Abortion

 

The moral case for abortion ”grows ever weaker”

By Dave Andrusko

Brit Hume

Even the Washington Post, as protective of “abortion rights” as it is institutionally, occasionally allows a shaft of truth to shine through.
I’d like to talk about a short story written for today’s paper by Juliet Eilperin which was accompanied by a graphic, which, while simplistic, illustrates, broadly speaking, what has been taking place in the states for the past two years.

The title? “How abortion rights opponents are winning, in 1 graphic.”
But I’d like to look at it in the context of a strongly pro-life commentary delivered by Brit Hume that aired on Fox News yesterday. One explains the other.

It seems as if our entire office happened to have seen Mr. Hume’s dynamic and very thoughtful commentary. I saw it re-run later last night and then again today on various websites. Whenever we saw it, we cheered.

Here it is (thanks to realclearpolitics.com for the transcription):

BRIT HUME: This is the 41st anniversary of the day the Supreme Court found that a generalized right to privacy it had basically invented, meant that a woman has a constitutional right to snuff out an unborn life, a human being with a beating heart. That’s what a fetus as young as six weeks is.

Small wonder these protesters still come every year to register their continuing objections. Some estimates are that as many as 55 million abortions — 55 million — have occurred since the Court acted. In that time, science has given us an ever clearer picture of just how much of a baby a fetus is. At 20 weeks, we now know, these tiny creatures can hear, even recognize a mother’s voice. Their toenails are growing and their hearts beat loud enough to be heard by a stethoscope.

The moral case for allowing such beings to be killed grows ever weaker and its advocates resort to ever more absurd euphemisms to describe what they support. They’re not really pro-abortion, they’ve long said, they’re pro-choice. This isn’t about killing unborn babies. it’s about reproductive health. And the biggest chain of abortion clinics in the country refers to itself as Planned Parenthood.

In 2012, this organization says it carried out “abortion procedures” 329,445 times. Whatever that number represents, it’s not parenthood. These protesters here today understand that there is something deeply false and wrong about all this. They come each year to remind the rest of us.

(You can watch the video here.)

Mr. Hume went on to argue that discussions about the unborn child’s capacity to experience pain could be a real “game changer.”
Cut back to Ms. Eilperin story and her graphic. Three summary points about the story itself.

 

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First, she is absolutely correct in her second sentence: “Both abortion rights advocates and foes agree that those seeking to curtail access to the procedure are winning.” We calculate the numbers differently and pro-abortionists wander off into unrelated issues, but both sides agree pro-lifers are passing protective legislation (or, in Eilperin’s words, “curtail[ing] access to the procedure”).
Second (under the “duh” category) states in which both houses are controlled by Republicans and the governor is a Republican are thrice as likely to pass pro-life laws as those “dominated by abortion rights proponents.” No kidding.

Third, she ends with a quote from a member of the Catholic Association’s advisory board, who “said the combination of this political trend and the fact that many young people oppose abortion make it more socially acceptable to voice their views in public. ‘People are more confident about being pro-life,’ she said in an interview, after attending the rally.”
Then you look at the accompanying “1 graphic.” As noted above, it over-simplifies what has taken place but as a broad-brushed illustration, it gives you a sense of pro-life momentum.
The map includes states that have passed legislation having to do with ultrasound, clinic regulations, and counseling prior to an abortion. A link from this story to another story written ten days ago also shows maps of states that have passed laws to affirmatively prohibit coverage of abortions under the qualified health plans offered through the ObamaCare Health exchanges; states that regulate under what conditions RU-486 chemical abortions can be performed; and states that protect from abortion unborn children capable of feeling pain.

The connection? Pro-abortionists would have you believe that all these laws whose passage they lament have no basis in public support and are a kind of momentary interruption while they get geared up for the 2014 elections.

But a far truer and much more accurate explanation is Hume’s: “The moral case for allowing such beings to be killed grows ever weaker.”