Legalized murder

I note with horror that left-wing/liberal/progressive voices have been celebrating - yes, celebrating - the latest abortion legislation in New York state.  It's clearly designed to preempt any threat to the Roe v. Wade decision by a newly conservative Supreme Court.  However, in doing so, it goes to lengths never before seen from - and certainly never before tolerated by - any legislature in this country.

“Today we are taking a giant step forward in the hard-fought battle to ensure a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her own personal health, including the ability to access an abortion. With the signing of this bill, we are sending a clear message that whatever happens in Washington, women in New York will always have the fundamental right to control their own body,” said Gov. Andrew Cuomo after signing New York’s Reproductive Health Act on Tuesday night, January 22.

Not only will the law preserve access to abortions, it also removes abortion from the state’s criminal code. This would protect doctors or medical professionals who perform abortions from criminal prosecution. The law also now allows medical professionals who are not doctors to perform abortions in New York.

“The old law had criminal penalties. It was written that the doctor or professional could be held criminally liable,” Cuomo said during an interview on WNYC Wednesday.

The law also addresses late-term abortions. Under New York’s Reproductive Health Act, they can be performed after 24 weeks if the fetus is not viable or when necessary to protect the life of the mother.

. . .

“We need to be honest with the public and say that this bill does not simply codify Roe v. Wade… what this bill does is expand abortion up to birth and the third trimester,” State Assembly Rep. Nicole Malliotakis argued before the state legislature ... She also argued that removing abortion from the criminal code would mean that if a fetus died as the result of an assault on a woman there would be no prosecution. “Being assaulted and losing your baby is not a woman’s choice,” she said.

There's more at the link.

As if that wasn't bad enough, proposed legislation in Virginia would have gone even further.  If the makeup of the state legislature there changes, I have no doubt it'll be resubmitted for renewed consideration.

A push by Virginia Democrats to loosen restrictions on late-term abortions is erupting into a fierce partisan clash because of a viral video in which a lawmaker acknowledges her legislation would allow abortions up until moments before birth.

Gov. Ralph Northam added gas to the fire Wednesday by describing a hypothetical situation in a radio interview where an infant who is severely deformed or unable to survive after birth could be left to die.

. . .

In the video recorded by the Republican Standard, Gilbert asks Tran whether her legislation would let a pregnant woman who is dilating request an abortion if a doctor certified that the woman's mental health was impaired.

"My bill would allow that, yes," Tran said.

Existing state law does not put an absolute time limit on abortions and Tran's legislation does not alter that.

Her legislation would reduce the number of doctors who would have to certify late-term abortions are needed from three to one. It would also delete the requirement that doctors determine that continuing a pregnancy would "substantially and irremediably" impair a woman's health. Instead doctors would only have to certify that the woman's health was impaired.

. . .

Northam was asked about the video exchange during a regular radio appearance on WTOP-FM Wednesday.

The governor, who is a pediatric neurologist, defended the legislation and noted that late-term abortions are usually done because the infant is severely deformed or unable to survive after birth.

Northam said that if a woman were to desire an abortion as she's going into labor, the baby would be "resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue" between doctors and the mother, leaving open what would happen next.

Again, more at the link.

The truth, of course, is that there is no medical reason to abort a child in the third trimester or approaching birth.

An OB/GYN who has delivered more than 2,500 babies went viral for his response to New York state's new pro-abortion bill that allows abortion right up until birth in many cases.

. . .

Cuomo ordered that some buildings, including the One World Trade Center, be lighted in pink to celebrate the passage of the law.

“That’s actually sick,” [Dr. Omar L.] Hamada told "Fox & Friends" Monday morning, “that we’re celebrating the death of infants – of babies that could live outside of the womb right then. In fact, at the base of the World Trade Center…there is a memorial to 9/11 in which is listed the names of the victims and also the fetuses. I think there were four or six fetuses that were killed, and they list those as victims. And now they’re celebrating that they’re able to take the lives of those.”

The new law allows non-doctors to perform the procedure and allows for abortions up to the point of birth if the life or health of the mother is deemed at risk or the baby is not viable.

“There’s absolutely no reason to kill a baby before delivery in the third trimester," he said. "Not a fetal or maternal indication – what we say in medicine. If there’s a problem, and there are problems in the third trimester, both with the babies and with the mom that require delivery, just deliver the baby. We don’t have to kill it."

More at the link.

Dr. Hamada is quite right.  As a pastor, I've given emergency baptisms to several extremely premature babies, one only a little over five months old - she looked like a small frog compared to my hand.  I was summoned to the hospital urgently, because she was so premature she wasn't expected to live.  I baptized her with distilled water through a dropper-like instrument, reaching in through a port in the side of the incubator.  Want to know something amazing?  From the moment I baptized her - literally at that instant - she began to rally.  Two nurses by my side watched in astonishment, exclaiming aloud, as monitors showed all her vital signs simultaneously beginning to improve.  She went home after four months in the incubator, and as far as I know has had a normal childhood since then.  The point of telling that tale is to show that, given good medical care and a reasonable chance, even very premature babies have a good chance of making it to term and living a normal life, given modern medical care.  Abortion is not an inevitable or inescapable outcome.

I won't go into all the arguments about the sanctity of human life, the humanity (or otherwise) of the fetus in the womb, etc.  I have my views, conditioned by my faith, and others have different ones.  That's not the point of this discussion.  In medical and scientific terms, irrespective of one's moral code, there is no reason to abort a baby in the third trimester.  Once that baby is born, it's a living human being, and should be treated as such.  To suggest that it might be left to die as a sort of post-partum abortion is prima facie absolutely sickening and immoral.  Even if a law says it's not criminal to do so, that doesn't change the moral and ethical reality.  A law could say that the sky is not blue, but red, but it wouldn't change the reality we see with our own eyes every day!

As far as I'm concerned, any politician who votes for such a measure brands him- or herself as beyond the pale, and utterly unworthy of their office.  Please God, may voters treat them as such!

Peter