This is where conservative pro-lifers need to look at the flipside. The anchor acknowledges that anencephaly is beyond the parents’ control and constitutes a child being taken from them. At that point, it ceases to be simply a matter of an abortion “taking an innocent life.” That life is destined to fail. Thus in this case, it seems more a prolonging of misery for both mother and child through a technicality of morality than it does a respect for life. (Risk to the mother to be discussed later.)
The guest fundamentally fails. There are indeed times when abortion is medically necessary. Many years ago, a religious fundamentalist group came out with a supposed idea of how an abortion was literally never necessary to save the life of the mother. People saw the headlines and didn’t read the story, and it impacted ignorantly on their rhetoric. The group’s theory was that since most such threatening pregnancies were ectopic pregnancies – that is, where the embryo has embedded in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus — all we would have to do is remove the fallopian tube. The baby would still die, and the mother would suffer far more serious consequences, but at least it wouldn’t technically be an abortion. That is stupid. (The truth is that it was simply a fundamentalist group trying to punish women for putting off childbearing until later in life – ectopic pregnancies being more common with older mothers.)
The guest acknowledges medical problems the condition was causing the mother. That approaches a point where it may become a Second Amendment issue – that is, a matter of self-defense. A situation like this screams for established measures for determining when a line is crossed. All pregnancies inherently hold some risk. Some, however, go beyond that,. Given the non-immediacy of the situation, an answer would be having a State board charged with evaluating on a case-by-case basis as to when that line is crossed – taking into account in this case the essential inviability of the child. (The guest incredibly tries to downplay the virtual death sentence the condition does carry, severely harming her credibility.)
I do most certainly agree that the method of abortion chosen was unnecessarily cruel. And the parents complaining about what they did is… almost odd. That said, the story is being used here to promote a point it simply does not support. Such an approach as we see here is counterproductive to the cause. These two women are simply being advocates pushing back against the other side for political reasons. I can be as cold blooded as the next person in the political realm. Here, though, it’s failing.
