Compassion and Clarity

Some people have a gift for humor, which is helpful during trying times. So I’m starting today’s post with some headlines from the Babylon Bee, which has been on a tear since the New York pro-abortion law passed last week. (Their articles are worth reading, in addition to the headlines.)

Ultrasound Unable To Detect Heartbeat In New York State Legislators

January 24th, 2019

New York To Be SuckedOut Of Nation With Vacuum

January 24th, 2019

Report: More Unborn Babies In New York Identifying As Convicted Criminals So They Can't Legally Be Executed

January 25th, 2019

Demon Lord Clearly Visible In New York Senate Chamber Applauding Legalization Of Abortion Until Moment Of Birth

January 23rd, 2019

Thank you, Babylon Bee, for doing the hard job of telling the truth through satire, even when it’s hard to distinguish satire from reality in these troubling times.

I want to additionally address some misunderstandings about what a late-term abortion is, what its purpose is, and why it might be done.

There was a post of a friend, who was concerned that we anti-choice people (i.e., pro-life people) might be making life harder for some women who are actually facing the heart-wrenching decision of a late-term pregnancy termination.

I believe my friend is compassionate. Many of the respondents were too—on both sides. I want to highlight two: one from each side.

One is the story (linked by a commenter) of a Mormon mom, who tells her story. She was at 22 weeks with twins, in the same amniotic sac. One died. That meant the possibility of sepsis for the mother, if the dead fetus was not expelled. But that couldn’t be done without also expelling the live twin, since they shared the same amniotic sac. The live baby had spina bifida and was unlikely to survive long beyond birth. So, for the sake of the mother’s life (she had several other children to raise), they did a C-section, delivering both the dead fetus and the live baby with the severe anomaly. The live baby lived only a short time, as expected.

For those of you who understand Latter-day Saints, this mother conferred with her bishop, who supported her decision and told her to do whatever she needed to in order to protect her health. And he sorrowed with her and her husband over the loss of one child and the impending loss of the second.

The mother was labeling this a late-term abortion, and the implication is that this is the kind of situation the New York law was making room for.

But that is not the case.

First, it was not an abortion; it was an emergency C-section, including the live birth of a child unable to live long thereafter.

Second, there has not been, either before or after Roe v. Wade, any law that would have forced this woman to die rather than risk shortening the life of the live twin. In this, as in almost all cases in which the mother’s life is at stake, the baby’s life is also at stake. So, unless the mother insists that doctors prioritize the life of the baby, doctors will protect her life and the life of the baby, as two patients, doing what they can for both.

The mother’s complaint was that there was an ethics board at the hospital, ruling on her decision, and that was very upsetting to her. But my belief is, they weren’t debating whether to overrule her decision; they were working to see what could and should be done for the live baby, in addition to saving the mother. They would have asked questions about timing, and whether anything more could be done for the live baby.

What would an abortion, rather than emergency C-section, have been? The live child would have been injected with a killing drug—such as is used in a lethal injection execution—and, after death, would have been delivered vaginally. That would entail a couple of days for dilation drugs to take effect. It could include crushing the skull of the child while still in the womb, since the head is the largest baby part needing to pass through the birth canal. In another method, called partial birth abortion, rather than injecting the baby for pre-killing, they partially birth the baby, feet first, and then, while the head is still inside, use scissors or other sharp instrument to stab the baby’s skull, killing the baby before birth is completed.

This woman’s C-section shouldn’t be used to support late-term abortion—because that isn’t what it was. It was an emergency delivery. A regular OB/GYN surgeon performed it, even if that doctor would never perform an abortion.

The pro-life side in the online comment thread was offered by an experienced OB/GYN nurse (originating here): 

If there is an emergency situation during the second or third trimester, the mother is rushed to the hospital where she is immediately hooked to a monitor. Her belly (the baby) is also strapped to a monitor. Vitals for BOTH MOTHER AND BABY are done. Meds are pushed. Exams are completed. Blood drawn. Contractions monitored. We have TWO patients.

