It can be an education to listen to those on the other side of the abortion question when they deliver their talking points from wherever they get them. It may be that they've repeated them so often, like mantras, that they aren't paying attention any longer. Forgive them Father, for they know not what they say.
This past week, after the United States House of Representatives voted 237-189 to ban abortion after 20 weeks, we got this bit of PR from Planned Parenthood, which really has the wrong name: "It is unbelievable that politicians in Congress are once again attempting to interfere in a woman's ability to make personal decisions about her pregnancy in consultation with her doctor and others she trusts. If the last few months have shown us anything, it's that Americans want policymakers working to improve health care access and rights for women, not take them away."
Improve health care? Isn't that what this legislation would do? It would certainly improve health care for the babies involved. Excuse us, fetuses. (Or maybe, if some prefer, just a bit of unwanted growth.) And as far as rights of women are concerned, what about the 50 percent or so of these poor aborted kids who are girls? Or don't they count in the world of Planned Parenthood?
This reminds us of the recent push to begin calling abortion "abortion care," as if it could be described as any kind of care for the children being pulled apart and discarded before their first breath in this world. The killing of people must first be ushered in by the killing of language, which might have started in this debate when pro-abortion became "pro-choice." As if the people killed in abortions had any kind of choice in the matter. And the misrepresentations continued as these abortions were described as taking place in "clinics." And an outfit dedicated to cutting families short would call itself Planned Parenthood.
All four House members from Arkansas voted to end abortions after 20 weeks. (Exceptions are included in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.) This legislation might not pass through the Senate, but at least our national representatives are on the record. Dante reserved a special place outside the gates of Hell for those who never saw wrong and called it out. Milksops, in his opinion, didn't deserve a special place inside Hell proper.
"The U.S. is one of only seven countries that allows elective abortions after the 20-week mark," noted French Hill, the congressman from (and with) central Arkansas. "And some of those award-winning countries include North Korea and China, so I'm pleased that we're doing this and I think it's the right thing to do."
His colleagues from the Natural State agreed. Such as Congressman Steve Womack: "Medical science has concluded that at the 20-week mark, the neurological development of a baby in the womb is sufficient to feel pain. I think we're on the right side of this issue."
There he goes again. Using the phrase "baby in the womb." My, my, but the folks at Planned Parenthood must be clutching their pearls over such uncultured truth.
Somebody once said that the Little Round Top in this debate, like so many others, has always been the language. Hold that ground, and you have an advantage over your opponent. Which is why there is a move in some quarters to discuss "abortion care" at "clinics" for "women's health." That way you have a license to kill, as long as you have a doctor's excuse. Call it the American way of death.
Abortion is no longer a crime--at least as far as the courts are concerned. So why all the attempts to conceal what's happening? Can even those in the pro-abortion lobby understand what dilate and evacuate mean? They haven't yet figured out a way to stop Americans from using the phrase "partial-birth abortion." It's impossible to put that any plainer, but the pro-abortionists will surely come up with something cleaner, neater, more tolerable soon enough.
But will calling it something else make it something else? As a man named Lincoln once asked, how many legs does a dog have if you call its tail a leg? Answer: Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one.
No matter what the pro-abortion lobby comes up with next in this battle of the language, abortion will remain abortion. And, as our good congressman noted, a baby in the womb remains so. Until--or maybe if--it is allowed to be born.
Editorial on 10/08/2017