Fall 2015—The Weakest Among Us: An Assault On The Unborn
Two years ago, on this
very same blog, I wrote about how American conservatives have been denied a
“place at the table” of our country’s political discourse. At the very least, I
think it’s safe to say that most conservatives have been consistently evaluated
as outsiders, rabble-rousers, and rhetorical bomb-throwers by members of the
political elite who work inside the Beltway of national politics.
You only have to take a
quick look at the latest political news headlines to realize that conservatives
and their various allies have grown frustrated and angry with the ways the
Establishment has marginalized the influence of those on the right of the
ideological spectrum. That pent-up anger and frustration is, I believe, what’s
really behind the astounding success stories of presidential candidates like
Donald Trump and Ben Carson, both easily defined by their outsider statuses and
unconventional backgrounds.
We conservatives now
have a chance to change that. With the successes of Ben Carson and Donald
Trump, we have an opportunity to harness our fellow Americans’ anger and
frustration to teach them why they feel that way, what caused it, and how to
fix it. I am not suggesting for one minute that we make like Rahm Emmanuel and
praise the current crises facing our nation as opportunities to implement a
radical agenda; threats to the very character of the United States of America
are never a laughing matter, and should never be seen as excuses to exploit
people’s baser emotions. Nevertheless, the American people are growing angrier
and angrier by the day. We conservatives know why. We know what went wrong. We
should teach the people and empower them to make better choices for the future
peace, prosperity, and success of our beloved republic.
In just the past few
months, Americans have turned their anger towards the controversial subject of
abortion. During this past summer season, investigative journalists brought
forth to the limelight the more egregious
and gruesome aspects of the abortion culture here in the United States.
Abortion is considered to be one of the most revolting practices of our day,
and this has been highlighted by a series of now-infamous undercover videos
recently released to the public. Even more recently, several of our bravest and
most principled lawmakers in Washington, D.C. attempted to end the U.S.
government’s funding of Planned Parenthood, an abortion-providing organization
which receives 40% of its funding through government subsidies. Planned
Parenthood is responsible for providing almost a third of the abortions
performed in the country each year and is the number-one abortion provider in
the United States today.
In early August,
undercover videos which showed Planned Parenthood employees haggling over the
price of body parts from aborted babies were released to the public, creating
an incredible and unforeseen surge of civic outrage over the fact that the
country’s most important and prominent abortion-providing organization
continues to be funded by the United States government.
Conservatives like me
were thrilled when the Senate considered a bill that would’ve ended federal
funding of Planned Parenthood; we were equally disappointed when the Senate
failed to pass that bill. Liberals expressed horror at those of us on the right
wing who were so quick to take Planned Parenthood to the fiscal chopping-block.
They claimed that defunding Planned Parenthood was tantamount to threatening
women’s comprehensive healthcare. Liberals screamed that the conservative “war
on women” was again on the move, and that Republican lawmakers in the nation’s
capital were threatening to place the welfare and quality of living for women
everywhere on permanent life support.
Leading the pack, as
usual, was the Obama administration. President Obama’s press secretary, Josh
Earnest, denounced the undercover videos which were released by the Center for
Medical Progress, an anti-abortion political organization dedicated to keeping
the public informed about issues of medical ethics. Earnest claimed that the
videos were released in a “fraudulent way” with “not a lot of evidence” to
support conservatives’ allegations that Planned Parenthood was involved in the
sale of fetal organs for profit, a clear violation of federal law.
“There is ample reason,”
Earnest said, “to think that this is merely the tried and true tactic that we’ve
seen from extremists on the right to edit this video and selectively release
this edited version of the video that grossly distorts the position of the
person that’s actually speaking. Planned Parenthood has indicated that’s
exactly what occurred here. And any review of the policy that PP says they
implement indicates the views expressed in the videos, or at least the way
they’re pictured on the videos, is entirely inaccurate. The President certainly
will not support another effort by Republicans to try to defund an organization
that offers important and needed healthcare services to women across the
country.”
In other words, President
Obama and his people didn’t believe anything about the videos was real or
legitimate.
Why not? Because
Planned Parenthood told them so.
Pathetic.
As is usual with
liberals and their screeching accusations of foul play, the truth was a little
different than their shrill narrative. Journalist Sarah Torre explained that “disqualifying
Planned Parenthood from receiving federal Medicaid reimbursements would not
decrease the amount of overall funding available for women’s health services.
There are roughly 9,000 federally qualified health center service sites across
the country that can provide women’s health services, in addition to a wider
range of primary care—and that don’t perform abortions. Federal Medicaid
funding could still flow to those (and other) qualified health providers.
“Congress has the power
to stop all federal funding of Planned Parenthood during the appropriations
process this fall. Policymakers owe it to the taxpayers who have bankrolled the
organization for too many years to move quickly to prohibit federal funding of
Planned Parenthood.
“An organization that
performs nearly 1 out of every three abortions in the United States and stands
accused of selling tiny organs from those aborted children for a profit,
spurring both state and congressional inquiries, does not deserve the
hard-earned dollars of American taxpayers.”
Torre was absolutely
correct in her assessment of abortion, Planned Parenthood, and the feasibility
of putting an end to a significant percentage of the abortions performed annually
in this country.
Why should Planned
Parenthood deserve to be defunded?
Ever since the landmark
Supreme Court decisions Roe v. Wade
and Doe v. Bolton, the abominable
practice of abortion on demand has resulted in more than 50 million terminated
pregnancies! Approximately 1 million abortions occur every year, and although more
than 100 pro-life laws (parental notification, informed consent, and abortion
clinic regulations) have been passed in states across the country since 2010,
the evil of easy abortion has been allowed to carry on. Obamacare has added
additional pressure to the debate by forcing Americans to watch their tax
dollars fund abortions on demand. This alone provides any truly patriotic
American with ample reason to repeal Obamacare, defund Planned Parenthood, and
to do everything possible to prevent liberals from retaining control of the
White House in 2016.
Abortion is unpatriotic
because abortion is an assault on the defenseless; the United States, in its
long history and development as a nation, has come to stand for the protection
of those who cannot protect themselves. Ultimately, abortion is a supreme act
of selfishness. Business, civic, and religious leader Spencer W. Kimball believed
it would be “almost inconceivable that an abortion would ever be committed to
save face or embarrassment, to save trouble or inconvenience, or to escape
responsibility. How could one submit to such an operation or be party in any
way by financing or encouraging? If special rare cases could be justified,
certainly they would be rare indeed.”
What are those “special
rare cases?” The only possible exceptions can be when the pregnancy resulted
from rape or incest, or when a competent physician has determined that the life
or health of the mother is in serious jeopardy or that the fetus has severe
defects that will not allow the baby to survive beyond birth. Even then, these
exceptions do not justify abortion automatically.
Unfortunately, more
than 95 percent of the millions of abortions performed each year extinguish the
life of a fetus conceived by consensual relations. Thus the effect in over 95
percent of abortions is not to vindicate choice but to avoid its consequences.
In truth, advocates of easy abortion say they are arguing for choice—but in
reality, they are trying to justify altering the consequences of choice. Doing
so only promotes bad behavior by removing individual accountability for personal
actions.
In today’s society,
abortion has become a common practice, defended by deceptive arguments. The
most deceptive of these arguments makes the claim that allowing women the right
to an abortion for personal or social convenience is a worthy way in which
civilized society can stand up for the freedom of choice. However, this
actually violates the principle of free agency because, in an abortion, an
unborn child’s life is terminated, permanently ending that child’s ability to
make any future choices at all. Russell M. Nelson, a world-famous heart surgeon,
spoke of this contradiction when he said, “when the controversies about
abortion are debated, ‘individual right of choice’ is invoked as though it were
the one supreme virtue. That could only be true if but one person were
involved. The rights of any one individual do not allow the rights of another
individual to be abused. In or out of marriage, abortion is not solely an
individual matter. Terminating the life of a developing baby involves two
individuals with separate bodies, brains, and hearts. A woman’s choice for her
own body does not include the right to deprive her baby of life—and a lifetime
of choices that her child would make.”
Dallin H. Oaks—who was
once a professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and a justice
of the Utah Supreme Court—once expressed fascination “with how cleverly those
who sought and now defend legalized abortion on demand have moved the issue
away from a debate on the moral, ethical, and medical pros and cons of legal
restrictions on abortion and focused the debate on the slogan or issue of
choice. The slogan or sound bite ‘pro-choice’ has had an almost magical effect
in justifying abortion and in neutralizing opposition to it.”
It is ironic that
defenders of the practice of abortion use arguments designed to link our
thoughts and opinions about abortion in an inseparable connection to women’s
rights and freedom for what they wish for their own bodies. It is ironic
because abortion for personal or social convenience strikes at the heart of a
woman’s most important and lasting contribution to human society: the raising
of a well-rounded and appropriately socialized child and future citizen.
Abortion destroys the moral authority of women, historically the most important
defenders of tradition, decency, and publicly-accepted standards. It strikes at
the very foundation of the home and family, both of which are two of the most
basic institutions of our civilization.
Respecting the rights
of children has always been one of the preeminent hallmarks of civilized
Western societies; the practice of abortion is a bloody mark upon the otherwise
virtuous legacy Judeo-Christian civilizations have left for the rising
generations. Indeed, any state which claims to speak for the welfare of
children cannot do so without hypocrisy as long as citizens, public officials,
and workers in private organizations continue to make policy choices which
threaten the weakest and most defenseless among us. No less a moral authority
than Mother Teresa understood this. She once shared a message that cut to the
very heart and soul of the moral issues affecting our day. She stated that the
greatest proof of our generation’s pervasive selfishness is abortion. It was
reported that Mother Teresa had tied abortion to growing violence and murder in
the streets by saying, “if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child,
how can we tell other people not to kill each other?...Any country that accepts
abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get
what they want.”
Dallin H. Oaks has said
that “children are highly vulnerable. They have little or no power to protect
or provide for themselves and little influence on so much that is vital to
their well-being. Children need others to speak for them, and they need
decision makers who put their well-being ahead of selfish adult interests.”
More American citizens
need to speak out boldly against the culture of easy abortion, and they need to
do so in ways that are clear, concise, and powerful in their condemnation. Abortion
is a war on the defenseless and the voiceless. It is a war against the unborn.
Federal taxpayer funds
should not be used for elective abortions or for health insurance that includes
abortion coverage. We need our leaders and lawmakers to try again to eliminate
taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood. In 2011 alone, Planned Parenthood
received over $542 million in total taxpayer funding while performing a record
333,964 abortions. Planned Parenthood had a very comfortable income in that
same year: excess revenues exceeding $87 million and net assets of more than
$1.2 billion. It is a travesty to permit such an organization to continue
operating at the taxpayers’ expense—especially when roughly half of Americans
now identify themselves as “pro-life.”
We also need our
leaders and lawmakers to stop Obamacare’s expansion of funding for abortion
coverage. On this count, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative political
think tank which came to prominence during the Reagan years, called for
policymakers to “enact permanent protections for the rights of individuals,
religious organizations, and family businesses to keep them from being forced
to enroll in or pay for coverage of life-ending drugs and devices that violate
their deeply held beliefs. To truly protect conscience rights and prevent
federal dollars from flowing to elective abortion coverage, Obamacare must be
repealed. Americans deserve health care reform that increases access, decreases
costs, and allows individuals and families to choose health care that meets
their needs without violating their beliefs or subsidizing life-ending drugs
and procedures.” These same protections need to be codified in ways that also
ensure medical professionals do not have to perform abortions against their
will or face losing their professional licenses to practice.
I’d like to end this
blog post with an excerpt from a message given by James E. Faust, one of the
few prominent Democratic politicians of our time willing to stand up against
his party’s support of easy-access abortion. This message comes to us from
1975, but its relevance and poignancy belies its otherwise outdated place on
the calendar of history:
“The exercise of a man
or woman’s sacred procreative powers makes each a partner with God in creation
and brings to them in parenthood their greatest happiness. This divine
partnership also brings their greatest privileges and most weighty responsibilities.
“Since becoming a
parent is such a transcending blessing, and since each child is so precious and
brings so much happiness, a cardinal purpose of marriage and of life itself is
to bring forth new life within this partnership with God. Obligations inherent
in the creation of precious human life are a sacred trust, which if faithfully
kept, will keep us from degenerating into moral bankrupts and from becoming
mere addicts of lust.
“In times past we have
looked upon a person who saves another human life as a great hero; yet now we
have come to a time when the taking of an unborn human life for nonmedical
reasons has become tolerated, made legal, and accepted in many countries of the
world. But making it legal to destroy newly conceived life will never make it
right. It is consummately wrong.
“Some say, as did the
Supreme Court of the United States, that it is only a theory that human life is
present from conception. This is contrary to insurmountable medical evidence.
Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson recently revealed that he was among those who were
militantly outspoken in favor of legalized abortion and joined in using every
device available in political action to promote it. He helped set up and became
director of the first and largest abortion clinic in the western world. After
the center had performed some sixty thousand abortions, Dr. Nathanson resigned
as director. He said, ‘I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that
I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths. There is no longer serious doubt in
my mind that human life exists within the womb from the very onset of
pregnancy.’
“Way back in the
sixteenth century, Arantius showed that maternal and fetal circulations were
separate, thus clearly demonstrating that there are two separate lives
involved. The unborn babe is certainly alive, because it possesses the token of
life which is the ability to reproduce dying cells.
“For the unborn, only
two possibilities are open: It can become a live human being or a dead unborn
child.
“Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
referring to the unborn babe in the mother’s womb, said, ‘The simple fact is
that God certainly intended to create a human being.’
“Because she feels it,
every mother knows there is sacred life in the body of her unborn babe. There
is also life in the spirit, and some time before birth the body and the spirit
are united. When they do come together, we have a human soul.
“Experts tell us that
the necessity of terminating unborn life is rarely justified for purely medical
or psychiatric reasons. Some justify abortions because the unborn may have been
exposed to drugs or disease and may have birth defects. Where in all the world
is the physically or mentally perfect man or woman? Is life not worth living
unless it is free of handicaps? Experience in working with handicapped children
would suggest that human nature frequently rises above its impediments and that
in Shakespeare’s words, ‘They say best men are molded out of faults, And, for
the most, become much more the better For being a little bad’ in the physical
sense.
“Many parents who have
known the heartache and concern of caring for a handicapped child would agree
with Pearl Buck, Nobel prize-winning author who said, ‘A retarded child, a
handicapped person, brings its own gift to life, even to the life of normal
human beings.’ What a great gift to mankind the life of Helen Keller brought.
“Abortion must be
considered one of the most revolting and sinful practices in this day.
“It is my feeling that
we grossly underestimate the sacred nature of motherhood. Psychiatric experts
remind us that there are certain fundamental, biological facts which influence
the psyche of those who bring new life into the world. One says, ‘The ability
of mothers to accept infants after they are born is underrated and
underestimated.’ Childbearing is a basic biological and psychological,
privileged function of womankind.
“The great medical
profession, for which I have such great respect, that for centuries has been
committed to the preservation of life under the cardinal principles of
treatment—‘do no harm’ and ‘protect life’—now finds itself destroying almost a
million unborn children a year in the United States alone. Each of these,
because of tiny chromosomal differences, would have been different from any
other person born in the world. How many with special gifts like unto Moses,
Leonardo da Vinci, and Abraham Lincoln might have been among them?
“These and all others
are entitled to a defense in their unborn, natural state of existence. One
great physician says, ‘We do that much for seagulls, flamingos and whooping
cranes.’ This same physician, Dr. Henry G. Armitage, Jr., states, ‘Not without
comment shall it come to pass that a state (so fretful for the preservation of
the praying mantis but holding an unborn baby to be of no account) can send a
spark of immortality swinging out into limbo and conspire with citizen and
physician to turn a fragile, living object of simple innocence and complex
wonder into a pathetic pulp and consign it by rude and peremptory passage to
the furnace or sewer—unknown, unwanted [and] undefended.’ He further questions
how a woman as ‘the fertile adornment of our race can be deluded into the
notion that she is a mere portress of unwanted luggage or be by blandishment
seduced into believing that she has dominion over life not her own.’ He says, ‘An
abortion is never commonplace, for the world holds no heartbreak like the death
of innocence. Whenever and wherever it occurs, we all suffer another loss from
that little which sustains us and holds us together. It is the degradation of
humanity. It is fulness emptied, innocence defiled, song unfinished, beauty
discarded, hope unsprung. In our absence, housebreakers are robbing us of
everything that we own: of virtue, honor, integrity, trust, innocence, truth,
beauty, justice and liberty.’”
50 million abortions—50
million terminated pregnancies, 50 million unborn lives causually murdered—is
hard to define as anything less tragic than a holocaust, an extermination
campaign directed against an entire generation of Americans who will never be
allowed to participate in or contribute to our republican society. Our nation
hasn’t been guilty of such a collective sin since the days of chattel slavery
in the old Confederate states. We were once willing to fight a civil war, to
shed the blood of our fellow citizens, in order to put a stop to that kind of
injustice.
With abortion, we’re
not even willing to cut federal funding. What will future generations say about
us when they see we kept signing Planned Parenthood’s checks?
Comments
Post a Comment