If there is a true emergency (high blood pressure due to pregnancy, for example) doctors will in fact end the pregnancy to save the mother. It is called an EMERGENCY C-SECTION. The baby is out- maybe very early, but the baby is out- and cared for. The pregnancy has ended and Mom can be cared for. Isn't that the so-called point of why pro-choicers advocate for abortion? That they need to be able to "terminate the pregnancy to save the life of the mother"? Well, here ya go. Emergencies ending in c-sections, ending the pregnancy and saving the mother, happen all the time.

You know what doesn't happen all the time? As in, like, never? An emergency abortion. There is NO SUCH THING. Never in the 9 years while working in a large hospital, often in the ER, did I hear the words, "Quick! Get me forceps and suction! This woman needs an emergency abortion STAT!" Why did I never hear these words? Because emergency abortions don't exist.

Since the New York decision, doctors have been weighing in.

Dr. Omar L. Hamada: “I want to clear something up so that there is absolutely no doubt. I’m a board certified OB/GYN who has delivered over 2,500 babies. There’s not a single fetal or maternal condition that requires third trimester abortion. Not one. Delivery, yes. Abortion, no.”

Dr. David McKnight: “It appears that the state of New York has legislated that an unborn baby can now be killed at term…. As a board-certified practicing OB/GYN physician for over 30 years, I need to say publicly and unequivocally, that there is NEVER a medical reason to kill a baby at term. When complications of pregnancy endanger a mother’s life, we sometimes must deliver the baby early, but it is ALWAYS with the intent of doing whatever we can to do it safely for the baby too…. God help us.”

Dr. Alan E. Smith: “[A]s I read this law would allow abortion past what we call the threshold of viability, generally thought to be 23-24 weeks and inching ever downward. If I see a woman at 36 weeks gestation with preeclampsia her life could be at significant risk. But her baby also has a 99% chance of surviving outside the womb.”

Dr. Monique Ruberu (in video): “I guarantee you there is no reason ever, to save the life of the mother, in the third trimester that would necessitate the killing of a child. You just deliver the child, and allow the child to live, and you save the life of the mother.”

And more. Dr.  William Lile also recorded his expert view as a video. I tried embedding it here, but was unable. However, the link is here.

Another thing my compassionate friend said was that late-term abortions are very VERY rare. Unfortunately, that isn’t so either. While it’s a relatively small percentage of total abortions (1.3% overall), it’s as high as 15-17% of abortions in some states. There were 8,296 abortions performed after 21 weeks in 2015, or about 251 for each of the 330 abortion providers willing to perform them. While that is low compared to the overall number of abortions, that’s still a lot. For comparison, about 5000 babies are born with Down Syndrome in the US each year; about 25% of families are affected. So half again more is not particularly rare.

The more common reasons for late-term abortions are birth defects. As in the story above, if the baby can’t survive long after birth, that may still be a cause for heartache. But progress has been made; many defects that used to cause death no longer do. Surgeries, blood transfusions, and other treatments can be performed in utero. This includes successful surgery for spina bifida.

This sweet little friend just took her first steps.

Not everyone sees things the same, but I know what it meant to hold a child who would only live a short while; I valued that time. I wouldn’t have given it up in some misguided attempt to spare myself or the baby some possible pain.

Down Syndrome is a common birth defect in babies being aborted. But those of us who know people with Down Syndrome see that it is not a cause for death; it may even be a cause for rejoicing. These children tend to be happy and loving, and bring great joy to the people around them. With therapy and care, they can grow to become productive adults, with a life expectancy of 60 years. Yet around 67% of Down Syndrome diagnoses lead to abortions—sometimes in the third trimester, because testing can take that long.

Do bad things happen late in pregnancies? Sometimes. Do we need to have compassion for women who face those bad things? Of course. Do we show actual compassion when we conflate an emergency C-section with a late-term abortion? No. One is civilized. One is not.

We people who value life are already compassionate to women facing those bad things. Killing a baby—when that is never necessary to save the life of the mother—is not showing compassion. It is devaluing life. And when the life of the most innocent and vulnerable is devalued, that devalues the life of each of us. Compassionate people value life.

The Face of Evil

There’s a separation going on in our country, between good and evil. There’s less gray, more black and white, more clarity. I think this may be a trend that continues for some time.

It was a sad day for the state of New York this week. Nominally Catholic Governor Andrew Cuomo got his way; the state legislature voted to allow abortion on demand, pretty much unhindered up to natural birth.

