Thoughts on the reaction in the USA and in Australia against the 2022 SCOTUS decision

4 MINUTE READ

From Luke’s Journal 2022 | Termination of Pregnancy | Vol.27 No.3

The Decision

Enough has been said regarding the SCOTUS decision. The Roe vs Wade decision of 1973 was wrong, and has always been wrong. Freedom to kill your baby was never a ‘right’ to be drawn from the US Constitution and would have been far from the thoughts of the founders.

The extreme reaction against the decision was missing the point. The judges were not judging on the rights or wrongs of abortion, they were not making a judgment on women’s rights, they were just saying that the abortion issue has got nothing to do with the US Constitution – “If you want the right to abort/kill your baby then go and find it elsewhere”.

Hooray for the US Constitution. May it always be protected from activist interpretation.

The Reaction

The reaction was extreme, with demonstrations against the US decision even here in Australia. Let us be clear then what the intense reaction means. This was like a primal scream – “How dare judges take away our right to kill our babies!” This was not about rape, or Down Syndrome or other conditions or abnormalities incompatible with life, or even wrong sex or inconvenience – it was a cry, “We demand the right to kill our own babies –  for any reason, at any time, by any method, and no one is to interfere!”

In some instances, the reaction was not only vehement, but violent as well – to the extent of fire-bombing pregnancy centres, as well as threatening churches and pro-life organisations.

When the dust has settled there will be a more rational reaction to enshrine such ‘rights’, almost certainly within state law rather than federal. In many (US) states there will be a push for, “Any reason, at any time, by any method”, but in other conservative states the arguments will most likely involve ‘justifying’ on grounds of rape, foetal abnormalities, etc..

The Consequences

Please note that now, in most states in Australia, even when the baby is viable and is ‘accidentally’ born alive after an abortion procedure, it can just be put to one side and left to die “because it shouldn’t have been born alive”. 

How can this be?

Note also, that in a dilatation and extraction procedure (routine after 20 weeks gestation since a curette is no longer safe), the baby is delivered piecemeal by pulling it to pieces. Because we can’t hear it scream, no consideration is given of anaesthetic for the baby. 

How can this be?

Note also, that in Australia, when amendments have been put forward to modify proposed abortion legislation, such as prohibiting partial birth abortion (PBA), such amendments have astonishingly been defeated. PBA involves turning the baby to a breech presentation and, before the head is delivered, puncturing the foramen magnum with a sucker to suck the brain out, thus collapsing the head for an easier vaginal delivery with less distress for the mother (“she can wake up pretending she was never pregnant”). This procedure, though rarely (if ever) performed in Australia, is legally permissible.

How can this be?

As I wrote in a submission to the NSW Parliament Upper House regarding the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/orwellian-doublespeak-and-the-nsw-abortion-bill/ 

How can it be that Members of Parliament in Australia would vote to give legislative approval to pulling off babies’ arms and legs at a time when nerve pathways have been laid down and the child – no longer safe in what should be the safe-house womb – is screaming and writhing in silent agony.

One day a future generation will be aghast at what we have come to accept.

Can I for once show an ultrasound image of a baby being pulled apart during half-time at a grand final football match?

MPs, hang your heads in shame!

The Implications

When so much has been achieved in Australia by the abortion lobby, the reaction then highlights the deep divide between the ‘pro-life’ respect for God’s creation and the ‘pro-choice’, pro-autonomy, “I will do it my way” anti-God voices.

And when it comes to ‘eugenic de-selection’ (read: abortion) for reasons of ‘imperfection’ or diagnosed disability, we on the ‘pro-life’ side are labelled as ‘genetic outlaws’.

I believe the two terms – ‘pro-life’ and ‘pro-choice’ – are here to stay and are useful to our side of the divide.

It is an extraordinary aspect of all this that even when we are completely silent we will be accused of hate-speech and intolerance just because we exist.

And we have not even touched on the potential consequences to the mother, including regret, guilt and depression, let alone the potential for subsequent sterility and premature birth with all its complications, and further psychological manifestations when the connection with abortion and choice is finally realised.

Further still, as a consequence of the trivialisation of the Imago Dei and the discarding of the intrinsic value view of human life, soon may come the creation of human life or ‘hybrid’ human life by techniques other than sperm-egg fusion and uterine implantation – the deliberate creation of human life for research purposes, the view of human life as a commodity, and its eventual commercialisation with inevitable exploitation to follow. http://www.chooselifeaustralia.org.au/life/medical-ethics-concern-for-society-and-the-future-of-medicine/

---