Posted on 11/15/2005 6:24:52 AM PST by Irontank
A leading abortion advocate, Kate Michelman, says that if it had been up to Judge Samuel Alito, she might not have been allowed, many years ago, to have the baby she was carrying killed. As you may know by now, Alito once ruled in favor of a law requiring that a married woman get her husband's consent before aborting.
For Ms. Michelman, this ruling brings both bad memories and dark forebodings. At the time of her abortion, she recalls, her husband had abandoned her, leaving her with two other children; even so, she says it was a "painful" decision.
It probably was, assuming she had a conscience. That's what we are told, of course; it's always a "painful" or "difficult" decision. But somehow nobody ever seems to make the wrong decision. Every woman who gets an abortion is obeying her conscience, not violating it.
We all have to make hard choices at times, because we know we may decide wrongly. But we're expected to believe that women deciding whether to have their unborn children killed in the womb always decide rightly, no matter what they choose to do.
Notice that I use the old, crude verb "kill." It's a habit I see no reason to shake. When I go to the drug store or hardware store, I see products boasting that they "kill" germs, "kill" crabgrass, "kill" mosquitoes, "kill" rats, and so forth. Why be squeamish about what abortion does to a child?
But abortion advocates are squeamish about this. They never say that abortion "kills." They prefer roundabout expressions like "terminate a pregnancy," though a live birth also terminates a pregnancy. And they never call the child a "child"; they call it a "fetus," as if to give the impression that modern medical science has discovered that it's something other than what we all know it is. Actually, science seems to have found that the fetus is infinitely more complex than the blob of tissue (as in "fetal tissue") it's more convenient to imagine. We used to say that a pregnant woman was "with child," or "carrying a child."
Even opponents of abortion now shrink from using the impolite term "baby-killers" to describe its proponents. Maybe we could spare their little feelings by saying "fetus-terminators."
Aristotle wasn't squeamish. He not only saw nothing wrong with abortion; he also argued that deformed infants should be killed. The ancient Greeks and Romans, like some pagans today, considered infanticide a perfectly acceptable option, though it was the father's prerogative, not the mother's. The usual method was exposure; the unwanted child would be left out to starve, dehydrate, freeze, or be eaten by wild animals.
In those days it was up to the father. No doctor's skills were needed; you just abandoned the baby outdoors somewhere. We have no indication whether it was often, or ever, a difficult or painful decision. Who knows? Times have changed.
Today the law, supposedly more humane, allows unwanted infants to be killed, but usually in the womb, and only by qualified physicians. The big difference is that we keep hearing that the mother makes the choice only after considerable anguish. And "choice" is the word. The less we talk about what's actually being chosen, the better. It's just "choice." Maybe not as easy as a choice of wallpaper, but choice all the same.
Be that as it may, the doctors don't seem to suffer any pangs of conscience, or things could get complicated. When you hire a professional killer, you don't want a Hamlet. A Macbeth is more like it -- though even Macbeth has qualms at first. The act requires the steady hand of a helpful, seasoned specialist who has put his tormented soliloquies behind him.
Still, apologists for abortion don't like to dwell on this. Their theme is that the only violence is committed by the fanatics who don't want to let us kill our babies. Such people, we are told, want to "impose their views" and will stop at nothing, including bombing the clinics where the "choice" can be safely consummated with minimal disturbance of the mother's conscience.
And after all, what is conscience? Isn't it just an emotion -- one of those unpleasant emotions we have to conquer by avoiding, for instance, certain rude words?
I have to admit, it would have been extremely inconvenient for her to have kept the child to term and given it up for adoption. Imagine the stretchmarks she would have been burdened with for the rest of her life!!!
< /sarcasm >
Am I mistaken or isn't the law the Alito voted to uphold only for notification? And also isn't there an exclusion for those who cannot reach their husbands?
I hate the intentional confusion of "notification" and "consent". I HATE IT!
PSST: What the libs fail to get (or refuse to admit) is that Alito's ruling had nothing to do with abortion notification...he upheld the right of the legislature of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to establish this law.
This is how the people speak their views on the law. Through their own legislatures. Not through unelected judges. (Except for Roe vs Wade, of course)
In other words, this case came before Alito as a states' rights issue. Not an abortion issue. Note that libs have already begun trashing judges who strictly adhere to the Constitution regarding state's rights. Libs hate state's rights. Too much chance for the "wrong" people to be heard.
The Pennsylvania law that Judge Alito was ruling on, requited NOTICE to the husband, with some exceptions including the husband being gone. It did NOT require the CONSENT of the husband. This is a critical lie that the abortionists falsely claim, which needs to be attacked as a lie whenever it appears.
Congressman Billybob
Abortion is murder. AIM
Abortion is KILLING AIK (like ache)
Abortion is what it is. MURDER.
This could have been my story, two children, pregnant and abandoned....EXCEPT I bore my son (my third child.) It was the best CHOICE if my life!
In order to do an abortion, you have to kill more than the developing child. You first have to kill that precious part of a woman that -- more than anything else -- wants to protect her babies.
I've got two more. "How do the children that survived feel about you aborting their sibling?" and "If you had known your husband was going to abandon you, would you have aborted your other two children, too?"
The feminist movement killed that part in ever so many.
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