Without a doubt the issue of abortion is going to be the hot topic that will divide Americans this election cycle more than other issues. While a 2024 Pew Research poll recently found 63% felt abortion should be legal in all or most cases with 36% saying it should be illegal in all or most cases, a Gallup poll this year found 35% believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances with 50% saying it should be legal only under certain circumstances, with 12% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances. Most agree abortion should be on-demand in instances of rape, incest, and threat of life to the mother.
It remains to be seen what each political convention will state as their public platform position in the coming weeks this election cycle but some news is already coming out. The Republican platform committee voted yesterday 84 to 18 to soften the GOP position statement on abortion.
That committee is meeting in Milwaukee this week ahead of the convention of the Republican Party next week. It appears it will be proposing abandoning its previous position explicitly advocating for federal abortion limits in favor of former President Donald Trump’s “leave-it-to-the-states” approach, as per language adopted at a party platform committee meeting yesterday. The official party platform will be finalized by a vote of the full convention body next week.
Meanwhile, anti-abortion leaders will be promoting inclusion of language pointing to 14th Amendment protections that conservatives have long argued protects life beginning at conception. Biden spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said, “Despite Trump and his team’s best efforts, the American people are clear on just how far he would go to rip away their freedoms and they’ll vote accordingly this November.”
“New GOP policy platform softens abortion language | FOX6 News Milwaukee”
However, Chitika might be out of touch with the desires of the majority of American people as Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) points out in this video short of a week ago. He noted only 9% of Americans feel abortion up to the moment of delivery is okay with 91% being opposed to it.
“Ted Cruz Exposes Democrats Extreme Position on Abortion Strategy” – Ted Cruz
Senator Cruz correctly points out that the Democrats thus far have been oddly quiet on their abortion position but in the past they have touted “late term abortions”. For now, the public position of the medical community is “late-term” abortions can’t and don’t happen in the late stages of pregnancy. Technically this is quantified as a medical term to describe the very end of a pregnancy after it has reached “full term,” from weeks 41 onward.
Ironically, the Democrats may have caused the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2023 because of the insanity of a bill they sought passage to in 2022. It was that year the Democrats’ put forth a radical abortion on demand until birth bill that would have extended abortion access far beyond what Roe v. Wade ever did. The Democrats’ so-called “Women’s Health Protection Act” was rejected by the Senate with a narrow bipartisan majority of 49 to 51.
Had that bill passed it would have:
- Made every state a late-term abortion state
- Banned states from stopping gruesome dismemberment abortions
- Denied the requirement of parental consent for a minor daughter having an abortion
- Would allow mail-order abortions without being prescribed by a doctor after an in-person visit
- Banned informed consent provisions to ensure mothers had access to counseling/information
- Banned reflection periods between the counseling or ultrasound to the abortion procedure
- Banned laws prohibiting discriminatory abortions on the basis of race, sex, or disability
- Banned laws to prevent coerced abortion
- Banned conscience protection laws to protect religious freedom rights of healthcare workers
CONCLUSION:
As I have mentioned in the past, my mother was a Registered Nurse (RN) while my father was a fireman/paramedic. Because of them I have learned much of life and death. The liberals of the left are content to classify an unborn fetus as nothing more than a parasite growing on the mother like a tumor. The conservatives on the right believe in the exceptionalism of human life.
I learned from my parents that for a person to be declared dead they have to lack heart and brain activity. A fetus typically shows heart activity in 6 weeks and brain activity in 8 weeks. To me, that means they are “legally alive”, given what my parents taught me it takes to be declared legally dead.
When Roe v. Wade was approved in 1973 I was angry with the SCOTUS. I was angry for 3 reasons.
- Oral contraceptives were commonplace and very effective making abortion unnecessary.
- A large number of prospective parents were always looking to adopt.
- Sex without accepting the consequence a couple can become pregnant is wrong.
Finally, I offer 4 random thoughts that come to mind when I think of abortion as follows:
First, my grandmother was told by her doctor to abort my mother due to health concerns at the time. My grandmother, a devout woman of faith, refused the doctor’s advice and carried my mother to term without issues. Had my grandmother not been the woman of faith she was, my mother, sister, and I would not be here today.
Second, in college I met a girl who was a nursing student as well as a devout Catholic. One day I picked up on her being depressed and she wound up crying in my arms. I had asked her what was the matter. She told me she had just had her 4th abortion with nobody going with her including her “boyfriend” who got her pregnant for the 4th time. I asked her why she wasn’t on the birth control pill and she said because the Catholic Church prohibited it. Me, always the curious comedian then asked, “Are the Hail Mary’s less for an abortion than being on the pill?” She cracked a smile as she realized the absurdity of her life at that moment in time.
Third, I am not a counselor, nor do I pretend to be one, but I have had a number of women cry on my shoulder about mistakes of their past and the most common regret over pasts was abortions. I think outfits like Planned Parenthood could potentially be criminally negligent for not considering the long-term mental and psychological health effects on the women who have abortions. The amount of guilt some women develop years later after the event has been shocking to me.
Fourth, about 20 years ago somebody shared a video of an abortion being performed on a fetus shot through some form of an x-ray machine. The baby was trying to fight off the attacker from inside the mother’s womb and came out aborted with defensive wounds on his arms and hands. I never forgot that video and never will but I also can no longer ever watch it again as I cannot find it posted to the web anymore. If the lefties hate the “Baby Olivia” video project, and they really do, they would really have hated this one and that is my guess as to why it is no longer available online.
At some point a fetus is less a parasite than those removing it are murderers.
The elephant in the room that needs to be addressed once and for all; At what point does life begin?
Copyright © 2024 by Mark S. Schwendau
