As Philadelphians are captivated with the gory details about Kermit Gosnell’s West Philly “abortion clinic,” I find myself with one persistent thought: With an Infant Safe Haven law in place in Pennsylvania, some of the women, mostly viewed as Gosnell’s victims, are just as guilty as the alleged baby butcher himself.
Infant Safe Haven laws, or “Baby Moses laws,” date back to 1999, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families. The laws allow parents (in some states, just the mother) to surrender their newborns at a designated site without consequence if they are unable to keep the baby. In Pennsylvania, parents can surrender an infant to a hospital or health care facility up to one month after birth, and all they’re asked to provide is some medical history information.
Women who knowingly procured the murders of their babies – the ones carried almost to term, delivered, then brutally killed with scissors – at Gosnell’s “clinic,” then, have no real excuse for doing what they did. In those cases where mothers went willingly, knowing what would happen at Gosnell’s practice, the babies are the victims. The women aren’t.
The Philadelphia Daily News notes the most common problems at the 14 other Pennsylvania abortion clinic who were ordered to make corrections.
The most common recent deficiencies at the other abortion clinics, according to records obtained by the Associated Press, were failures to properly report medical conditions that qualify as "serious events" and not keeping resuscitation equipment readily available.
On Monday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie spoke at a prolife rally in New Jersey.
"What I encourage all of you to do is what I will continue to do, which is to speak calmly and clearly and forthrightly for the idea that this is an issue whose time has come," Christie said.This led the Star-Ledger editorial board to wet their collective pants.
Christie told the crowd that he has not always been anti-abortion. It wasn’t until his wife Mary Pat Christie became pregnant with their daughter Sarah, who is 14, that he changed his position.
"It was at that moment that it became clear to me that being on the sidelines on that issue was not something that I could live with," Christie said. "That child is a life which deserves protection."
At the FRCBlog, Rob Schwarzwalder points out the contradictions in President Obama's statement on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade.
On the other hand, Mr. Obama says he remains “committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.”
My question: Why? If abortion is a morally neutral and even beneficial choice (gotta fulfill those dreams, right?), why promote alternatives to it? The rhetorical landscape of the President’s statement is replete with the presupposition that personal choice is the supreme good, meaning that abortion and adoption are merely achromatic options on the palette of ethical choices.
Additionally, if choice is the summum bonum, why be “committed” to alternatives to one of those choices whose exercise involves an activity — the destruction of a life — fundamentally contrary to all the others? The self-contradiction is transparent, startlingly so.
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