Princeton professor Robert George has some worthy reflections on the legacy of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, which was handed down 36 years ago today. He writes:
‘The Roe justices were also wrong to imagine that legal abortion would prove to be enlightened or in the slightest respect humane. On the contrary, the policy imposed by the Court has proven to be an unmitigated disaster. In the thirty-six years since Roe and Doe, abortion has taken the lives of more than fifty million unborn victims—each a distinct, unique, precious human being. It has done immeasurable moral, psychological, and sometimes physical harm to women who are so very often, and in so many respects, truly abortion’s “secondary victims.” It has corrupted physicians and nurses by turning healers into killers. It has undermined the moral authority of the law by its injustice. It has abetted irresponsible—even predatory—male sexual behavior. Far from reducing the rate of out-of-wedlock births, particularly to poor women, illegitimacy has skyrocketed in the age of abortion. Now the abortion license has metastasized into widespread elite support for deadly embryo experimentation and even, in my home state of New Jersey, to the express legalization of the horrific and grisly practice of fetal farming—the creation of human beings by cloning or other processes for the purpose of harvesting their tissues and organs at any point up to birth for experimentation and transplantation.’
George’s assessment of the politics of abortion are spot-on. Read carefully his
‘Barack Obama is trying to win over religiously serious Catholics and Evangelicals, without altering in the slightest his support for abortion, including late-term and partial-birth abortions, the funding of abortion and embryo-destructive research with taxpayer dollars, the elimination of informed consent and parental notification laws, and the revocation of conscience and religious liberty protections for pro-life doctors and other healthcare workers and pharmacists. He will ultimately fail. We must see to it that he fails.
‘In this project, Obama is being served and abetted by a small number of Catholic and Evangelical intellectuals and activists who have been peddling the claim that Obama, despite his pro-abortion extremism, is effectively pro-life because of his allegedly enlightened economic and social policies will reduce the number of abortions. This is delusional. The truth is that Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to serve in the United States Senate or seek the Office of President of the United States. The revocation of the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico City Policy, funding limitations on embryo-destructive research, informed consent laws, parental notification statutes—all of which Obama has promised to his pro-abortion base—will dramatically increase the number of abortions, and will do so for reasons that have been articulated by the abortion lobby itself. It is the pro-abortion side that tells us that the Hyde Amendment alone has resulted in 300,000 fewer abortions each year than would otherwise be performed—and that is why they so desperately want it to be repealed. Yet the putatively pro-life Obama apologists claim that the man who pledges to repeal it is going to reduce the number of abortions. Let me say it again: this is delusional.’
This one is a must-read. You can do so here.
9 Comments
Darius T
Excellent!
rafe
The pro-choice movement has a “dirty little secret” that we don’t often hear talked about… That is, the tremendous amount of psychological and emotional pain many women experience following the procedure.
I talked to a counselor (secular) the other day who estimated that more than %50 of the middle-aged women he sees are still dealing with the effects of an abortion much earlier in their lives.
Susan
Thanks for the comment, Rafe. Here is a news article I read recently:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28050494/
I am sure there are different definitions of “long term mental health”, but I just find the info in this article hard to believe.
rafe
Thanks for the link, Susan! I’d like to see more info on that study. Specifically, how the sample was drawn and how “mental health” was assessed. This issue is extremely politicized, especially by the pro-choice camp. I’ve read studies that purport no causative link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. Know what I mean?
Matt Svoboda
nothing from msnbc can be trusted…
Did you all here that Obama lifted the ban for government funding for abortion this morning?
Brian Krieger
I don’t remember the Koop study way back when and I guess I’ve never heard much about long-term stress disorder. But the suicide rate (read: short term stress disorder) is 3 – 7X in post abortion women. Also, when reading reports (regardless of which side you seek to bolster), stating things like “no high-quality†allows a dismissal of nearly anything you want. That said, I would trust that Dr.’s at JH would be less likely to fall victim of that (then again, pride puffs up…..). I don’t find it hard to believe that there isn’t a long-term stress disorder. With a bevy of people saying “no, it’s perfectly fine†would allow one to suppress quite a bit. Thanks, Susan!
rafe
The problem is so widespread, there is actually a movement among the mental health community to get this into the DSM as a disorder (“post abortion stress disorder” or something like that). Again, I’m not talking about Christians here.
Matt Svoboda
I am a Christian, but when I worked at a Pregnancy Resource Center we had a ‘Post Abortion Counseling’ class. In the class usually half or majority were always women (and some men) over the age of 40. Most of them had an abortion in there teens and were still trying to deal with it… That is all I know, I;m not sure what all the research says, but in my expereince people were still dealing with there decision 25 years+…
Susan
I think you are right, Rafe, about the “dirty little secret” of the pro-choice movement. If the they admit that there is anything about abortion that is traumatizing to women, then they have to admit that there is something wrong with abortion, and so on…you can follow the logic of where it will take them and they aren’t willing to go there. I think they are turning a blind eye to the difficulties these women face. I also think that many women are deceived by the pro-choice propaganda and learn of the consequences of their decisions when it is too late. I pray that we will be spurred on to good work for the pro-life cause & for Christ.