Well, it's official. Governor Mike Rounds of South Dakota has signed into law the bill that looks to ban abortions in all cases except when the mother's life is in danger. The law is scheduled to take effect this summer, but the imminent legal challenges will almost certainly affect that.
And if the immediate reactions to the bill’s passage indicates anything, it is that there is still a considerable need for education of the public on this issue—both to address the genuinely difficult applications of the law and to cut through the sophomoric drivel cranked out ever-so-dependably by our brothers and sisters adrift in the pro-choice lobby.
The news reports from the last couple of days on this subject have mostly caused me to roll my eyes, particularly the talking points coming from the folks in the pro-abortion lobby. Sarah Stoesz, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood regional operations for Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, said Monday:
“This is proof-positive that Gov. Rounds cares more about politics than about the health and safety of women in South Dakota. In every state, women, their families, and their doctors should be making private, personal health care decisions — not politicians.”
Now I don’t pretend to know what Gov. Rounds’ motives are for signing the bill. But does Planned Parenthood et al really have to walk us down this same road every time a politician or group of politicians does something they don’t like? I said not long ago that I would hate to do public relations for Planned Parenthood, but in the time I’ve been paying attention to them they’ve been so predictable that I’m starting to think maybe I can. It’s simple really. Whenever a politician or group of politicians does something PP et al doesn’t like, just get up there and say, “[This person or these people] obviously care(s) more about politics than about women’s health.” There ya go. I did it. Where’s my paycheck, Planned Parenthood?
The media's handling of the issue has been, I'm sorry to say, entirely predictable as well.
For starters, in the stories that have come out in the last couple of days, little or no mention whatsoever has been made of the fact that the legislation was written and sponsored primarily by a woman, a democrat named Julie Bartling. Why? Here we have an abortion ban bill unprecedented in its ambition, and its spearhead is not a groggy-voiced gray-haired Republican male but a Democrat woman. Does the press really think that the American people will find that fact to be less interesting than anything else about this story? Could it be that the mainstream press only wants people to see the hard-hearted, conservative face of the pro-life movement, and would rather keep the charitable, well-intentioned face of our community off the front pages and computer screens of the public? Surely not. ...Pardon the sarcasm.
Fox News released a poll yesterday showing that the majority of Americans are opposed to the type of abortion ban that the South Dakota lawmakers and the governor have just passed. The media has frequently pointed out that the bill does not make an “exception” for cases of rape and incest, cases which last I heard 77 percent of Americans, including President Bush, believe should be exempted from an abortion ban.
This is certainly a tempting position to take. Unfortunately it plays right into the hands of people who support abortion on demand. Because think about it: What is the implication behind allowing abortion in cases of rape and incest? It is that abortion can conceivably be the solution to a problem.
But it can never be, and this is what must be communicated to all people of good will in America and the world: that abortion is not only undesirable, but that it is a violent trauma against the mother (to say nothing of the destruction of the most innocent human beings among us) on par with that of rape and incest, and thus to try to solve the one trauma with that of another would only compound the already serious psychological problems faced by her. The real progress on this front will come when people start to think this way, the Catholic way, about abortion.
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