Polls show that American society is becoming more and more pro-life and that’s excellent news, due in no small measure to the heroic work of the pro-life movement over the years. Technology that allows us an increasingly clear and awe-inspiring window into the womb means no one can deny this is a human life.
This probably explains why expectant parents increasingly refer to their unborn children by name well before the actual birth. Washington Post columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter, Michael Gerson notes how early young parents’ protective instinct kicks in these days. Birth, he writes, is somewhat of “an arbitrary dividing line.” In a recent column, he explained that, “particularly as technology has allowed us to peer into the womb, human instincts for protection have engaged earlier than nine months.”
But then there are those who have completely lost that instinct. Like the Planned Parenthood doctor who, over lunch, nonchalantly discussed her organization’s practice of trafficking in baby body parts. She was captured on video describing, between bites of salad and sips of red wine, ways in which she encourages abortionists to perform their craft so as to leave intact certain body parts for medical research.” She assumed her lunch partners from the Center for Medical Progress, were right there with her on the utilitarian ‘good’ this trade in human tissue provides. They were not.
In his column on this, Michael Gerson pointed out that our society is becoming more liberal and inclusive, a trend which has been created and fostered by the Left. Yet, despite the science that clearly highlights the humanity of the unborn child, the Left continues to support abortion, even late-term abortion. On this issue, convenience and other concerns trump liberals’ trademark compassion. Mr. Gerson writes, “many progressives paper over this tension by denying any value to the fetus until it emerges from the birth canal.” This position, he says, is “both medically and morally implausible.”
Despite the science, we’re still a nation divided on the issue of abortion and the sanctity of human life.
Ian Tuttle at National Review describes the schizophrenic state of the country, pointing out that there are “those who believe the unborn are persons endowed with the “right to life”: and those who believe the unborn are property, disposable and (by extension) exchangeable (within the confines of existing law). The fetus has moral worth that the state is duty-bound to protect, unless the mother decides it doesn’t, in which case the fetus can legally be aborted. And, by the way, why not harvest some fetal tissue for research while we’re at it?
The division on abortion extends into the halls of Congress. Lawmakers battle over ending the flow of federal funds to Planned Parenthood. That should be a no-brainer now. And amazingly, a bill that would nullify all restrictions on abortion keeps rearing its ugly head.
Pro-life Americans still have work to do.
