On last night's edition of The Story with Martha MacCallum, I reacted to New York state's new abortion law, which is one of the most extreme and inhumane in the entire world. The new measure allows unfettered abortion-on-demand up until the seventh month of pregnancy, and permits nearly unlimited abortion all the way through the moment of birth. Elective abortions in the third trimester require only a determination from the abortionist that the mother's "health" is at risk, with that vague term defined to include "emotional" and "familial" factors. As others have noted, this amounts to no restriction whatsoever:
Read: any reason. ANY REASON. So, to the leftists blabbering about how is pro-lifers are lying or exaggerating the implications of the bill—that it is meant to legalize abortion on demand thru all 9 months—you’re not going to win this fight. It’s infanticide & nothing less.
— Allie Beth Stuckey (@conservmillen) January 24, 2019
In short, New York's new law is a radical late-term abortion measure that effectively enshrines infanticide. It allows the legal killing of fully-formed, viable, unborn children. It also reduces legal protections for unborn children harmed or killed in the course of violent attacks against their mothers. The fanatical abortion lobby is so committed to un-personing and dehumanizing unborn human life that they've successfully fought to reduce legal penalties for assaulting a pregnant woman (presumably carrying a wanted child, not that wanted-ness determines humanity) and ending the life growing inside her. The law makes abortion a "fundamental right," permits non-doctors to perform the life-ending procedures, and forbids any limitations on abortion whatsoever. It also ends protections for babies 'accidentally' born alive during botched or failed abortions. All of this is appalling, and the spin that this action merely "updates" or "modernizes" New York's law to reflect post-Roe reality is insulting.
As I noted on television, New York now joins Oregon in having enacted one of the most barbaric abortion laws not just in the nation, but anywhere on the globe. America's abortion laws are already permissive outliers. Only seven nations allow abortions after 20 weeks, including China, North Korea, and the United States; the entirety of Europe has more restrictive laws. On that score, New York's gruesome pro-abortion regime is wildly out-of-step with the views of the American people, the vast majority of whom want more restrictions on the practice:
The eleventh annual Marist Poll on American attitudes toward abortion finds that overwhelming majorities support substantial restrictions on abortion, and would like to see Roe v. Wade reinterpreted to allow restrictions. Three in four Americans (75 percent) say abortion should be limited to – at most – the first three months of pregnancy. This includes most of those who identify as Republicans (92 percent), Independents (78 percent) and a majority of Democrats (60 percent). It also includes more than six in 10 (61 percent) who identify as pro-choice. Almost two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) also say that if the Supreme Court revisits Roe v. Wade then the Court should rule either to allow restrictions as decided by each state (49 percent), or to outlaw abortion (16 percent). Fewer than a third of Americans (30 percent) would want the Court to rule to allow unrestricted abortion. In addition, the survey found that three-quarters (75 percent) of Americans oppose taxpayer funding of abortion abroad, fewer than two in 10 (19 percent) support such funding.
During the segment, Marie Harf (my radio co-host) said that being pro-choice is not the same thing as being "pro-abortion." That's true for many moderate pro-choice people, but the moneyed abortion lobby, and many of their clients in the Democratic Party, are unmistakably pro-abortion. Their activists cheered loudly as New York's nine-month abortion law was passed, and the governor celebrated this "achievement" by lighting up the tallest building in the country -- which, I might add, is constructed on the site of thousands of murders:
The #ReproductiveHealthAct is now law in New York State. We lit the spire pink to celebrate. pic.twitter.com/dJbZqvWefV
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) January 23, 2019
If this revolting law and resulting political display is not "pro-abortion," I'm not sure what is. I'll leave you with the ostensibly Catholic governor's recent tweet invoking the Pope in opposing the death penalty:
The death penalty is morally indefensible and has no place in the 21st century. Today, in solidarity with @pontifex and in honor of my father, I will be advancing legislation to remove the death penalty from State law once and for all. https://t.co/BxFvym4YTB
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) August 2, 2018
Utterly shameless. Although I oppose the death penalty (in practice, not on principle), it's morally perverse to oppose capital punishment for adults who've been tried and convicted of heinous crimes, while literally cheering the killing of inarguably innocent lives. This entire development is sickening.