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November
18, 2002 9:50 a.m. By Adam G. Mersereau |
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hen
the Republicans assume control of the Senate in 2003, they will start
combing through the stacks of bills that have been piling up on Senator
Daschle's calendar since the 2000 elections. One of those bills is the
ban on partial-birth abortions that was passed by the House in July, but
which has lain almost dormant on the Senate's calendar ever since. Republican
Senator Trent Lott, the new Senate majority leader, reportedly spoke of
the stalled bill recently, saying, "I will call it up, we will pass
it, and the president will sign it. I'm making that commitment to you
— you can write it down."
Needless
to say, pro-choicers are preparing for war. That same day, NOW president
Kim Gandy wrote,
"With Trent Lott running the Senate and George W. Bush in charge
of the White House and Supreme Court, the health and welfare of America's
and the world's women and families have never been in greater jeopardy
. . . We must mobilize and organize as if our lives and the futures of
our children and families depended on it. They do."
How ironic. Even while claiming that her life and the lives of her children
are in jeopardy, Gandy remains blind to the fates of the unborn children
whose lives actually hang in the balance.
Gandy is right, of course, to be concerned. Even before the Republicans' big wins on Election Day, pro-life advocates were making some headway. On August 5, President Bush signed the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, a law Gandy has called "stealth legislation" and a "thinly veiled effort to deprive many more women of their reproductive freedom." President Bush was apparently never informed that the law was meant to be kept a secret. He signed the bill at a ceremony attended by people such as Jill Stanek, a nurse who has given Congress eyewitness accounts of babies who survived abortions only to be put in a dirty linen closet until they died. Bush explained: "This important legislation ensures that every infant born alive — including an infant who survives an abortion procedure — is considered a person under federal law." Drawing upon recent genetic research and form his faith, he stated that unborn children are "members of the human family . . . [that] reflect our image, and they are created in God's image."
While a Christian president and a Republican Congress could feasibly team up to pass all kinds of pro-life legislation, lasting change in the abortion wars will require strong public support. Unfortunately, Republicans cannot assume that their sweeping victories on Tuesday are attributable to the abortion issue, and so they would be wise to bring a strong pro-life case to the American people before enacting pro-life legislation. Unfortunately, even conservative Republicans have always struggled to make that case, and most shy away from making it at all.
One reason is that conservative Republicans, the pro-life standard bearers, are largely seen as hypocrites on the issue of abortion — and they know it. Most people believe it is hypocritical to advocate less intrusive government while also promoting a legal ban on abortions. A legal ban is thought to require more powerful, more intrusive government. This charge of hypocrisy is often the rhetorical coup de grace in the debate over abortion. It has all but stymied pro-lifers. Al Gore used it in his first presidential debate against then-candidate George W. Bush, and Bush quickly (and conspicuously) changed the focus of the discussion. If conservatives are looking to change the abortion laws by first changing the hearts and minds of pro-choice Americans, then they must learn to face the hypocrisy charge head-on, and overcome it.
Can it be done? Is it reasonable to suggest that a government that outlaws abortion can be less powerful and less intrusive than one that permits them? Absolutely.
Our government's failure or refusal to act is not always a sign of a less-powerful government. Government that has become too bloated and powerful might also fail or refuse to intervene on behalf of particular citizens, just as a decadent, self-indulgent monarch might yawn and roll his eyes in response to a peasant's plea for justice. One of our federal government's most fundamental roles is to protect the lives and liberties of its people. It does not possess the constitutional power to decide which groups of people it will and will not protect. It follows that when our government begins picking and choosing which people deserve protection, it is engaging in an arrogant power grab.
Our federal government appears to have taken a passive posture on abortion that favors the freedom of women to exercise "choice" in their private lives. On the surface, such a government may seem deferential and non-intrusive — the kind of government conservatives prefer. But the government only looks passive because it is delegating its authority. In reality, by permitting abortions, the government delegates to expectant mothers the power to strip an unborn human being of any and all rights, so that it can be put to death with no legal ramifications. In other words, the government delegates to women the right to treat their unborn children as "unpersons" before the law. Of course, before it can delegate a power, the government must first claim that power for itself. By claiming the power to declare certain persons to be "unpersons," and then delegating that power, our government is choosing to reject its constitutional obligation to protect the lives and liberties of a particular class of people. This is hardly smaller government; it's a case of government power spinning out of control.
Our government's tolerance of abortion is reminiscent of our government's former tolerance of slavery. By failing to ban slavery prior to the Civil War, the government essentially delegated to white people the power to treat African Americans as "unpersons" by enslaving them. Today, Americans agree that a government possessing the power to declare African Americans "unpersons" before the law is one whose power has reached dangerous proportions. It follows that a government that permits abortion — like a government that permits slavery — is far too powerful and intrusive. To pass a law that requires the government to protect the unborn, then, is to limit the government by restoring a sense of proportion to government power. Such a law would stand as a reminder that a legitimate government has no right to declare certain human beings less than human, or to refuse to guarantee their full human rights.
Of course, many pro-choice advocates would claim precisely that an unborn child is something less than a human being — and indeed, if a fetus is not truly a human being, then there is nothing wrong with declaring it an "unperson." Hence the strange marriage between the pro-choice movement and the scientific theory that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny." Also known simply as "recapitulation," this is the theory that a fetus passes through various stages (from protozoan to fish to frog to bird to primate and finally to human) while in the womb. This theory has been a great help to the pro-choice movement, because it makes an early-stage abortion akin to killing germs on a kitchen counter, or flushing a goldfish down a toilet. Clearly, if a fetus is nothing more than a germ or a goldfish, then it should not enjoy government protection at the expense of the mother's freedom. Such protection would constitute blatant discrimination against women.
Unfortunately for the pro-choice movement, the German scientist who originated the theory of recapitulation, Ernst Haeckel, fabricated his famous drawings of the fetus going through the various stages. Still, the theory is so valuable to proponents of macro-evolution — many of whom are, naturally, pro-choice — that it is still taught in many school textbooks as a scientific fact. Most readers of this article who attended public grade school were taught the theory without qualification, despite the fact that Dr. Haeckel's fabrications were exposed as far back as 1911! Dr. Hymie Gordon, a physician and professor of medical genetics at the Mayo Clinic, points out that science has now progressed to the point that:
We can now say that the question of the beginning of life — when life begins — is no longer a question for theological or philosophical dispute. It is an established scientific fact. Theologians and philosophers may go on to debate the meaning of life or purpose of life, but it is an established fact that all life, including human life, begins at the moment of conception.
Ironically, pro-choice Democrats ought to find themselves in a much more awkward position than pro-life Republicans. After all, the Democratic party is the self-proclaimed defender of the of the dignity and the rights of all "unpersons" in our society: the elderly, the homeless, minorities, the needy, and the otherwise disenfranchised. And yet the Democratic party is also the undisputed home of the pro-choice movement, which summarily dismisses the rights of the unborn. One cannot help but conclude that the Democrats have turned a blind eye toward the disenfranchisement of millions of unborn children merely to secure the feminist vote. Talk about hypocrisy.
— Adam G. Mersereau is an attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.