A certain professor who teaches students who aspire to become speech pathologists
begins by showing them the development of the various organs involved in speech. When he shows
his class an ultrasound picture of the development of the palate in an unborn baby, it is not
uncommon for one or two women in his class to have tears in their eyes, or to say to him afterward
that they have had an abortion and were very much affected by seeing what an unborn baby looks like.
For too long we have been led to believe that an abortion is the removal of some unformed material,
something like having an appendix operation. The very expression “unborn baby” has almost
disappeared from the language, being replaced by the more bloodless and antiseptic term
“fetus.” Many vocal advocates who declare themselves “pro-choice” do not want women to
have the choice of knowing just what they are choosing before having an abortion. Ferocious
opposition has stopped the showing of pictures of an abortion in process—even in schools or colleges
that show movies of naked adults performing various sex acts. Still photographs of aborted
fetuses have been banned as well. The particularly grisly procedure know as “partial-birth abortion”
cannot even be referred to in much of the media, where it is called a “late-term abortion”—another
bloodless term and one that shifts the focus from what happens to when it happens.
What happens in a partial-birth abortion is that a baby who has developed too far to die
naturally when removed from his mother’s body is deliberately killed by having his brains sucked
out. When this is done, the baby is not completely out of his mother’s body because, if he were,
the doctor would be charged with murder. There is no medical reason for this procedure,
which has been condemned by the American Medical Association. There is only a legal
reason—to keep the doctor and the mother out of jail. All this is smoothly covered over in
the media by calling such actions a “late-term abortion” and refusing to specify what happens.
Such patterns of determined evasions and obfuscations show that “pro-choice” in practice
often really means pro-abortion. Knowledge is the first thing being aborted. Philosophical questions
about when life begins may preoccupy some people on both sides of the abortion controversy.
But the raw physical facts of what happens in various kinds of abortion have turned many others,
including physicians, from being pro-abortion to being anti-abortion. One doctor who had
performed many abortions never performed another one after seeing an ultrasound movie of the baby’s
reactions. With most other medical procedures, “informed consent ” is the watchword. But,
when the issue is abortion, great efforts are made to keep “choice” from becoming too informed.
Politically and legally, the abortion issue is too complex for any easy resolution.
We have gone through a quarter of a century of bitter controversy precisely because the
Supreme Court went for an easy resolution back in 1973 with the Roe v. Wade decision. Before then,
various states had made differing efforts to wrestle with and balance the weighty concerns
on both sides of the abortion issue. But Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun rushed in where
angels fear to tread, with a one-size-fits-all decision, washed down with the blatant lie
that this was based on the Constitution. Far from settling things, Roe v. Wade has led to
polarization and escalating strife all across the country, including bombings and assassinations.
It has corrupted the media, academia and other sources that are supposed to inform us,
but which have instead become partisan organs of political correctness.
However this highly-charged issue is ultimately resolved—and there is no resolution on the
horizon today—surely honesty must be part of that resolution. Political catch-phrases like
“a woman’s right to do what she wants with her own body” cannot be applied to situations where
a baby is killed at the very moment when he ceases to be part of his mother’s body.
One of the few signs of hope for some ultimate resolution is that most people on both sides of
this controversy are not happy about abortions. The women who shed tears at the very sight of
an unborn baby may not be politically committed to either side of this issue,
but their feelings may be part of what is needed to bring opposing sides together.