Abortion proponents are coming for even more lives - including those already born
How can this be possible? I texted in response.
I thought of a lot of responses. But this was my hopeful response.
My friend had just sent an article in a group chat. The article was about a proposed Maryland bill that “could prevent any investigations into the death of infants at least seven days AFTER their birth.”
Even as I typed my response in the chat, my heart felt the echo of other times the incredulous, “How can this be possible?” question had become reality.
We’ve been duped. I’ve been duped. Bit by bit, abortion advocates have moved the line.
And all it took on my end was a little hope.
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Misplaced hope is a dangerous thing. It makes us look past the obvious in search of a better answer, a different possibility. We think - we hope - the words we read don’t mean what they sound like they mean.
That kind of hope allows evil to grow, to thrive, to expand, because we believe the incredulous just can’t be.
But it can be. History shows us that we were lied to from the beginning.
We’ve moved from “it’s just a clump of cells” to “abortion up to birth.”
Scientists affirm that life begins at conception, and everyone knows aborting a full-term baby isn’t aborting just a clump of cells. Everyone.
Yet, neither of these truths have drawn abortion back - the line has just been moved.
Abortion was promoted: “Let’s make abortion safe, legal, and rare.”
But then the line was moved again. Rare? No, now it is - “Abortion on demand without apology”. Nothing rare about that. Not even the pretense of rarity.
Even stated in his 1973 Roe v. Wade opinion, Justice Blackmun wrote, “if the suggestion of personhood is established…the fetus’ right to life would then be guaranteed by the [14th] Amendment.” Being a “person” would legally protect someone from being aborted.
Or so it seems. Certainly, the born are “persons,” right?
But today, this too seems to be a hopeful thought, built on the belief that there is a moral line we as a society will not cross - and laws in place to guard that line.
And where is that invisible, movable line today?
Well, the American people will again decide. Specifically, Americans in Maryland and California.
In Maryland, legislators will decide on House Bill 626, which moves the line further, stating the language about the legality of abortion does not authorize any form of investigation or penalty for someone “terminating or attempting to terminate the person’s own pregnancy, or experiencing a miscarriage, perinatal death related to failure to act, or stillbirth” (emphasis mine).
It's unsettling, but telling, that the bill doesn’t explicitly define “perinatal.” But don’t allow the vagueness of the wording to give you false hope. What the bill doesn’t define, the medical community does -
Perinatal: pertaining to the period immediately before and after birth. The perinatal period is defined in diverse ways. Depending on the definition, it starts at the 20th to 28th week of gestation and ends 1 to 4 weeks after birth.
There is space in this bill for the lawmakers to clarify their language and they have not chosen to do so.
Misplaced hope would lure you to think this bill is just covering its bases. But the actual wording shows the bill is creating new bases altogether. The wording expands the legal denial of protection - from deaths of the preborn to deaths of the post-born.
Forty-eight Maryland delegates sponsored this House Bill. Forty-eight delegates charged with guarding the people of Maryland agreed with this “no investigation of perinatal death” idea so much that they put their names on it.
If it does not meet opposition, this bill is proposed to go into effect in October of this year - and the line will move again.
While the legislation is new, the idea of perinatal abortions is not new.
Almost a decade ago, a reporter and his cameraperson walked onto a college campus in Virginia and floated a comparable idea to students. Asking the students to sign a petition legalizing fourth-trimester abortions, the reporter found supporters who willingly signed.
At the time I (in a moment of hope) chalked this up to students not understanding what they were being asked - a misunderstanding of the whole pregnancy-trimester thing. Even then, the video was viewed as preposterous - an unbelievable stance taken by the uninformed.
I see now I was the foolish one - my misplaced hope was dangerous even then.
More recently, the idea of the acceptability of perinatal deaths was voiced by former Virginia Governor Ralph Northam.
But these ideas are now finding themselves into proposed bills.
Not just vocalized by the outlandish, the uninformed, or the heartless, but straight from the pens of state lawmakers.
Misplaced hope in the wrong people - it’s dangerous.
When we dismiss incredulous ideas because we believe with certainty that human civility and dignity will win, we allow evil to grow. We don’t guard the line because we believe there are certain spaces the line won’t go. It can’t go.
But we need only look back to 1973 and work our way toward today to know that’s not the way things work.
And Maryland is not alone. California is incorporating similar language into a bill of its own. California Assembly Bill 2223, with a hearing set for early April, is adding this language to its Health and Safety Code:
“Notwithstanding any other law, a person shall not be subject to civil or criminal liability or penalty, or otherwise deprived of their rights, based on their actions or omissions with respect to their pregnancy or actual, potential, or alleged pregnancy outcome, including miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion, or perinatal death (emphasis mine).”
A notable addition when compared to the proposed Maryland bill, the California bill includes protection from criminal charges for both actions and omissions that cause perinatal death. “Impossible,” you think?
It’s misplaced hope that makes us think that way.
For residents of Maryland and California in particular, and for all of us in general, the first line of defense is to stop telling ourselves, “Certainly they couldn’t mean that.”
Certainly, they could. That’s what these delegates are telling us - with clear language.
It’s our time to hold the line - and require it of our delegates.
You see, our hope - the hope that causes us to believe people are better than they sound, the hope that settles our hearts by thinking people mean something different than what they are promoting - is the exact hope that allows laws like this to go into effect.
Instead - be mortified. Be horrified. Be vocal. But don’t be silently hopeful. For silent hope allows evil to flourish.
Abortion advocates and the laws they promote have always ended lives. Always. Now they are coming for even more lives, including those who are already born.
I have a wise friend who says, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.”
Abortion advocates are telling us who they are. We should believe them. Lives depend on it.
