Reality Check 101

The anniversary of Roe v. Wade was January 22nd, the day that the Supreme Court invented the constitutional right for a woman to kill her child. For some people, it is very difficult to tell when a baby is a baby rather than, lets say, a tumor. In 1973 one courtroom informed the nation that it was acceptable, if not at times virtuous, to dispose of a person because they had not sucked air yet or because the circumstances of the conception were life-wrenching.

Frankly, outside of a specific ideology that accepts irrationality as normal, there is no anchor for the idea that human worth changes depending on where their level of maturation falls on the calendar. There is also no excuse for the almost complete media coverage blackout of the nearly one-half million participants of the Washington D.C March for Life on the 22nd.

It shouldn’t be that difficult to comprehend reality. In the entire history of mankind there has never been a mother who has given birth to a brick or a rose or a chimpanzee. Even the most primitive, ignorant, foolish people know that once a pregnancy begins, the result from start to finish is a baby person.

In the last several weeks, Congress was given the chance to acknowledge the simple truism that human females who are persons have human babies who are persons. Once again, this January 22nd, on that infamous anniversary, dignity for the living could have been demanded.

The opportunity came in the forms of the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” (H.R.36) and the “Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act” (H.R.217).

H.R.36 was pretty straightforward. It would have prevented the killing of preborn children from five months old on. It contained provisions for circumstances of rape, incest and danger to the mother. Unfortunately for the fate of the bill, it also included a requirement that the rape or incest be reported to law enforcement.

Here is the strange logic of “Pain Capable” opponents, some who surfaced at the last minute from the bill’s own sponsors . Even though infants can now survive outside the womb at 22 weeks, a mere 14 days after the deadline in the bill, more babies must now succumb so that women can have a choice or because a heinous crime of rape or incest might have to be confronted in order for the criminal to pay.

The good news is that H.R.217 (Title X Prohibition) passed even if it was through a procedural sleight-of-hand. Finally there was enough courage among the ranks of the House members to defund taxpayer funded abortion – yes, taxpayer funded abortion.

Just one example: According to its own documentation, Planned Parenthood performed over 327,600 abortions in fiscal year 2014 with the help of $528 million in taxpayer dollars while making $127 million in profit. You and I pay for abortions every day. We give Planned Parenthood 41% of its budget because it squeezes in 6% of that budget for non-abortion services. We then allow it to make a profit, to include contracts with schools to do sex education training.

The United States shares the dubious distinction of allowing elective abortions after 20 weeks with only six other countries. Two of those six are North Korea and Vietnam. How is it that the rest of the world gets this issue right and the greatest nation on Earth gets it so wrong?

Americans kill over 2,700 unborn children every day – every single day. Surely this carnage is not a moral solution.