NY Governor Andrew Cuomo
image from here

The bill was ironically called the Reproductive Health Act; it limits, or tries to eliminate, reproduction. It kills human life, rather than increasing the health of human life. And it endangers women by lowering health standards of service providers. Add to that, every late-term abortion endangers the woman more than natural birth or Cesarean would do.

The Governor spoke on the “victory”:

The Reproductive Health Act is a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values. In the face of a federal government intent on rolling back Roe v. Wade and women's reproductive rights, I promised that we would enact this critical legislation within the first 30 days of the new session—and we got it done.

Cuomo ordered landmarks including the spire at One World Trade Center, the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany to be lit up pink on Tuesday night as a celebration.

Can I add the irony here about the color pink being used, to honor feminism, which is only a thing if you believe in the two sexes (genders), which progressives say you’re not supposed to believe in. And they do it with a broad pink brushstroke, for all women, supposedly—as if it is a natural good for women to kill their babies.

Cuomo also said, “It's bittersweet. There is a bitterness because we shouldn't be here in the first place. We should not have a federal government that is trying to roll back women's rights,” and added, “This administration defies American evolution.”

This is how differently we think. There’s no sweetness; only bitterness. We shouldn’t be here in the first place; it ought to be self-evident that killing innocent offspring—particularly for the self-centered reason of avoiding inconvenient consequences following illicit sex, which is overwhelmingly the most common reason—is inhuman, ugly, savage, and evil.

He’s also wrong about rights. It is not, and never was, a right of women to kill their babies. It is not the right of humans to kill other humans except in self-defense, and as the lawful consequence of capital crimes. (Another irony: NY prohibits lethal injection of serial murderers, but celebrates it as a means of killing the unborn.)

The vast majority of Americans agree that women do not have the unfettered right to kill the unborn. The court that ruled in Roe v. Wade was incorrect. The decision was badly done. The court has been granted no constitutional power to make law. And the test cases of Roe and Doe, in the Roe v. Wade decision were based on lies; the evidence given was made up.

That decision has caused a third of a generation to die before birth.

And what does Cuomo mean by “American evolution”? He probably believes, and means, that there is “progress” of changing views toward agreement with his radical views. But that isn’t actually the case.

Results of a Marist poll came out last week, concerning American’s views on abortion, which they have been measuring for eleven years. The surprise is that “an overwhelming majority of Americans want to limit and restrict abortion and enact protection for children.” 75% overall hold this view. 96% of those who call themselves pro-life. And a surprising 61% of those who call themselves pro-choice. This desire for greater restrictions seems to coincide with improved ultrasound and other technologies that show the living child in the womb. Clearly this is a human life, with its own separate DNA, that has senses and can feel pain, and can be viable outside the womb at earlier stages than ever. To cling to the “it’s just a mass of cells” claim is anti-science.

Marist poll results page 3

Cuomo is also wrong about this being something this administration is inflicting coercively on the country. He is out of touch with the American people, because of the bubble he keeps himself in. If you’re looking at parties, 92% of Republicans, 60% of Democrats (way over half of his own party), and 78% of Independents believe abortion should be allowed AT MOST during the first trimester. 

Marist poll results page 2

Only a small percentage, about 15%, believe in Cuomo’s dastardly view of abortion on demand throughout pregnancy for any reason. In other words, he’s an extremist.

His claim of anything positive rings false when you look at the outcome. Back in 2001, we all thought of ourselves as New Yorkers, but I can’t abide this: 78% of abortions in that city are on performed on the 26% that are black. More black babies are killed through abortion than are born in NYC. If journalists called on him to defend those numbers while he’s rejoicing about raising them, we might all recognize the indefensible.

As for health, it’s ironic that nearly all the things Hermit Gosnell was prosecuted for—including the unclean circumstances and the lack of medical personnel in a clinic performing procedures—New York has now made legal. So far, the only thing they haven’t officially legalized is killing a baby after birth—except that the law did repeal protections for babies that survive abortion. In other words, they can be left to die even though born alive.

Republicans in the NY Senate pointed out that the changes moving abortion law from the penal code to the health code could mean that a woman who loses her preborn child as the result of an assault will have no means to prosecute her assailant for that loss.

