Posted by
Craig Freeborn on Friday, March 02, 2007 8:57:33 AM
My last two pieces dealt with the hypocrisy of pro-abortionists. It’s a subject I simply can’t let go of.
The liberal mantra that abortion must be “safe, legal, and rare” to preserve a woman’s “right to choose”, has always been a smoke screen.
Any suggestion to make it less common (isn’t that rarer?) while keeping it safe and legal is viciously attacked. Any suggestion to provide more information to a woman – thus giving her a more informed choice – is viciously attacked. Any suggestion that hints of concern for the unborn child is viciously attacked.
A shameful case in point is the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act (which has been re-introduced in the new 110th Congress as S-356). This bill would have made it mandatory for abortion providers to furnish their patients, after the 20th week of pregnancy, with a printed form that advises them their unborn child will feel pain and informs them that they can request anesthesia to ease its suffering. (Congress mandated similar treatment for livestock and lab animals years ago.)
Sidebar
Do you remember those incredible photos of the fetus in it’s 21st week that reached out to “shake the Doctor’s hand”? (See Slide Show)
Three and a half years later, Samuel Armas posed with his mother in this photo (See Samuel).
End Sidebar
But the pro-abortion crowd doesn’t want a woman to know the facts about her unborn child or all the options available to her.
December 6, 2006, during the lame duck session of Congress, the act, which required a 2/3 closure vote to pass, was defeated. But the vote count was quite revealing. Republicans voted 210 to 9 in favor, while the Democrats voted 152 to 40 in opposition.
Another bill that pro-abortion forces opposed was the Informed Choice Act. (This bill has also been re-introduced in the new 110th Congress as HR-223.) This bill would have given government grants to community-based pregnancy resource centers for the purchase of ultra-sound equipment.
But the last thing the pro-abortionists want is for a pregnant woman in these clinics to actually see ultra-sound pictures of her unborn child and gain a better understanding of what is involved in her decision to abort. Why, this kind of informed consent might actually cause some of these women to decide not to have that “safe, legal abortion” – actually making abortions a little rarer.
Because of cries of “unfair interference” with a woman’s “right to choose”, this bill is likely to languish in committee as did its predecessors in the previous two congresses.
One more example is the funding of mental health studies. Congress is willing to fund all sorts of scientific studies – except those involving the mental health of women who have had abortions. So it was left to a New Zealand study to find (as published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry) “that exposure to abortion was associated with increased risks of mental health problems” – increases of as much as 33 to 42 percent.
Are abortionists required to inform their patients of these risks? Are Doctors advised to follow up on their patients who have had abortions?
In an age where even a prescription for sleeping pills comes with an advisory sheet of directions, side-effects, and precautions, providing this information to a pregnant woman is labeled an infringement of her “right to choose”.
After an honest assessment of these three cases, any Freeborn American would have to conclude that none of them restricts a woman’s choice. But the lack of this kind of information only makes the choice to have an abortion less informed and abortions less rare.
The stench of hypocrisy reeks all the way from Washington D.C.!