Is the Democrat party in the USA going morally insane? This serious question must be asked given recent developments concerning abortion. In their drive to become ever more progressive, the Democrats have finally jumped the shark.
On the 46th anniversary of the landmark US ruling that made abortion legal, New York State signed into law the Reproductive Health Act, a new abortion rights Bill. This law allows abortion at any time during gestation.
The new Act greatly expands existing legislation. It removes the need for some abortions to be performed by a doctor. Infants who survive abortion will no longer be protected by law: they can be left to die. In cases of the murder of an expectant mother, the unborn child will no longer be recognised as a second victim.
Extremely late abortion will be allowed in cases where there is ‘absence of foetal viability, or the abortion is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health’. But we know how the law is interpreted can be more important than how it is written.
Abortion was initially legalised to protect the mother’s life and health with the view that it would be ‘safe, legal and rare’. It has expanded to become abortion on demand. There is little doubt that New York’s new law will follow the same route.
One would think this bad, what followed was stomach-churning. Not only did they pass the law but the state legislature broke out in wild applause when the result was announced, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had prominent buildings floodlit with pink lights to celebrate.
In Virginia, on the same day she proposed a Bill to save canker worms (a kind of caterpillar), House of Delegates member Kathy Tran proposed a Bill to extend abortion. The proposed legislation would allow abortion even after a mother goes into labour. Thankfully the Bill was defeated by the votes of the Republican majority in the House of Delegates.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, however, when asked if he supported the Bill presented an argument normalising infanticide, argued that decisions by physicians can be made to allow an infant to die even after birth.
Northam argues that in cases where a child is born with severe deformities or life-threatening conditions, ‘the infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother’.
Northam, who once worked as a paediatric neurologist, said the debate over Tran’s bill was ‘blown out of proportion’. He insisted that the government, particularly male legislators, shouldn’t be involved in this type of decision at all.
Evidence indicates parents value their children even when they have short lives. In 2018 the Journal of Clinical Ethics published ‘I Would Do It All Over Again’: Cherishing Time and the Absence of Regret in Continuing Pregnancy after a Life-Limiting Diagnosis. The authors interviewed parents who experienced a life-limiting prenatal diagnosis and opted to continue their pregnancy.
Many assume ending a pregnancy shortly after such a diagnosis would lessen parental grief and regret from anticipating carrying a baby with severe problems.
In fact data ‘from this study and others suggest that more profound regret comes from failure to spend as much time with their children as they would like, even during pregnancy’.
The report says: ‘Absence of regret was articulated in 97.5 per cent of participants. Parents valued the baby as a part of their family and had opportunities to love, hold, meet, and cherish their child.
‘Participants treasured the time together before and after the birth. Although emotionally difficult, parents articulated an empowering, transformative experience that lingers over time.’
In the words of one mother, ‘All my son knew was love.’ Another wrote, ‘We are rich in love because of her.’ Parents also reported self-transformation and growth. In the words of one parent, ‘This became perhaps the most profoundly positive experience our family has ever had. I think nothing else has ever strengthened our faith or drawn us closer together.’
Another study, We want what’s best for our baby: Prenatal Parenting of Babies with Lethal Conditions, from the Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, found similar results for fathers and mothers who chose to continue a pregnancy after a lethal foetal diagnosis.
But facts are irrelevant when progressives are pursuing their ideological agenda. In just a few years, progressive pro-abortion zealots have moved from ‘safe, legal and rare’ to ‘keep the new-borns comfortable while the physician debates infanticide’. Anti-science progressives have lost touch with their own humanity.
