I am wholeheartedly in favor of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban of 2003. In the text of this act, Congress affirmed that a “moral, medical, and ethical consensus exists that the practice of performing a partial-birth abortion… is a gruesome and inhumane procedure.” The shock came when challenges to the ban sprung up in states including New York, Nebraska, and California. I could not seem to grasp the fact that the same people who spend their lives nobly petitioning to our government to pay more attention and give more aid to those dying around the world and decrying genocide and murder in other countries, can then turn a blind eye to the murder happening within their own borders. There are those who take the position of Planned Parenthood Attorney Beth Parker and say, “The government should not be intruding on very sensitive and private medical decisions.” Thinly veiling murder with “medical decisions” is a feeble attempt to make a gruesome procedure seem as benevolent as getting your blood pressure checked. But why take my word for it? Examine for a moment what happens in a partial-birth abortion. First, the abortionist grabs the infant’s legs. The entire body of the fetus is then delivered, except for the head. The abortionist then jams scissors into the back of the baby’s skull and opens them to widen the hole. A suction catheter is then inserted and the child’s brains are sucked out. The child dies as its skull collapses, and the corpse is then delivered. I would not label this a simple “medical decision.” There are those who argue that the fetus is a child before birth. This procedure differs from other methods of abortion because the child is aborted “in the state of being born” and not “before actual birth.” In partial birth abortions, the child is almost entirely born. Some argue that it is an artificial birth, but then again so is a C-section. Then there are others who claim, as Jane Elliot did, that it is okay to be personally opposed to abortion for moral reasons, but not okay to restrict the freedoms of others. These are the people that baffle me most, for they admit that abortion is murder, yet refuse to take a stand against it. The purpose of the government is to provide its citizens with security and justice. These people are claiming that the government should not attempt either. I understand this category of people no better than I understand those who turned a blind eye during the sadistic reign of the Nazi party. As this issue is wrestled out in courts, on the floor on congress, and across our country, let us not lose sight of the importance of the matter. These are the lives of our future politicians, scientists, authors, Nobel-prize winners. These fetus’ are the future of America. Let us pray that the next Einstein, Gandhi, DaVinci, or Jefferson gets a chance in this world.
