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Out of the Mainstream
By KIRSTEN POWERS
May 1, 2007
Brian Williams asked a revealing question at the Democratic presidential
debate in South Carolina last week. The NBC News anchor, who was serving
as moderator, inquired whether criticism of the Supreme Court's decision to
uphold the federal partial-birth abortion ban put the Democrats on stage
at odds with the majority of Americans who applauded the decision. John
Edwards, apparently missing the rhetorical nature of the question, responded,
"No, I don't believe it is. "
Polls show between 60% and 70% of Americans oppose
late term abortions, except to save the life of the mother. The Democratic
candidates -- all of whom vocally criticized the ruling -- are out of
touch with most Americans, including many who are pro-choice, on this
important issue. Even some Democrats who voted for the ban four years ago -- such
as Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Joe Biden (two of 17 Senate
Democrats to vote for it) -- have dressed down the Supreme Court for upholding a law
they voted for.It's tragic that abortion rights have become synonymous with
modern day feminism. But it's mind-boggling that late-term abortions now
enjoy the imprimatur of every one of the presidential candidates of one
of the two main political parties. Many early feminists -- the Suffragettes
-- opposed abortion. They viewed it as an affront to human rights. There is
little doubt that they would have recognized elective, late-term
abortion for what it is, a gruesome, uncivilized and inhuman procedure.Feminism
was meant to establish women as having equal legal rights to men. Yet, in
today's twisted debate, women are not mere equals. Instead, they have
been elevated to a special status where they have the "right" to determine
whether a five-month or older "live fetus," as the court called it,
should be partially delivered outside of their body and killed in the most
gruesome manner imaginable, even if carrying that fetus poses no threat to their
life. Some elected Democrats ignored this faux-feminist canard, and
supported the ban, including Rep. James P. Moran, of Virginia, who said, "It's not
about a woman's right to choose. It's about a baby's right to life." The
late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a pro-choice Democrat, called the practice "infanticide." It needs to be said that there is no
constitutional right to crush a living human's skull and suction out its brains, no
matter where that life may reside -- inside the womb, or partially outside the
womb, as is done in the so-called partial birth abortion. It's immoral
and contrary to the values of the Democratic Party, which prides itself on
standing up for the weak and voiceless.If Democratic power brokers
aren't swayed by moral arguments, then they should consider how their reflexive
pandering to the left wing of the party will play in a general
election. The Democratic Party has made a huge show of reaching out to religious
voters, for whom abortion is a central issue. Overtures have been made to
acknowledge the moral dimension of abortion, with Sen. Hillary Clinton's
famous remarks that, "we can all recognize that abortion in many ways
represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women." But terrified
by the left wing of the Democratic Party, the presidential candidates are
aligning themselves with organizations that malign opponents of
unrestricted late-term abortions as misinformed hysterics. Yet some of the people who
run those organizations are themselves bereft of factual information about
the procedure they champion. Recently, National Organization for Women (NOW)
President Kim Gandy was asked in a radio interview to describe the
procedure she so vigorously supports. She couldn't. When pressed, she sputtered,
"I'm not a doctor." When the host cited testimony of a doctor, one Dr. Martin
Haskell -- the man who pioneered and has performed at least a thousand
of these abortions -- Mr. Gandy replied "I don't know who Dr. Haskell
is." It's important to know who Dr. Haskell is, since he has debunked a central
claim of unrestricted late-term abortion proponents, that they are critical to
protect the "health" of the mother. According to an interview in
American Medical News, Dr. Haskell said, "I'll be quite frank: most of my
abortions are elective in that 20-24 week range. . . In my particular case,
probably 20% are for genetic reasons. And the other 80% are purely
elective."Rather than defending the indefensible, rather than parroting the propaganda
that elective late-term abortions are "health-care decisions" akin to an
appendectomy, the Democratic Party should be taking the lead in
eliminating a still legal form of elective late-term abortion where, as the court
described it, "The fetus is usually ripped apart as it is removed, and
the doctor may take 10 to 15 passes to remove it."Sen. Barack Obama pointed
out that late- term abortions account for less than 1% of all abortions.
Sounds sort of benign, until you consider that in the last 10 years more than
10 million babies have been aborted in the United States.
Ms. Powers served in the Clinton administration from 1993-98 and is a Fox News political
analyst.
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117798912852087814.html
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