale Folwell for sponsoring, speaking for, and advocating this law! Many thanks, Representative Folwell!)

Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.

Pro-what?

Put simply, being pro-choice means you want people to be able to choose. I live in the US. I am extremely pro-choice. Pro-choice is the same as pro-freedom. That’s one reason I don’t call pro-abortion people pro-choice. That gives the wrong implications, as if I’m anti-choice, which I’m not. But for this post, whenever I say pro-choice, I mean pro-ability-to-choose-abortion.

The funny thing is, most pro-abortioners aren’t really pro-choice. The evidence of this is everywhere. They complain about the pro-abortion label, saying “nobody’s pro-abortion”. (Wait, so does this mean they’re admitting abortion is wrong? That it isn’t ever the best choice, people should just be allowed to choose this unwise choice?)  I, on the other hand, am fine with the label “anti-abortion”. It doesn’t bug me in the slightest to be called that. I am anti-abortion. However, I use the label “pro-life” on myself, because it tells why I’m anti-abortion…because I want to save life. Otherwise, I could very well be anti-abortion because I’m anti-women (which would be odd, since I’m female myself, but who knows), anti-non-Christians, anti-poor-people, anti-reproductive-health-rights-that-don’t-agree-with-my-own-political-agenda.

Pro-abortion people are pro-abortion, not pro-choice. Sure, they believe they’re pro-choice, they truly do. But they aren’t. They truly care about women. They really do.  But they’ve convinced themselves that abortion is the only best choice for anybody with financial troubles, boyfriend troubles, husband troubles, kid troubles, health troubles, school troubles…the list goes on and on. They complain, sue, and lobby against things that might—just might—decrease their abortion sales.

For example.

“Choose Life” license plates. (The opposite view would not be “Respect Choice”, like pro-abortioners say, because this license plate doesn’t say a thing against choice. It’s just advocating the choice it thinks is best—like pro-abortion people do and pretend to not do.)

Safety regulations normal for other healthclinics/hospitals/etc. (The list here could be ENORMOUS (quite frankly, it’s ridiculous), but I’ve only included a few fairly recent examples.)

Regulations that require abortion clinics to give, um, health facts about abortion—both about the baby and the women. Like…duh? Aren’t people supposed to do that before any medical procedure anyway?

Crisis Pregnancy Centers. It’s amazing how much pro-abortioners complain about CPCs. They will scream (usually not literally) out at protestors, “Why don’t you stop protesting and go do something USEFUL—like actually HELPING these women!!” And then they go scream (not literally) out atCPCs to stop “lying” to women, who are doing exactly what they just screamed at the protestors to go do. Bit of a contradiction, don’t you think? Contrary to popular pro-abortion beliefs, most CPCs aren’t lying. They’re giving the women facts that the abortion clinics won’t. Like all the health risks. Mental health risks. Drug abuse statistics. Suicide statistics. Infertility statistics. Fetus development. Pictures. Ultrasounds. In some cases, lawsuitsby women against local abortion clinics for damages done by abortion.

Covering up a pro-life speaker with chants, instead of engaging in conversation with him, so any woman listening would be informed of both sides, and therefore be equipped to make a truly informed choice.

The multitudes of examples prove that most (if not all) pro-abortion people really are not pro-choice. If they were, they would let the woman make an informed choice. But no. They only allow women to see pro-abortion propaganda, and not show the women the other side of the story—whether or not they think it is true.

One more fact to think about: why do you suppose reproductive health clinics always do many more abortions than adoption referrals?

Sounds like pro-only-one-choice to me.

Disclaimer: I am generalizing in this post. There are exceptions to every rule. I have found that most “pro-choice” people aren’t really pro-choice, and that’s why I referred to them as one body of people. Also, there probably are deceptive CPCs out there (stretching the truth, giving theories as a solid fact, etc.). Etc.

Images found via Google Images. No copyright infringement intended.

2011 Pro-Life Laws of Kansas

(Yes, I did watch the Republican Presidential debate last night. (Most of it, anyway; I missed the first part.) I didn’t find anything particularly striking about it, and all the candidates seem decent. I’m not posting about it because I think it’s too early in the race to tell anything.)

Kansans for Life sent out a summary of all the pro-life legislation passed this year. I thought it very nice and handy, so I’ll copy and paste it here. But first, a short version, if you don’t want to read the whole thing:

·        Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act/House Bill 2218

o   Abortions banned after 22 weeks gestation based on the pain capability of the fetus. (Exception to save mother’s life.)

·        Abortion Reporting Accuracy and Parental Rights Act/House Bill 2035

o   Tightens reporting regulations of abortions, like all other medical procedures. (Yeah, no-brainer. Have to wonder why it wasn’t done before.)

o   Tightens parental consent laws – both parents, and getting a judicial bypass is harder.

o   Wording is changed from “fetus” to “unborn child” and the fact that “abortion will terminate a separate, whole, unique, living human being” is added to informed-consent materials distributed by the State.

·        Abortion Facility Licensure/ House substitute for Senate Bill 36

o   Lots of little details that overall makes the clinics safer: more inspections of the clinics, abortiosn have to “be performed by a state-licensed physician with local hospital privileges”. (You know, all the things that normal clinics and hospitals have always needed to do. Yes, another no-brainer.)

