Almost 50 years of fighting for pro-life values paid off when the United States (U.S.) Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade with its June 24, 2022 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Dobb’s decision eviscerated the former federal constitutionally protected right to abortion and upheld Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Yet Dobbs does not herald the end of abortion. The polarizing positions of pro-life and pro-choice advocates are now duking it out in Congress, 50 state legislatures, and the ballot box. The fight is fast and furious.
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The Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022—prohibiting governmental restrictions on abortion services—passed the House of Representatives on July 15, 2022 (it was not approved in the U.S. Senate). In 2022, states enacted 50 pro-life laws and 77 pro-abortion laws. In the November 2022 election, California, Michigan and Vermont all passed referendums enshrining reproductive rights in their state constitutions.
In the past, pro-choice rationalizations for abortion claimed “life begins at birth, not conception” and “a fetus is not a baby until it can live outside the womb.” Today’s ardent pro-choice advocates make an even more egregious attack on life by alleging that babies born alive after a botched abortion should not be protected because they’re not “actual persons,” “morally relevant,” or fully human until they are “self-aware.” In so doing, they promote infanticide—euphemistically called after-birth or perinatal abortion. They hold that the well-being of parents outweighs the interests of a living child. Just as progressive is the idea that a newborn imposes no obligations on a parent because whether a child will exist as a person in the future is a parent’s choice.
Are these the reasons why—as of 2019—19 States allow infanticide and let abortionists leave babies to die if they survive an abortion?
Does this explain why California passed an infanticide law in September 2022 permitting perinatal (post-birth) abortions of babies due to a pregnancy-related cause without civil or criminal liability or penalty?
Will the California law be a forerunner of similar laws in other states, or will states back off because the Maryland bill sanctioning “perinatal” deaths up to the first 28 days after birth did not pass?
Will infanticide—a deliberate killing of a child that is under a year old—be decriminalized or denounced as murder subject to criminal penalties?
Will American society sacrifice the lives of innocent infants born to women who choose not to raise a child with a disability or illness and decline to take advantage of abortion alternatives like safe haven laws and adoption?
The answers to these questions lies squarely with the American people.
So let your voice be heard on January 22, 2023, Sanctity of Human Life Day, with a stand for prenatal and perinatal life. Celebrate the January 11, 2023 passage in the 118th Congress of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 26), and call your Senator to nail down a vote for the bill when it comes up for a vote.
You may also want to read:
- Carolyn McDonnell. “Federal Policymakers’ Guide to a Post-Roe America.” Americans United for Life. November 14, 2022. https://aul.org/2022/11/14/federal-policymakers-guide-to-a-post-roe-america/
- “Life-Saving Laws in the States: Pro-Life Laws Tracker (early abortion limits) Following Dobbs Decision Overturning Roe.” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. December 2, 2022. https://sbaprolife.org/lifesavinglaws
- STATE LEGISLATION TRACKER: Major Developments in Sexual and Reproductive Health as of November 15, 2022. Guttmacher Institute. https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy
- Angela Muir Van Etten. “End Disability as Reason to Terminate Pregnancy.” January 17, 2022. https://angelamuirvanetten.com/end-disability-as-reason-to-terminate-pregnancy/
- Angela Muir Van Etten. “Death with Dignity Laws Deadly to Disabled.” January 18, 2021. https://angelamuirvanetten.com/death-with-dignity-laws-deadly-to-disabled/