Why Can't Women Be Both Pro-Choice AND Pro-Life? It's Possible With Common-Sense Limitations on Abortions | Eastern North Carolina Now

    MY RESPONSE (to Grace Madej): WHO is against birth control?? Are you talking about strict Catholics?? I happen to be Catholic but I'm also a realist. I think we absolutely need birth control in our society. We can't be naive to think we live in a world long gone where women save themselves for their husbands and welcome every act of sex as a chance to have another child. If we are naive to think birth control is a sin, then we have to accept the far greater sin of abortion and the chance that a good percentage of those abortions were performed on fully-formed living, yet not ready to live out of the womb, human beings. I'm not naive about conception and fetal development . I know that a fertilized egg goes on to become a mass of cells and even up to a few weeks it is not fully committed or destined for life. I've had 3 miscarriages, including one in my second trimester, so I know that not every conception event equals life. My heartfelt point and goal is to see our national conscience relieved by putting more pressure on women to do the right thing and if they believe a pregnancy is wrong for them and that they can't be the parent God and nature intended them to be (or they don't want to carry a baby to term and give it up for someone else to love), then they should make that decision very early on. I think that's where our counseling and our conversations about abortion should be focused. It's just my opinion, of course.

    We need to have conversations. We need to find common ground. We can't continue to offend so greatly our national conscience.

    One final thing to wrap your mind around - The same state (New York) that has just passed the "late-term abortion" bill has abolished capital punishment. The state says it is unconstitutional to kill a person guilty of a capital offense but constitutional for a woman to kill her baby.

    The state can't impose the death penalty on even the most vile and heinous of criminals, but a woman can impose the death penalty on the most innocent and harmless of human beings. "You are not allowed to give a lethal injection to convicted serial killers, pedophiles, rapists, school shooters, or any other species of monster. But you can give a lethal injection to an infant. Indeed, you can only give lethal injections to infants in New York. The crime of child rape will not earn you the needle. The crime of being conceived in the wrong womb might. It is a capital offense, and you may well be made to suffer dearly for it." (Matt Walsh).

    The hypocrisy is unreal. But that's what defines progressives and extreme women's rights supporters.

    References:

    Roe v. Wade, 410 U,S. 113 (1973), Majority Opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, Cornell Law Library - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113%26amp#writing-USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO

    Roe v. Wade, 410 U,S. 113 (1973), Dissenting Opinion, written by Justice William Rehnquist, Cornell Law Library - https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113%26amp#writing-USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZD

    Roe v. Wade, Dissenting Opinion, by Justice Byron White - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade/Dissent_White and https://www.scribd.com/document/217330653/Dissent-White

    West Alabama Women's Center v. Thomas Miller, 11t Circuit Court of Appeals opinion - http://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/201715208.pdf

    Laurie Higgins, "31 States Permit Full-Term Abortions," Illinois Family Institute, January 28, 2019. Referenced at: https://illinoisfamily.org/life/31-states-permit-full-term-babies-to-be-killed-in-the-womb-for-virtually-any-or-no-reason/

    Joshua J. Craddick, Joshua J. Craddock, "Protecting Prenatal Persons: Does the Fourteenth Amendment Prohibit Abortion?," Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2017). Referenced at: file:///C:/Users/diane/Downloads/SSRN-id2970761.pdf [Abstract: What should the legal status of human beings in utero be under an originalist interpretation of the Constitution? Other legal thinkers have explored whether a national "right to abortion" can be justified on originalist grounds. Assuming that it cannot, and that Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey were wrongly decided, only two other options are available. Should preborn human beings be considered legal "persons" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, or do states retain authority to make abortion policy? The late Justice Scalia famously argued for the latter position and pledged he would strike down a federal ban on abortion. But is this view consistent with the original meaning of the term "person"? Using originalist interpretive methods, this paper argues that preborn human beings are legal "persons" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.]


    Calvin Freiburger, "Article in Harvard Law Journal Concludes: The Preborn Child is a Constitutional Person," Live Action, June 1, 2017. Referenced at: https://www.liveaction.org/news/landmark-harvard-essay-preborn-child-constitutional-person/

    Steven Ertelt, "You Can't Give a Lethal Injection to Murderers in New York, But You Can Give One to an Unborn Baby," LifeNews.com, January 24, 2019. Referenced at: https://www.lifenews.com/2019/01/24/you-cant-give-a-lethal-injection-to-murderers-in-new-york-but-you-can-give-one-to-an-unborn-baby/?fbclid=IwAR1_9ePUFqddWs1TwqdaoVFNkW06v9xqJXkja9Y4yPLfYVhSbZLHOKi2K2Q

    Matt Walsh, "WALSH: You Can't Give A Lethal Injection To Criminals In New York But You Can Give It To Infants," DailyWire, January 23, 2019. Referenced at: https://www.dailywire.com/news/42538/walsh-you-cant-give-lethal-injection-criminals-new-matt-walsh?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mattwalsh

    VIDEO: Dr. Anthony Levatino, former abortion doctor, explains that abortion is never medically necessary to save a woman's life during pregnancy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=ysl1tRnk-ig [Let me illustrate with a real-life case that I managed while at the Albany Medical Center. A patient arrived one night at 28 weeks gestation with severe pre-eclampsia or toxemia. Her blood pressure on admission was 220/160. A normal blood pressure is approximately 120/80. This patient's pregnancy was a threat to her life and the life of her unborn child. She could very well be minutes or hours away from a major stroke. This case was managed successfully by rapidly stabilizing the patient's blood pressure and "terminating" her pregnancy by Cesarean section. She and her baby did well. This is a typical case in the world of high-risk obstetrics. In most such cases, any attempt to perform an abortion "to save the mother's life" would entail undue and dangerous delay in providing appropriate, truly life-saving care. During my time at Albany Medical Center I managed hundreds of such cases by "terminating" pregnancies to save mother's lives. In all those cases, the number of unborn children that I had to deliberately kill was zero.]

    CHART: State-by-State Later Term Abortion Policies - https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/state-indicator/later-term-abortions/?currentTimeframe=0&selectedDistributions=state-prohibits-some-abortions-after-a-certain-point-in-pregnancy-threshold-for-later-term-abortions-later-term-abortion-permitted-when-pregnancy-threatens-womans&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D [By the way, it appears that North Carolina, it appears from the chart (updated 2018) that North Carolina permits a later-term abortion "for life and health," which essentially means that a woman can terminate her pregnancy at any time for any reason, since the Supreme Court has interpreted "health" to mean any number of things - physical, emotional, psychological, financial, familial, and for age or for stress. North Carolina joins 23 other states that apply this lower standard for a later-term abortion - Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Compare that standard to the more strict one, which permits a woman to have a later-term abortion "for life and physical health." Sixteen (16) states have this more strict standard - Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming. There are 3 states that permit a later-term abortion only when the pregnancy poses a direct risk to the mother's life. Those states are Idaho, Michigan, and Rhode Island.]

    Alabama "Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion" Act (SB363) - https://rewire.news/legislative-tracker/law/alabama-unborn-child-protection-dismemberment-abortion-act-sb-363/

    Brandon Moseley, "Federal Court Strikes Down an Alabama Abortion Law," Alabama Reporter, August 23, 2018. Referenced at: https://www.alreporter.com/2018/08/23/federal-court-strikes-down-an-alabama-abortion-law/

    GHI Breborowicz," Early Pregnancy: Limits of Fetal Viability and Its Enhancement," NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), January 5, 2011; pp. 49-50. Referenced at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11753511 ["Viability" of a fetus, or "fetal viability," means that the fetus has reached such a stage of development as to be capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the uterus. Viability exists as a function of biomedical and technological capacities, which are different in different parts of the world. Consequently, there is, at the present time, no worldwide, uniform gestational age that defines viability. Viability is not an intrinsic property of the fetus because viability should be understood in terms of both biological and technological factors. It is only in virtue of both factors that a viable fetus can exist ex utero and thus later achieve independent moral status. Moreover, these two factors do not exist as a function of the autonomy of the pregnant woman. When a fetus is viable, that is, when it is of sufficient maturity so that it can survive into the neonatal period and later achieve independent human status given the availability of the requisite technological support, and when it is presented to the physician, the fetus is a patient. In the United States viability presently occurs at approximately 24 weeks of gestational age (Chervenak, L.B. McCullough; Textbook of Perinatal Medicine, 1998)].

    "Can a Fetus Feel Pain?," NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information), April 15, 2006; 332 (7546): 909-912. Referenced at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1440624/

    "How Your Fetus Grows During Pregnancy," American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (ACOG), (April 2018). Referenced at: https://www.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/How-Your-Fetus-Grows-During-Pregnancy?IsMobileSet=false

    Traci DeVette Griggs, "New York's War on Children Hits a New Low on Anniversary of Roe v. Wade," Family Policy Facts (NC Family Policy Council), January 23, 2019. Referenced at: https://www.ncfamily.org/new-yorks-war-on-children-hits-a-new-low-on-anniversary-of-roe-v-wade/

    Roe v. Wade, Texas Bar - https://www.texasbar.com/civics/High%20School%20cases/roe-v-wade.html


    Roe v. Wade (1973), as explained by Clarke Forsythe, Senior Counsel for Americans United for Life (AUL) and Melissa Murray, Berkeley Law School professor. [Clarke Forsythe is also the author of the book Abuse of Discretion: The Inside Story of Roe V. Wade, and Ms. Melissa Murray in addition to being a law school professor, also as the Faculty Director for the Center for Reproductive Rights and Justice]. Referenced at: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-us-government-and-politics/civil-liberties-and-civil-rights/amendments-due-process-and-the-right-to-privacy/v/roe-v-wade [See Appendix below for a transcript of this video]

    APPENDIX: (Transcript of the Khan Academy Video, as modified by Diane Rufino, to add more information)

    Question: "Mr. Forsythe, could you set the stage for us a little bit. What was going on during this time period?"

    Mr. Clarke: "Well, there were efforts in the 1960s to repeal abortion laws in the individual states and when abortion activists were dissatisfied with those efforts, they decided to go into the courts. And around 1969, they took some cases into the courts and ultimately, there were 20 or more cases challenging state laws in the courts between 1969 and 1973. Roe vs. Wade was the case from Texas."

    Ms. Murray: "Roe was litigated in the early 1970s. It was a period of enormous change in the United States. We were beginning to see beginnings of the women's rights movements, the beginning of the gay rights movement, and of course, the civil rights movement of the 1960s was moving in a lot of different directions. At the time, the question of abortion was very much on the minds of lots of different state legislatures because there had been moves to liberalize much of the criminal law that dealt with matters of sex and sexuality, including abortion. At the time, four states, New York, Alaska, Hawaii, and I believe Washington, had actually taken steps to repeal their laws criminalizing abortion. And about 13 other states had taken efforts to liberalize their laws criminalizing abortions, but in number of other states, around, at least 20 or more, there remained on the books, laws that absolutely criminalized abortion, except in situations where it would be necessary to preserve the woman's health or life, or in cases of rape, incest, or fetal anomaly."

    Mr. Clarke: "Abortion rights attorneys sought plaintiffs who could challenge the Texas law and the Georgia law [ie, They were looking for a "test case"]. There were two attorneys from Texas who found Norma McCorvey, who they gave the pseudonym of Jane Roe, for purposes of protecting her privacy."

    Ms. Murray: "And so Norma McCorvey brought this case. She was an unmarried 22 year old woman living in Dallas County, Texas, who found herself pregnant for the third time. She gave birth to her first child, a daughter, and ultimately signed over custody to her mother to raise her since her life wasn't very stable (she was moving around a lot). She gave her second child up for adoption. When she found herself pregnant for a third time, she wasn't willing to do either of these things again and so she simply wanted to safely and legally terminate her pregnancy. But this was impossible under the Texas law. Texas had, since the 19th century criminalized abortion in all cases except those instances where it was necessary for the health and safety of the mother. And so she then was faced with the question of what was she going to do. And the only thing she could think to do then (that is, what her lawyers thought, and sought, to do), was to challenge the law as being unconstitutional. So she was put in contact with Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, two young women who had recently graduated from law school. Sarah Weddington was only 26 years old at the time she helped Norma McCorvey bring this case. They sued the State of Texas to challenge the constitutionality of Texas' criminal abortion ban."


    Mr. Clarke: "But as the history shows, there was no trial, there was no evidence, there were no expert witnesses. Jane Roe never testified. As we all know, she never got an abortion. She gave birth and placed her child for adoption." [In the years after the decision, Norma had a complete change of heart and became a strong opponent of abortion].

    Question: "Okay, so Roe was Norma McCorvey. Who was Wade?"

    Mr. Clarke: "Henry Wade was the District Attorney for Dallas, Texas, where the case was filed in Federal District Court."