- "The procedure is almost never performed." The best estimates are that there are several thousand such abortions every year. Besides, if it is almost never used, why object to its being outlawed?
- "It is used only to save the life of the mother." But one of the chief performers of the operation admits that it is never used for that purpose. For one thing, the process takes so long that it could not be used in an emergency.
- "The fetus is not an unborn child but merely a blob of tissue." That is a favorite claim about abortion in general. But the partial-birth abortion procedure precisely takes place on a recognizable child who is often capable of living outside the womb.
- "Pictures of the unborn child circulated by prolifers falsely make the fetus resemble a baby." But an abortionist who performs the operation concedes that the pictures are accurate.
- "The unborn child dies painlessly from the anesthetic." After pro-abortionists spread that claim, anesthesiologists indignantly denied it.
- "The unborn child feels not pain." On the contrary, experts have said that the procedure is "dreadfully painful."
- "The procedure is sometimes dictated by good medical practice." But the American Medical Association supports the ban, and an A.M.A. committee has said that the operation is "basically repulsive" and "not a medical technique."
- By the time this is published
the House of Representatives may have voted to over-ride what is called
"partial-birth abortions." Unfortunately, the Senate may fall a few
votes short.
Among the many important issues which vie for public attention, the controversy over this law ranks rather low. But it should not, because there is no other issue which so vividly reveals the moral sickness of our society.
The law prohibits a surgical procedure used to abort unborn babies in the third trimester, when other procedures can no longer be used. It is one of the many dishonesties in the debate that its defenders for the most part refuse even to discuss candidly what it involves.
Since this is a family newspaper,
I will not describe the procedure either, except to say that all medical
authorities say it is gruesome indeed, nothing less than the crude dismemberment
of the unborn child. Its defenders hide behind s series of claims
each of which has turned out to be a lie.
All this has little to do with health and everything to do with politics. Hard-line feminists regard abortion as sacred, to the point where they cannot tolerate even the smallest restriction on their cherished "right."
Thus politicians who need the support of hard-line feminists have fallen into line. When President Clinton vetoed the congressional bill, he appeared with five women whose lives were saved by the procedure, he claimed. But later one of those women admitted that this was not so and the abortions were "elective." Doctors who perform the operation admit, that most of the time they are asked to do it simply because a woman has decided that she does not wish to bear a child.
The evasions engaged in to conceal these realities are truly amazing. Thus former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder has explained that opponents "make it sound ugly," as though it is not horribly ugly. In his veto speech, President Clinton used the word "evisceration" and talked about people who have "no voice or power." But he was not referring to the unborn child undergoing grisly dismemberment, he was referring to the woman who seek this service.
The president claims that he too finds the procedure morally troubling and supports "responsible" legislation. But his proposal, which Congress defeated, was to allow it for the "health" of the mother, which everyone knows means in practice that it can be performed for any reason.
In a society where some people become highly emotional over the thought that the natural habitat of some animal is being disturbed, it is hard even to follow the twists and turns to evade the gruesome reality of partial-birth abortion.
Dr. Hitchcock is a professor of history at St. Louis University.
Copyright ©1998 Arlington Catholic Herald, Inc. All rights reserved.
This article was published in the Arlington
Catholic Herald,
200 N. Glebe Rd., Suite 607, Arlington, VA 22203; Vol 23, No 31;
dated August 6, 1998, on page 5
.
E-mail:
letters@catholicherald.com
Fax: 703/524-2782;
Editorial: 703/841-2590;
Advertising: 703/841-2594;
Circulation: 703/841-2565
This page is hosted
by
Get
your own Free Home Page
Todays Date: