The New Morality: Kill the Woman, Save the Fetus

I've been following a lot of the anti-abortion threads on Catholic blogs recently.  Here's a contrasting view that I found interesting:

The New Morality: Kill the Woman, Save the Fetus

By JAC

February 24, 2011 - 6:30pm

The new morality astounds me. In order to protect a fetus no act is too dire. Speaking from new “pulpits” in Congress and State legislatures, proponents of the "culture of life" are proposing new methods to circumvent federal law, Constitutional rights and human decency. While claiming to want smaller, less expansive, less intrusive government, these new bills encroach on families’ lives in here-to-fore unimaginable ways. They are twisting the screws so that pro choice advocates will agree to untenable compromises in the hope of saving cherished programs.

This happened during the health care debate with the Stupak Amendment. In order to derail health care, very restrictive abortion measures were proposed. To save health care, compromise was made on these and now it appears that in many states (too numerous to mention - SC is the latest) it will be impossible for women to have insurance, even privately paid from their own wallets, that will cover abortion. Is the real agenda with the Pence Amendment to Defund Planned Parenthood to make Senate Democrats compromise even more on women’s health? Make no mistake when Planned Parenthood loses funding many women and men will lose their access to health care. These funds covered preventative health screenings and visits. The costs to health care both on a state and federal fund will drive up the deficit that Republicans claim that they want to lower. Babies will be born with health issues that will be with them their whole lives as their parents did not receive prenatal care. Is this caring for the born? If one truly believes in life and the sanctity of life, then providing for these unborn is a priority. Oh, also once they are born, they have to be given health care. How can you defund health care and provide it for the culture of life?

The latest measure in Nebraska, the home of the hostile-to-women-land, is the justifiable homicide one. While this was tabled in South Dakota, Nebraska's legislature has decided it is a good idea. In this one, it is legal to kill anyone who might harm a fetus. So a person who sees a pregnant woman go into a clinic may kill her if he thinks that harm might occur to her fetus. While it might not be the same as stoning a married woman who was accused of adultery, it strongly invokes a feeling of the same mindset.

In the same vein in Georgia, there is proposed legislation to create "uterus police," who would be in charge of investigating any miscarriages, which would be renamed "prenatal murders." A woman undergoing the trauma of a miscarriage would now be subject to an investigation to see if she caused the miscarriage, and possibly be charged with murder. Another violation of the HIPAA Act which protects patient rights and privacy, and another intrusion into women's personal lives.

In South Dakota, there is a frightening proposal that seems to be crossing the line of separation of religion and state (Constitutional issue), the line of privacy between a doctor and patient (government intrusion into a private relationship between a woman and her doctor), and the line between government and the individual. This law boggles the mind. A volunteer or staff person (not a trained professional) would determine a woman’s state of mind when she has decided to have a legal abortion. This same untrained person would have access to a woman’s private medical history. This same untrained person may use a religious argument and try to impose her religious thoughts on the patient. Church-based control of a woman’s right make her own reproductive choices are set forth in this law.

We are confronting a new world where the right to choose for women is under constant assault. We are confronting a new world where it may be legal to kill the woman to save the fetus and once that is done there will be no one to take care of the fetus, if the fetus survives. We are confronting a new world where a woman has no right to medical privacy and where doctors no longer make medical decisions about a woman’s health. We are confronting a world, where established law is being chipped away and where soon abortions will no longer be legal for rich or for poor. We are confronting a new world that screams for all of us to stop the lunacy. Women are not the enemy - these new laws are. These proposed laws take away every one's freedoms. Will yours be next?

Gail Yamner
President, JACPAC