In my abortion post yesterday, I briefly mentioned the relative dearth of national media coverage when pro-abortion (I use that term intentionally and selectively) legislators pass radical measures that are profoundly out of step with voter sentiment. Widely-supported measures like Texas' 20-week ban was met with breathless attention, as were heartbeat bills in Georgia and Louisiana. But the national media had very little to say when Oregon implemented its demented new abortion regime, or when New York's governor lit up the tallest building in the country in celebration of signing an extreme late-term abortion law. We're experiencing a similar comparative blackout over Illinois' new law, which repeals a longstanding ban on the truly ghastly procedure known as partial-birth abortion, and specifies that unborn children aren't protected by any independent human rights prior to birth.
During the debate over this measure in Springfield, a pregnant Republican lawmaker, surrounded by other women, rose to oppose the draconian anti-human rights proposal. Her voice shook during her remarks, in which he focused on the gratuitous and aggressive radicalism of the bill before the chamber, noting the undefined, capacious standard of "familial health," by which purely elective late-term abortions of viable unborn babies would be made legal (via the Free Beacon):
"This bill will mean that for a woman at my stage in pregnancy, where a baby responds to his dad's voice when he reads him books at night, the woman could go to the facility—the baby's perfectly healthy—but if that woman says, ‘based on my familial health, this is medically necessary,' that is allowed... This bill is not about keeping abortion legal in Illinois. This bill is about a massive expansion that will impact viable babies. And that is wrong."
The poll we highlighted yesterday showed that just six percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal up until the moment of birth, and only eight percent favor legalized third-trimester abortions. It seems as though elected Democrats make up a significant portion of this fringe. Abortion proponents frame their arguments as "women's health" advocacy. They have no answer for the large majority of American women who do not view abortion -- particularly late-term abortion -- as a matter of their "health." This impassioned speech from a female legislator, who is carrying a son, was ignored by the state's male governor, who cheered the return of partial-birth abortion: "With reproductive healthcare under attack across the country, we must do everything in our power to protect women's rights in Illinois," he said, lecturing the many women of Illinois who oppose his position, including Rep. Avery Bourne.
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At the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List's annual gala in Washington this week, keynote speaker Nikki Haley -- the two-term governor of South Carolina and recently-departed US Ambassador to the United Nations -- lit into the supposedly "feminist" idea that women must support abortion rights as an inextricable element of defending women's rights. This demand conformity, Haley said, is actually anti-women, and misses the entire thrust of the pro-life argument (skip ahead to the 6:15 mark):
Unfortunately, many on the left use the abortion debate to divide women and demand conformity. They do this in the name of feminism. But that is not real feminism. The idea that women must adhere to a particular set of values is one of the most anti-women ideas in today’s culture. It is a rejection of the ideas of equality and tolerance that the women’s movement is supposed to be about. As a pro-life, female governor, I was blessed with a unique platform, and I made every effort to use it appropriately. Not to lob attacks at people who disagreed with me, not to diminish the other side, but to reframe the debate. To explain that being pro-life is not about being for or against women. It is about being for a baby’s right to live – the most basic right there is.
I'll leave you with this important analysis from yet another pro-life woman, regarding the media's scandalous role in obscuring and (often deliberately) distorting the abortion debate:
Most Americans disagree with the Democratic party line on abortion. Because of euphemisms and media gaslighting, they just don’t know what the Democratic party’s line is. Grateful to have an essay in the latest print issue of @dcexaminer: https://t.co/SrmRbpF1Xj
— Alexandra DeSanctis (@xan_desanctis) June 4, 2019
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