Fetuses Are Now (Almost) As Cherished As Pelicans In Louisiana by Doug Wrenn

Fetuses Are Now (Almost) As Cherished As Pelicans In Louisiana

By Doug Wrenn

August 08, 2007

Kudos to Democrat Governor Kathleen Blanco, of "The Pelican State." From here on, Louisiana will now be rightfully known for protecting more than its state bird. Responding to the US Supreme Court's April decision to uphold the ban on partial birth abortion, Blanco signed into law two bills that penalize anyone from performing this grisly and unnecessary procedure, and "mothers" who have it done. As reported in the August 5th issue of The National Catholic Register, "Louisiana Bans 'Partial-Birth,'" the laws went into effect on July 13th and are enforced with penalties that include potential fines up to $100,000 and imprisonment up to ten years. Louisiana is the first state to ban partial birth abortion since the latest Supreme Court ruling. One state down, 49 to go, and then hopefully, all abortions will be next. As the legally sanctioned taking of human life gradually evolved, rather than instantly occurred, it sadly but realistically will have to be reversed in the same slow, tedious, arduous, and incremental manner.

Louisiana tried to ban partial birth abortion in 1997, but a federal court overruled the state ban in 1999. Blanco also earlier signed another bill into law that mandates informing mothers contemplating abortion that fetuses feel pain. Doctors have said that there is no medical reason why partial birth, or "late term" abortions, which can be done right up until delivery date, should be performed. In partial birth abortions, birth is actually partially induced, and the baby is then killed after his or her head passes through the birth canal. Even the late and liberal Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) very accurately referred to this ghoulish procedure as "infanticide." Tragically, the current occupant of the Senate seat vacated by Senator Moynihan seems far less impeded in her agenda, and for that matter, in her presidential aspirations by any such similar semblance of conscience, compassion, humility or humanity for our most innocent, precious and completely vulnerable fellow Americans. Even if this frozen-hearted female Faust did have the capacity for such warm and humanitarian sentiments, her money-giving minions, Democrat demagogues, feminist followers and K Street cronies to whom she owes allegiance (and possibly her soul) wouldn't have it any other way. Tell me about "vast conspiracies."

It is ironic, however, that abortion law be settled at the state level, and that seems to be the inevitable direction to this divisive national debate's terminus. Despite often and deceitfully refusing to acknowledge the significance of abortion to the political debate, both Democrats and Republicans (but more often Democrats) often feel the sting from their respective disgruntled bases when the party line and platform plank on this thorny but truly pivotal issue is not touted to satisfaction. This foremost issue and political hot potato began at the state level, and gradually evolved to become a federal matter, ultimately decided by the infamous 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, which perceived or fabricated a woman's constitutional "right" to kill her child in what should be the world's safest place, a mother's womb. Legal scholars from both sides of the debate have since called the ruling bad law.

Far too often, and all too conveniently, we forget our history. In the turbulent 60's, the federal government intervened in the oppression against blacks in the south, not just because local officials often passively condoned it with a wink, a nod, and sometimes even a smirk, but because civil rights of American citizens seeking equality from rest rooms, to water fountains, to buses, to lunch counters, and to the voting booths were being trampled, and not just by coercion, but in some cases, with arson, brutal assaults, and even outright murder. The violation of our civil rights, as articulated in our Constitution, is legitimately a matter of federal purview. Why, then, does this tepid atmosphere of federal protection for the unborn still exist to the point that state officials now so often feel the need to shore up or modify related federal law with various state laws?

It is ironic that in a country that fought so vigorously to uphold and protect the rights of blacks is so timid on protecting the unborn. Abortion particularly hurts blacks, and was even originally intended for them. Planned Parenthood founder and eugenicist, Margaret Sanger, created the Negro Project in 1939, which put abortion clinics in black communities to decrease or possibly even eradicate a race that Sanger deemed inferior. As Rev. Mark H. Creech, Executive Director of the Christian Action League of North Carolina, wrote in his February 21, 2005 column, "Racism, Abortion and Black Genocide," on Renew America at www.renewamerica.us/columns/creech/050221, today, blacks comprise about 12% of our population, yet that 12% minority accounts for roughly 32% of all abortions performed. As we nationally pat ourselves on the back for racial equality, we are still simultaneously and hypocritically oppressing blacks and our unborn and partially born fellow citizens of all other racial and ethnic backgrounds as well.

We are also a nation that prides itself in being environmentally conscious as well. Aren't we, Homo sapiens, the highest members of the food chain, an integral part of the environment as well? Yet prior to Louisiana's recent legislation, in most, if not all states, bird eggs from various species are protected, not just by state law, but federal law as well with heavy penalties for violators. As our national abortion rate since Roe vs. Wade is now just shy of 49 million, as per the latest count at the National Right To Life at www.nrlc.org, and still growing toward the even more ominous 50 million mark, the US could be about as well known for dead fetuses as Louisiana is for living pelicans.

Last Election Day, South Dakota's supporters of the culture of death succeeded in overturning that state's abortion ban, which was even more short-lived than many fetuses. While I am a strong advocate of states' rights, this issue is the legitimate exception and the reason why federal intervention is necessary to protect human life. Right and left have nothing to do with right and wrong, and the majority is not necessarily always right; it's just the majority. You grim reapers in South Dakota must now be very proud at having so quickly undone what your brave and moral elected officials, Republican Governor Mike Rounds, and your legislators achieved for a very noble cause and despite unfathomable odds. I can see it now on your future license plates: "South Dakota: Come Kill Your Baby And Then See Mount Rushmore." When you do see Mount Rushmore, take close note of the wet cheeks on those stone-carved presidents of our national treasure that adorns your state. Those aren't raindrops; they're tears. What those brave and benevolent leaders did for liberty, and especially the foremost liberty, the liberty of life, you folks simply erased with the pull of a lever, the inking in of a little black oval, or the punching of a chad. I hope the memory of your misguided and inherently evil decision burns a permanent reminder into your minds to haunt you evermore whenever you dare preach any other such pretentiously lofty ideals in future matters as you will inevitably and otherwise cavalierly but hypocritically invoke our culture's most often abused and manipulated phrase, "the children."

Those proponents, aggressive as well as passive, of abortion, who believe that this mammoth issue of taking life for excuses that more often than not, boil down to convenience, will be solely judged by only a select few of our fellow man, elevated to an earthly position of social prominence and legal authority, as symbolized and exhibited by the black robes they wear and the wooden gavels they pound while presiding over secular courts from elevated throne-like chairs, are not only fooling themselves, but ultimately endangering themselves as well. In his column, Rev. Creech also appropriately referred to this Bible passage:

"If you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself,' you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors."

(James, Chapter 2, verses 8 & 9)

Meanwhile, the clock of our very pompous, misguided and all too finite yet fleeting world for fetuses and adults alike continues to tick away, at least for now. Bravo, Governor Blanco! Now, who's next?