Sadly, the day after the New York bill passed, Vermont announced it would push for a state constitutional amendment to recognize abortion as a “fundamental human right.” I don’t think they understand what that means. 

There’s worry that Roe v. Wade may be overturned with a more conservative court. I don’t know how likely that is. But that would not make abortion illegal; that would put the power to decide back in the hands of the states, where it was before the court made its untimely intervention. New York and Vermont would have no threat to their pro-baby-killing policy by the elimination of Roe v. Wade. The difference would come for states like Florida and Texas, where legislators are pushing for more restrictions on abortions, which would have been a state decision all along, except for Roe v. Wade. 

Florida recently legislated to disallow abortion after the fetal heartbeat is detected—which could happen between 6-8 weeks gestation. 

A similar fetal heartbeat law was rejected by a judge in Iowa Tuesday, claiming it was unconstitutional—evidence that it is states affirming life that have been deprived of their constitutional rights by the bad SCOTUS ruling.

The Republican Party of Texas has as a legislative priority this session, going further than ever before: 

Pass legislation to abolish abortion; including, but not limited to, enacting legislation that would ignore and refuse to enforce any and all federal statues, regulations, executive orders, and court rulings, which would deprive an unborn child of the right to life, as well as enacting life-saving legislation such as PreNDA or a “heartbeat bill.”

So it’s a two-pronged approach: total, and incremental progress. I haven’t identified a bill number yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing this debate play out. It’s about time a state asserted its Tenth Amendment rights, and the killing of babies might just be the issue to stand on.

Several states have limited abortion to 20 weeks, including Texas; twenty weeks is considered to be the time at which it is certain the baby in the womb can feel pain. Many states have also passed legislation against dismemberment abortion (Texas did this last legislative session), a procedure that crushes and breaks up the fetus, purportedly for ease of removal, but which is not only particularly horrendous to the fetus; the sharp broken bones endanger the woman.

As technology improves, fetuses on ultrasound can be seen trying to avoid a needle or instruments meant to kill them. Facial expressions can show fear. The more people who see the reality of the growing baby in the womb, the more they are likely to oppose abortion.

ultrasound image from here

In fact, the procedure of abortion, even when shown only with graphics, rather than actual imagery, is so violent that it persuades people to change their opinion about allowing it once they’ve seen the truth.

That means that a large majority of people are not basically evil. Only those who see the truth, know that this is an innocent human life, and yet promote killing that life anyway. As a sacrament to the worship of their evil.

We’re polarized because there must be no compromising with evil. We’re sifting ourselves, somewhat geographically, but philosophically everywhere, as we are faced with clearer choices between good and evil.

We learned this week, by looking at New York’s governor—and anyone celebrating with him—what the savage face of evil looks like.

Forcing Evil

Counties of Ireland
image from Wikipedia

The first of this year abortion became legal in the highly Catholic country of Ireland. That “victory” is apparently not enough for those who promote the killing of unborn human babies. Right now 95% of Irish doctors refuse to perform abortions. That still leaves 179 doctors willing to perform them (although 30 of these ask that their names not be included on a national government list). There are four counties left without any abortionists.

How far does someone have to go, then? The maximum length of the country is just over 300 miles, and width is 170 miles. The whole length is about what we would drive to Baton Rouge, just outside Texas, into Louisiana. Or a tad further than from Houston to Dallas. But you’d never have to go that far. The four counties are spread out, all of them near counties with an abortionist. So the furthest drive is probably an hour (depending on road conditions).

But that isn’t good enough for the promoters of baby killing. The new law (through their Parliament in December and almost immediately enacted)

·         Forces taxpayers to pay for abortions.

·         Forces Catholic hospitals to provide abortions.

·         Limits conscience protections for doctors and nurses.

·         Allows girls 15 and under to have abortions without parental consent or notification.

Also, because there have been peaceful pro-life protests, the promoters of abortions are calling for government to censor pro-life speech and set up no-protest buffer zones around abortion facilities.

All this is in a faraway country. We would certainly find protection of life and liberty (including free speech) here in America, right?

