So much of the conversation surrounding abortion laws focuses on what women presumably want, with abortion advocates talking passionately about empowerment, control, or choice. But rarely do we acknowledge that laws regulating abortion often protect women from men who wish to hurt them or abortionists who don’t care if women are hurt at all. A default position in favor of abortion and against life-affirming laws can harm women and children, as illustrated in New York and Louisiana this week.
Case in point: with ink barely dry on the sweeping abortion law signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York to the cheers of legislators determined to allow virtual infanticide, abortion up to the moments before birth, already an abusive man will avoid the consequences of ending a baby’s life, killed when he allegedly stabbed the child’s mother to death.
Anthony Hobson is facing charges in Queens for allegedly killing Jennifer Irigoyen, his ex-girlfriend. She was five months pregnant when Hobson allegedly stabbed her multiple times in the abdomen. For the two lives lost, Hobson was first charged with second murder for Irigoyen, and abortion in the second degree for the child.
But in light of New York’s sweeping support for abortion, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown reported that he couldn’t bring charges for both victims because the law no longer allowed him to act in defense of the preborn. What does this say to other abusive men targeting their preborn children? Perhaps to make New York their destination of choice?
New York is also where a woman selling RU-486 chemical abortion pills through the mail, without the safeguards recommended by the FDA, got caught up in a FDA investigation involving life and death stakes. Not only have women died taking such drugs when they were later in pregnancy or experiencing an ectopic pregnancy (both conditions that can be easily determined by an exam as required by the FDA) but abusers have been known to use easy access to such drugs against women’s wishes.
Pill distributor Ursula Wing came to the attention of federal agents after a Wisconsin man who reportedly twice had purchased drugs from her was arrested for slipping the drugs into the drink of a woman carrying his child who wanted the baby over his objections.
The on-line purchase made it easy for Jeffrey S. Smith to try and force an abortion on a woman who chose life for her baby. And he is not the first to use the too easy availability of the drugs to act against a woman’s wishes, though he may be wishing he acted while visiting the Big Apple.
Presumably women also wish to survive an abortion, should they get one. But even that concern can be waived aside as seen recently in the state of Louisiana where legislators passed a law designed to require that in an emergency, an abortion vendor had a plan in place to save a woman‘s life. Legislators asked that abortionists have admitting privileges, an agreement in place for getting patients booked into hospitals. But by a 5 to 4 margin, the Supreme Court was willing to allow abortionists who don’t have their emergency plans in place to keep operating – all in the name of access. While this case will be reviewed further, it’s interesting that the default was in favor of abortion, rather than in favor of protecting women’s lives and health in a life-threatening emergency.
All kinds of things in our society, from clean water standards to speed limits, are mandated to protect the lives and health of the people around us. Yet somehow the abortion industry has gotten a get-out-of-regulation-free card. That must change.
Both New York’s passage of a law allowing abortion through all 9 months of pregnancy and Louisiana’s fight for women’s safety illustrate the trend in life-related legislation. Even before Roe v. Wade is reversed more fully returning abortion to the states, the ground game in defense of life is crucial in state legislatures where nearly 1,200 laws have been passed since Roe.
And that’s only the beginning. In light of recent wins and losses in state houses, Students for Life of America recently launched Students for Life Action to contribute to the momentum for pro-life laws nationwide. An under-regulated, rarely monitored abortion industry benefits abusive men and abortion vendors. Especially for women choosing life for their preborn infants and themselves, laws must be passed to respect their rights to life.