·        Health Insurance without Abortion/ House Bill 2075

o   What it says. Health Insurance won’t automatically cover abortions, except for cases that involve the life of the mother.

·        State Budget Provisions

o   Planned Parenthood loses a lot of funding, money goes to non-abortion health care clinics.

2011 Pro-Life Laws Passed in Kansas

Pain-capable Unborn Child Protection Act/ House Bill 2218 

• Due to the medical evidence of the pain capability of the unborn (not viability) abortions are now banned after 22 weeks LMP/ gestation (20 weeks post-conception) except if needed to authentically save the mother’s life.

Abortion Reporting Accuracy & Parental Rights Act/ House Bill 2035 

• Abortion and elective abortion are newly defined, consistent with all other 2011 abortion laws.
• Each report to state health department of abortion after 22 weeks LMP/gestation (which should be extremely rare under HB 2218) must include a medical diagnosis and a referring physician’s affidavit of independence.
• 1998 state partial birth abortion law is replaced with the stronger federal language upheld by U.S. Supreme Court in 2007, which does not allow for mental health exception.
• The consent of both parents (with exceptions) replaces current 1-parent notice required for abortion of minor.
• The judge issuing a “bypass” (waiver of parental consent) is now required to report suspected child abuse and may order a professional evaluation of the minor.
• Abortion laws are worded with “unborn child” instead of “fetus,” consistent with the 2007 unborn victim protection law that defines the unborn child at any stage as a member of the species homo sapiens.
• The medical fact that “abortion will terminate a separate, whole, unique, living human being” is added to the informed consent materials distributed by state health department. 
• The aborted woman / girl and her family now have improved standing to sue for illegal late-term abortions.

Abortion Facility Licensure/ House substitute for Senate Bill 36

• Physician medical offices, surgical centers and hospitals doing elective abortions must be licensed by completing annual state health department inspection with an additional unannounced inspection that year.
• No abortion after 22 weeks LMP/gestation may take place in a physician’s office, even if licensed.
• Standards are adopted for abortion facility personnel, equipment, emergency access, and prompt reporting of accidents and deaths; the state health department may take actions for an emergency closure for violations.
• Every abortion must be performed by a state-licensed physician with local hospital privileges.
• Abortion pills cannot be administered via ‘webcam’-- the physician must be in same room with the woman.
• Formerly-optional ultrasound use at abortion facility is now mandated, to be administered by the physician or specifically-trained staff, and – in addition to the woman’s current right (at least 30 minutes before abortion) to view the image, and receive a hard copy --  she can now ask that the physician review the results with her.

Health Insurance without Abortion/ House Bill 2075

• Private health insurance plans will no longer include coverage for abortion (except to prevent the death of the mother) except through individually-purchased riders.
• As allowed under Obamacare, future state health ‘exchanges’ (plans) set to begin in 2014 will not cover abortion except to prevent the death of the mother.

State Budget Provisions

• $339,000 in grant-matched funds are restored to the ‘Stan Clark Fund’ for pregnancy assistance and adoption counseling.
• Title X federal money for 'reproductive-related' services will only go to public health clinics, and those qualified hospitals and clinics offering full service primary and preventative care-- thus, due to limited ‘services,’ Planned Parenthood will lose tax-payer funding of $300,000 or more.

How to Destroy Your Own Cause: Planned Parenthood and the Obama Administration

After the failed attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood (PP) nationally in Congress, Indiana made history last May by passing a bill that prevents health care centers that perform abortions from receiving state taxpayer funds. (As of today, Kansas and Texas have done the same.)

PP is a self-described “reproductive health care”* center that performs roughly 25%** of all abortions in the USA. Understandably, PP and its supporters don’t take kindly to even remotely pro-life legislation, and this bill was no exception.

One of PP’s strongest supporters is the Obama Administration. This shouldn’t be a surprise, but what did surprise me is how the Obama Administration reacted to this bill. One of PP’s most cited arguments against being de-funded is that minorities and the poor will lose access to vital, life-saving health care. Assuming they really believe this, you would think PP would protest what the Obama Administration did to attack this bill. After claiming that states don’t have the right to restrict Medicaid on a state level, the Obama Administration is now threatening to cut billions of dollars of Medicaid funding specifically for low income people in Indiana if Indiana doesn’t revoke the bill.

Now, how much sense does this make? PP shouldn’t be de-funded because it helps minorities and poor people, therefore we should cut billions of dollars of funding that helps minorities and poor people? Huh? I can only assume that the Obama Administration is hoping to be able to pin the blame on Indiana, like the childish quip, “I TOLD you I would hit you if you didn’t give me my toy! It’s your own fault! Nyah nyah nyah!” (Never mind that the toy may actually be Indiana’s in the first place.)

I can post in more detail later about the controversy surrounding de-funding PP and PP itself, but this struck me as so outrageously absurd and contradictory to the supposed beliefs of PP and its supporters that I thought it merited a short post all of its own.

*From the Planned Parenthood website.
**For some reason I couldn’t find an abortion estimation in the USA past 2008, so I calculated using what seems about the average, 1.2 million, and Planned Parenthood’s fact sheet from 2010 (page 2).