By Shawn Macomber
A large number of vegetarians eat fish,
despite the fact that a fish is clearly not a vegetable. Why? It is true
that fish are not as cute and fuzzy as sheep, cows, or even goats.
But the most important attribute they lack is a voice, or at least a
voice audible to the human ear, and as such they are removed from
the pantheon of pitiable creatures.
A child in the womb is at the same disadvantage. Mothers, fathers, and
relatives fret over a one day old child, rushing the moment it cries, but
for years now our society has tolerated the killing of a child only
a few weeks younger, condemned by virtue of having not yet been born. The
only way the pro-life movement will ever be successful is if it is able to
give voice to these voiceless human beings.
I was one of the pro-lifers who feared that the partial-birth
abortion ban, signed into law by President Bush last November, would be a
hollow victory. I worried that putting so much emphasis on
partial-birth abortion would be a tactical error. After all, partial birth
abortions account only for approximately 7,000 to 9,000 of the 1.3
million or so abortions a year.
Those lives, without a doubt, are worth fighting for, but once you draw a
line in the sand at 20 weeks, it is at least partially an admission that
the "life begins at conception" argument is merely a point of
negotiation. To put that idea in the mind of the general public was
a gamble.
That gamble is now paying off with the help of the pro-abortion groups
who opposed the ban. The National Abortion Federation, the Center for
Reproductive Rights, and Planned Parenthood, along with a few abortion
doctors, are currently waging legal battles in three states to get
the law struck down. After watching the last two weeks of the New
York case, it looks like their bloodlust and absolutism is finally blowing
up in their faces.
One of the abortionists challenging the law was described as "visibly
shaken" after coming under bare-knuckle questioning of Judge Richard Casey
in the Southern District Court of New York last week. For the first time
in years the public debate was not simplified as to the semantics of
the word "choice." This time abortionists and their supporters are
on the defensive.
Queried as to whether fetuses feel pain during abortions he performs, Dr.
Timothy Johnson, answered, "I have no idea." Casey refused to let the
point slip away. He asked whether the doctor ever even wondered whether
fetuses felt pain during an abortion. "No, not really," he replied. After
repeated questioning,
Johnson finally admitted, "I am sure that the baby feels it, but I
am not sure how the fetus registers it." Somewhere in hell,
Descartes was surely smiling at that bit of existentialism. "When you
describe the procedure, do you tell the patient that the baby's
brains will be sucked out?" Judge Casey asked Johnson. "No, I do not
describe it in those terms. I think I use other terms like 'cranial
collapse,'" Johnson said. Casey put another doctor, Dr. Carolyn Westhoff,
on the hot seat a day later, when she told the judge that she often let
women hold the fetus after an abortion to aid in the "grieving
process."
"Did you tell them you were sucking the brains out of the same baby
they desired to hold?" Casey asked. "They know the head's empty,"
the doctor responded. "I don't tell them I'm sucking the brain out."
Further flummoxing pro-abortion forces, Casey allowed Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand,
who has concluded that an unborn child can feel pain at 20 weeks, to
testify as > a government witness over the objections of the ACLU and
National Abortion Federation.
Anand's research has found that painful stimulation increases the heart
rate, blood flow, and hormone levels of fetuses. "The physiological
responses have been very clearly studied," he said on the question of
whether a fetus feels pain. "The fetus cannot talk ... so this is
the best evidence we can get." AND SO, BEFORE THE WORLD Monday, Dr.
Anand said what people of conscience and non-abortionist doctors
have known for a long time: Abortion is a cruel and barbaric
practice, used almost exclusively to eliminate a child for reasons of
convenience. And it is allowed to continue largely because that child does
not have the ability to cry out. The usual suspects were outraged.
"Doctors shouldn't have to choose between providing the best
possible care to their patients or going to jail," huffed Vicki
Sparta, president of the National Abortion Federation. That annoyance is
borne of desperation. The debate is shifting: When you are talking
about a child's physical pain rather than a choice, the protestations
in the public square of the pro-abortion crowd sound downright demented.
It's looking more and more like the partial birth abortion ban was
worth the risk. Shawn Macomber is a staff writer at The American
Spectator. He runs the website Return of the Primitive.
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