I read this very good piece by Michael New at the National Review Online, on Tracking the Times’s Commentary on Sanctity of Life Issues which I think you ought to read. I want to highlight the following paragraphs:The mainstream media typically offers little in the way of interesting commentary on sanctity of life issues. Sunday’s New York Times editorial by Dorothy Samuels, a member of The New York Times editorial board and former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, is certainly no exception. The whole commentary reads like a NARAL or Planned Parenthood press release. Throughout the editorial Samuels bemoans the incremental progress that pro-lifers have made at both state and federal level and encourages supporters of legal abortion to become more active.
In her op-ed, Samuels deems five particular pieces of pro-life legislation the “most harmful.” These are 1) waiting periods, 2) informed consent laws, 3) parental involvement laws, 4) clinic safety regulations, and 5) prohibition of abortion coverage in insurance policies. One wonders why Samuels deemed these particular pieces of pro-life legislation the “most harmful.” She never explains her methodology. At any rate, the editorial comes complete with a color coded map showing how many of the five “most harmful” abortion restrictions each state has enacted. Not surprisingly, states in the South and Midwest have been more active in passing pro-life laws than their counterparts in the Northeast and on the West Coast.Read it all here.
Commentary. I want to bring your attention to Ms. Samuels' first "most harmful" piece of pro-life legislation now approved, or making its way through the legislatures of several states: "waiting-periods".
Take for example South Dakota's excellent 3-Day Waiting Period for an abortion. ADopted last March, the law is aimed at preventing mothers from feeling coerced or pressured into having an abortion, and requires that women have a one-on-one session with a crisis pregnancy center counselor during the 72-hour waiting period.
The mother would have to certify that she obtained counseling, and learned about the assistance and education available to help her “keep and care for her child,” prior to undergoing an abortion. Predictably, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood announced they would sue the state. In her opinion piece, Ms. Samuel considered these additional counseling sessions as "demeaning."
Now for my unrequested opinion: it amazes me that the same end of the ideological spectrum that push forward a law requiring a 5-day waiting period for the purchase of a firearm - that may never be used in the taking of a human life - demand no waiting periods for the actual taking of a human life.
Can this people be more morally daft than this? Is there an end to their darkness?
Another example of this benightness of the abortion industry's apologists is their inability to understand or accept the just stigma their chosen line of work deserves. They kill babies after all, and even the mothers who go to them ask the providers "how can you do this." The mothers know what an abortion entail, whereas the industry and their apologists play games with words to justify the killing of so many.
I welcome the waiting-period laws and anything that reduces the scope of the nefarious consequences of Roe v. Wade prior to its entire derogation. I also pray for a new dawn of a Culture of Life in our nation that would make abortion not only illegal, but completely unnecessary; where the innocent are not killed upon the altar of "choice" and women in crisis pregnancies receive real, holistic health care that truly respect their bodies and their motherhood.