In Colorado this week, Republicans introduced a fetal homicide bill that would enable prosecutors to file murder charges when an unborn baby is killed against the mother’s wishes.
Actually, I’m sorry, that’s wrong. In Colorado, unborn babies aren’t “killed,” they dissipate into the ether.
The bill, which Senate Democrats oppose, was drafted in reaction to a grisly case in Longmont, Colorado, where a seven eight-month pregnant Michelle Wilkins was attacked and left for dead after her baby was cut out of her womb by an attacker. The mother survived; her baby – who the family says was named “Aurora” – did not. The district attorney was unable to charge the perpetrator with murder because the coroner concluded the baby was not alive outside the womb, even though, without any violent interference, more than 90 percent of babies born after 27 weeks survive.
The truth is that pro-choice advocates don’t want district attorneys prosecuting people for killing fetuses because it sets up two dangerous debates.
First, the act of humanizing unborn babies that women want to keep means humanizing unborn babies others do not want to keep. Aurora got a name, but the other third-trimester babies disposed of aren’t as fortunate.
Secondly, any admission by liberals that life in the womb is human life worthy of protections sets up a host of uncomfortable philosophical questions and legal precedents. For starters, how can the act of killing a fetus – granted, for different purposes and with very different levels of violence – end a human life in one instance and not the other? (The most honest take I’ve heard on the topic was offered by Charles Murray a few years ago.)
So here are a few questions reporters may want to ask liberal politicians at some point: Do you believe ending the life of a seven-month-old fetus without the mother’s permission should be considered a homicide? How about a nine-month-old fetus? If so, why isn’t a post 20-week abortion also a homicide? What would Hillary’s answer be? I’m sure we’ll find out.
I’ve read plenty regarding the Colorado legislature debate about this case, and I can’t find any such grilling. Since the media demands GOPers explain their position on rape and incest exemptions, the above seems like a reasonable line of inquiry. Then again, pro-choice Democrats grapple with elementary-school level queries regarding the biological origins of life, so I imagine they would steer clear.
What makes the Colorado Democrats’ opposition especially revolting is that the bill unequivocally exempts the mother, any physicians performing “medical procedures” at the request of the mother, or anyone who gives the mother any lawful medication that might induce a miscarriage. It is narrowly tailored to deal with criminality by others. It cannot be used to prosecute a mother of feticide or neglecting a child. It has nothing to do with abortion, which I am constantly told is nothing more than a health-care matter.
It’s perplexing, when one considers the polling on the issue, that self-proclaimed pro-life Republicans aren’t more eager to take on this kind of fanaticism. Contemporary Democrats are willing to kill a human trafficking bill because it features decades-old language from the Hyde Amendment – which bans taxpayer-funded abortions other than cases of rape, incest, and life-threatening danger to the mother.
So it was a refreshing change of pace to see Sen. Rand Paul throw the media’s abortion gotcha back right back at Dems a couple of weeks ago. “You go back and you ask Debbie Wasserman Schultz if she’s okay with killing a seven-pound baby that is not born yet. Ask her when life begins, and you ask Debbie when it’s okay to protect life. When you get an answer from Debbie, get back to me,” Paul said.
The short answer from Wasserman (and most others) is that there is no genuine limit. They’re at a point where they can’t offer logically nonsensical contention that life begins whenever, if ever, the mother decides it does because in places like Colorado, Democrats refuse to concede even that much.
Republicans have been accused by pro-choice groups of taking advantage of a tragedy to push an agenda– which is true, completely irrelevant and curious coming from progressives who subsist on turning misfortune into political crusades.
A better question is, what kind of tragedy are we dealing with? In Colorado, there are appropriately severe penalties for abusing animals, but Senate Democrats can’t acknowledge that a viable seven-month-old fetus with functioning organs and the ability to feel pain can be murdered. They keep pointing out that the bill is superfluous because the attacker now faces more than 100 years in prison if she is convicted. Punishing the perpetrator for any crimes is not the same as finding justice for all the victims. Who the victims are is what is in dispute. And Democrats believe there was only one. Aurora never existed.