Convincing black women that killing their babies
is self-care, which would have delighted PP founder
Margaret Sanger intended; billboard image found here

Next story. In New York City, more black babies are aborted than are born, 42% of all abortions in the city. Including all races, one in every three pregnancies is aborted. That’s not enough for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Earlier this week he promised to veto a budget that doesn’t make getting an abortion easier. Abortion is already legal in that state up to 24 weeks. [My first child was born alive at 23 ½ weeks. I wrote about that story here. And there's another sad story of a 24-week birth here.] Cuomo wants that expanded. He—along with pal Hillary Clinton—wants abortion legal up to birth for casually undefined “health of the mother” reasons, and to guarantee “abortion on demand” if there should come a time that Roe v. Wade were overturned, returning abortion decisions to the states. Pro-life groups, such as the New York State Catholic Conference, are already admitting that fighting this bill in New York is fruitless.

They’re making sure common-sense limitations, such as parental consent or limits on taxpayer funding of abortions, are squelched. Limit the opposition; allow no limits to killing babies—their tacit motto.

Here are the latest stats, which they wish to “improve”:

In 2016, 82,189 unborn babies were aborted in New York, with about half being taxpayer-funded, according to the local news. Of those babies, 1,763 were at least 20 weeks, meaning they may have been viable outside the womb.

Earlier this week, the new Planned Parenthood president clarified their mission, in a rare moment of candor, on Twitter: 

image of tweet found here

First, our core mission is providing, protecting and expanding access to abortion and reproductive health care. We will never back down from that fight—it’s a fundamental human right and women’s lives are at stake.

What is a mission? A special quest, or core purpose, often carried out to propagate the faith. The core purpose of Planned Parenthood is not to plan parenthood, but to prevent it—even after parenthood is underway, with a new person alive and growing.

Meanwhile, Facebook—a supposedly nonpartisan platform—has been censoring pro-life messages for being “hateful, threatening or obscene.” The Warriors for Christ page was one such target. While they do not promote anything hateful, threatening, or obscene, they have received death threats for their pro-life and pro-purity messages. Facebook hadn’t, at the time the story was written, explained what their specific violation was. Meanwhile, the group tried using their former youth ministry page, but when that also became inaccessible, it wasn’t clear whether that was a technical or censorship problem.

As with other conservative messages, pro-life advocates are noticing more online censorship on various social media platforms—which only have platform status because they do not censor based on political or religious views, but only speech that would be illegal, such as defamation or calls for violence.

Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn was prevented from placing an ad on Twitter in October, because she mentioned Planned Parenthood’s sales of aborted baby body parts—a decision Twitter had to reverse when news outlets reported on that issue.

Live Action, a youth-centered pro-life organization that has done undercover investigations of Planned Parenthood, found in September that Twitter had been censoring its ads. Founder Lila Rose said they were told to change information on their website before they could get their ads accepted—not content of the ads or on the platform where advertising was being placed, but content they supported in greater detail on their website, which Twitter workers apparently had time to comb through before accepting ad money. Hmm.

The Susan B. Anthony List used the phrase “killing babies,” not of course in favor of such a heinous crime, but against it. But Twitter objected and refused to run their ad.

It’s hard to prove that a platform is actively suppressing certain viewpoints, because they don’t always tell the person or group what they supposedly did wrong. But Facebook employees in 2016 admitted that they were suppressing conservative messages and favoring liberal ones. 

There’s a new movement to “shout your abortion,” to praise yourself for killing your offspring—killing the living being growing inside you. This is a movement started by Amelia Bonow. There’s a book, aimed at children, I believe. And a video, in which she tells children (with children sitting in her presence being told this) that abortion is just a doctor appointment, “like a crappy dentist appointment”—sort of uncomfortable but not that bad, in other words: “You go to the doctor, and they put this little straw inside of your cervix, and then inside of your uterus, and then they just suck the pregnancy out,” she explains. Easy peasy. This ghastly page is easy to find on Facebook.   Now that I’ve checked that fact, I’m a bit concerned Facebook’s algorithm will start marketing pro-abortion messages to me. What is most disgusting is the propagandizing of children in service of, ironically, killing children.

How do you know which side to be on?

One side is about life, perpetuating the species, civilization, persuasion, helping people who are in the position of taking accountability for their actions, and affirming the miraculous life-giving power of women.

One side is about killing, coercing, censoring, savage disregard for human life, refusing to take responsibility for their actions, and denigrating women for their feminine power of life.

It’s a stark difference.