It has been around for half a century, Roe v. Wade has, and besides this Supreme Court ruling facilitating something like 62 million abortions, it has generated a vast number of arguments in its defense. One of the most frequent insists that a woman has the irrefutable right to control her own body.
There’s a problem here, namely that a second body is involved, the body of a precious, living, unborn child. The issue is not just a woman ridding herself of pregnancy, but killing this gift inside her and all kinds of grand possibilities for the victim, such as momma hugs, laughing with daddy, making dear friends, reading great books with big ideas, falling in love, holding hands, smelling roses, knowing bliss through music, having one’s own children and lying on fresh grass while staring at a light blue, cloudless sky on a warm spring day and contemplating God.
You would think the realization of two bodies would be obvious to everyone, but pro-choice analysts callously inform us that this unborn being is just a body part, thereby denying scientific revelations that its own life begins at conception, that it has an entirely different genetic code than the mother’s body, develops on its own and soon enough has its own body parts of the same genetic code.
Livers and kidneys are not so lucky but are at least spared dismemberment-abortion. With varied states having had court battles to decide what to do, this is a method in which helpless fetuses have had their bodies ripped apart so they could bleed to death as forceps pulled pieces through the vagina to the outside world where the cruelty was plotted.
The pro-choice debaters will often bark back that a cuddly, sweet, adorable baby can be unwanted even though some researchers reply that many mothers not receiving the requested abortion go on to raise that baby well and love it dearly. The baby may also be adopted by immensely grateful, dedicated foster parents. And what happens if the abortion happens? Very often, we are told, the self-deprived mother experiences terrible grief and depression, sometimes for years, meaning the abortion debate can come down to love v. misery.
Some will denounce me as simplistic, and I agree there’s lots more to be said on both sides, but we are right now being bashed by unfiltered fury — misinformation? — following Justice Samuel Alito’s traitorously circulated draft opinion that could be finalized in late June. If unrevised, it would end the constitutionally dubious Roe v. Wade ruling that some said was settled. Groups have already been intimidating justices with protests at their homes, a criminal offense up there with the Jan. 6 riot. Others invaded Roman Catholic churches outlandishly preaching that human life is good and should be granted.
The idea of eliminating Roe v. Wade is to turn to the people, letting abortion policies be decided democratically by state legislatures, some of which might expand abortion possibilities while others might get rid of most of them with exceptions such as a mother’s own life being endangered. Democrats in the Senate then tried unsuccessfully to pass a pro-abortion bill expanding abortion by outstripping Roe v. Wade’s permissiveness. Even Roe v. Wade has allowed states to outlaw abortions when the fetus is viable, a living baby inside the womb, and all but seven do. Those other 43 states? The Democrats’ bill says you can abort no matter when.
Yes, something like 92 percent of abortions are performed early and many with pills, which is better than late or with forceps, but that hardly means lives are preserved. We know what women have suffered throughout history but we can observe at the same time that it has been men who were once denied every right in the book when drafted and sometimes sent to battlefields. Nature dictates differences, and it’s precious, brave, nurturing women who, with help, have given us the miracle of human existence.