On This Day in History, January 22nd

On this day in history, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of a woman’s right to privacy in choosing whether or not to abort her pregnancy.

By a 7-2 margin based upon the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Court classified the right to choose to have an abortion as "fundamental."

To date, it is estimated that over 60,000,000 abortions have occurred since Roe was passed.

Under the Trump Administration, abortion was made more difficult to perform. Under the Biden Administration, the stated intent is to roll-back the restrictive abortion policy of the Trump Administration. There is debate whether this will include abortion rights into the third trimester of pregnancy, i.e. late-term abortion. There is even discussion to legalize abortion up to the moment of delivery.

The national debate over abortion centers on two perspectives: 1) Is it a woman’s right to have an abortion? 2) Is the fetus a pregnant woman carries a human being or a lump of tissue?

In its original ruling, the Court stated that abortion is a woman’s right, but abortion is not her absolute right. The justices restricted a woman’s right to choose as her pregnancy progressed through each trimester.

Abortion proponents are now pushing back against the Court’s original ruling that limited choice. Their hope is to expand a woman’s right to choose absolutely. That is, the right to conclude her pregnancy whenever she wishes, even to the moment of delivery. There is also discussion, and a legal effort, to permit abortion after delivery for those women who deliver their child and decide post partem that they do not want the child.

Medical science has advanced exponentially since Roe was passed. Today, medical science is able to hear an infant’s heartbeat at 6 weeks gestation. Evidence is emerging that the “mass of tissue” feels early embryonic pain and reacts. Fetal viability outside of the womb is regularly demonstrated between 22 and 24 weeks gestation.

In short, the perspective of a woman’s right to choose has expanded from limited to absolute. Whereas the justices felt in 1973 that it was the government’s responsibility to protect fetal health the farther a pregnancy progressed, the prevailing opinion today is that the government has no right to interfere with a woman’s right to choose abortion at any point during her pregnancy, perhaps even after she delivers her baby.

However, the science today is irrefutable: What is being aborted is not a lump of tissue. Abortion is the termination of an embryonic human life. To be blunt, within a few weeks, the right to abortion is the legal right to kill the most vulnerable of human beings, a baby.

I was having drinks not long ago with some progressive-minded friends. They were enthusiastic about the expansion of rights promised under President Biden’s Administration, specifically the expanded right to abortion. They talked using the vague terms of the current abortion debate: choice, fetus, lump of tissue, mass, etc.

I was quiet. I wanted to do my best to be certain I heard and understood. Once satisfied, I double-checked with the classic observation therapist’s use to establish clear communication: “I hear you saying….” My raised eyebrows asked for confirmation, which they gave.

“So friends, let’s be clear about the subject at the table. We are not talking about abortion. We are talking about infanticide. By definition, the intentional killing of human infants.”

From across the table, aggressive pushback: “I don’t like that word. It’s offensive. Disgusting. Use a different word.”

“You mean like, abortion?”

There was silence.

“If you wish to use politically correct terminology like abortion and masses of tissue, let’s at least be honest about what you are advocating for when you speak nobly about a woman’s right to choose: You are advocating for infanticide, the legal right to kill our own children.”

By now, I had ruined the atmosphere of happy hour.

So, I finished my thought: “In our history classes, we disdain the barbarity of “primitive” cultures that sacrificed their children to the gods. We are repulsed by the tyranny of Hitler who murdered six-million whom he didn’t want included his Aryan Nation and Stalin who terminated the lives of twenty-million who got in the way of his Communistic ideology.

“But the dark and primitive periods, and horrid tyranny of the previous century by brutal despots, pales in comparison to the enlightened world of today that has committed the infanticide of 60,000,000 children and that is promising to rush headlong into an expanded slaughter if elected.

“Now that we are clear what’s being discussed, please pass the cheese plate.”