Having Your Cake and Eat It Too - Abortion

Scott Klusendorf:

At a recent town hall event, President Obama fielded a question on abortion. The President replied that the procedure should be "safe, legal, and rare" and that families, not the government, should be the ones making the decision. He also said that restrictions on late-term abortion are currently in place.

So much is wrong here. First, if abortion does not unjustly take the life of a defenseless human being, why should it be rare? Do we care how many teeth are pulled each year?

Second, the federal government IS involved in abortion! Indeed, When people tell me the federal government should stay out of the abortion issue, I ask what they mean by that. Truth is, Roe and Doe did not get the federal government out of abortion. Instead, one branch of the federal government, the judiciary, co-opted the issue from the other two branches of government, leaving them no say on the issue. Put simply, the Court in both cases struck down the abortion laws of all 50 states and concluded that a woman may obtain an abortion for any reason she deems fit through all nine months of pregnancy if needed for "health." As you might imagine, the Court then defined "health' so broadly that you can drive a Mack Truck through it! In short, the Court mandated a policy of abortion-on-demand that no state anticipated prior to the ruling. Thus, the federal government is totally involved in abortion such that families and voters have no legal say in the matter. And given the President would likely support the elimination of parental consent laws, his appeal to "families" making abortion decisions is a joke.

Third, the President wants to have his cake and eat it too. That is, if abortion is a private matter for families to decide, then laws against late-term abortion are every bit as unjust as those limiting early abortion. He can't have it both ways. Truth is, he does not support any laws limiting on abortion. Remember: Three times as an Illinois State Senator he refused to protect babies AFTER they survive abortion. But that aside, if abortion is indeed a private family matter, no laws restricting it can be justified.