At this point I wanted to point out something that caught my attention this morning in the Washington Times: Bush backs proposed pro-life bills
President Bush supports congressional proposals requiring abortionists to warn some women that their unborn children will feel pain and banning adults from helping pregnant minors cross state lines to circumvent abortion laws requiring parental notification, the White House said last night.I love these bills. I think that they are a great step in the right direction for the Pro-Life movement. The problem with the Pro-Life movement for a long time has been the seeming all consuming focus on the unborn baby. Which gives the Pro-Choice people the opportunity to point and say that we don't care about the mother or her "rights". In truth the uglier the fight gets the less the potential mother plays in to the picture. Overturning Roe v. Wade, and furthering a feminist political agenda have consumed both sides and distracted them from the real problem. The problem is that there are young people out there who want to have abortions, or want their girlfriends to have abortions.
These two pieces of legislation are, or at least seem to be, aimed directly at this problem. And I can't wait to hear some Pro-Choice person try and put them down. The PC'ers have nowhere to go on this one. There is no excuse for a teacher offering a pregnant high schooler a ride across state lines to get an abortion. Or for a teacher to tell the high schooler that the baby is still evolving and can't feel pain yet. Honestly the fact that this legislation is needed makes me angry. Now at this point if I was actually arguing with a PC'er then they would bring up rape and danger to the Mother. Both of which are irrelevant. First of all rape cases comprise about %1 of abortions carried out each year. And when the Mother's health is in danger it's usually because she is too young to be carrying a child. I in no way want to demean or marginalize rape victims or unhealthy mothers. I'm just saying that they can be dealt with from different angles. If rape is a such a huge problem lets do something about rape, not kill off the tragic result and use it as an opportunity to call each other insensitive. And there is no widespread epidemic among women that will endanger them if they get pregnant. These are just issues that liberals use to try and take the moral high ground.
The other feminist whine is that a woman should be able to exercise 'choice'. What this means in liberal-speak is that a girl should be able to act however she wants and sleep with whomever she wants. That's fine. This is a free country. But with personal freedom comes personal responsibility. You have to be able to deal with the consequences of your actions, otherwise you have a breakdown in society. What saddens me is that terminating a pregnancy and making the Mother "feel good" about it has become a form of taking responsibility for the action of unprotected sex.
Regardless of what the post-modernists would have us believe, pregnancy is a natural consequence of sexual relations. The ''choice" comes before conception, especially for young people. And it should be pounded in to the heads of teenagers everywhere that there are consequences for choices you make. That message should come from parents, teachers, pastors and anyone in a position to influence them.
However this is not the job of the government. Why then would I support legislation that lets the government get their claws deeper in to this issue? Well first of all the government helped perpetuate the problem by allowing abortion to become an option. Secondly these laws are solving the problem of a desire for abortion. They would make it harder for teachers in high schools to say "you can do whatever makes you feel good and I'll make sure it will be ok". There are alternatives to abortion, better options, if you are truly concerned about the trauma that the mother will go through after an abortion.
I feel that this gradual approach, or "chipping away" as the mainstream media likes to say, is the best one. I do not think that banning abortion outright overnight would be a good thing necessarily. We don't need a rash of back alley doctors performing abortions, or girls going back to the coat hanger method. And it won't happen legislatively anyway, there is way to much money in the abortion business. A good scenario in my mind would be for the Federal government to charge(and support) the states and communities with 1)The care of pregnant mothers in distress with solutions that do not include abortion 2)The education of young people in the realities of abortion and unsafe sex. Responsibility dictates that those two things go along with the outright banning of abortion. And these laws are a good step in that direction.
That being said. What about the babies who will be killed between now and then?
That statement was widely interpreted as a reluctance to challenge Roe V. Wade directly, a posture the president first articulated in a 2003 press conference.It saddens my heart that the President is right. This country is not ready to ban abortions. But we need to remember that it is sad for everyone: The lawmaker who cannot support what he believes for fear of loosing his job, the girl who has made a bad decision and is deceived in to thinking everything will be OK, and the baby who never got a chance to exercise the personal responsibility that the mother flaunted.
"I don't think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions," he told reporters in the Rose Garden then.
But pro-life activist Stephen Peroutka, who participated in yesterday's march, said, "That's a tough thing to say to the 4,000 babies who will be aborted tomorrow — that this is not the right time to outlaw abortion.
"When is the right time — when public opinion polls say it's the right time?" he asked. "Shouldn't he be a leader and make it the right time? Let's stop leading by public-opinion polls."
