University of Louisville Law School Professor Luke Milligan relays such inconsistency in another way: "Imagine, for instance, a pregnant woman who approaches an abortion clinic with the intention of terminating her pregnancy. In one scenario, she is mugged at the entrance, and, due to the ensuing trauma, has a miscarriage. The law holds that a “person” was “murdered,” and it punishes the perpetrator with a life sentence in jail. In the second scenario, the woman evades the mugger, enters the clinic safely, and undergoes a successful abortion procedure. Here the law holds that no crime was committed"[2].
Milligan's example demonstrates just one of many oddball implications of this double-standard. What kind of nonsense is this? It's illegal to harm your unborn child but it's legal to kill him? It's murder if a mugger kills a fetus, but as long as a doctor commits the slaughter, it's perfectly fine? To the baby, what difference does it make who kills her? Either way, isn't she just as dead?
Inconsistencies are all over the place. In Oregon, every alcohol-serving establishment is required to display this sign (left). As author Randy Alcorn reasonably inquired after seeing it, "If alcohol harms unborn babies, what does abortion do to them?" When looking into these contradictions, he also noticed that the U.S. Congress voted unanimously to delay the death penalty of a pregnant woman until after the baby was born. Every congressman, including those who were pro-choice, apparently recognized the humanity of the unborn child living and growing in that woman's womb. "No stay of execution was requested for the sake of the mother's tonsils, heart, or kidneys"[1]; it was requested on behalf of her unborn child.
Many states have already given explicit attest to the right to life of the unborn by passing fetal homicide laws. These laws deem it murder for anyone but the mother to deliberately take the life of a fetus (arbitrary much?). Perhaps most interestingly, the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act," which Congress passed in 2004, requires that a person who "intentionally kills or attempts to kill the unborn child... be punished... for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being"[3]. Under this law, a "child in utero" is recognized as a legal victim if he or she is injured or killed due to any one of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. It was because of this mandate that Scott Peterson, for instance, was convicted of double-homicide under California state law when he murdered his pregnant wife Laci in 2002.
Fetal homicide laws and similar attempts to protect pre-born children are great, but they can't do much in an abortion nation. Basically, they protect wanted babies from things like alcohol and muggers, but meanwhile, unwanted babies can be deliberately killed with scalpels and suction tubes. Does America allow for discrimination against unpopular people? Yes, it does.
It's time for America's laws to protect all human beings again, rather than just the convenient ones. Why did we give up on those values upon which our country was founded— those values that once taught nations and inspired the world?
Mother Teresa saw that legalized abortion is an American scandal that has thrown our values aside and vandalized our Constitution. She bravely wrote to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1994 about Roe v. Wade:
"Yours is the one great nation in all of history that was founded on the precept of equal rights and respect for all humankind, for the poorest and weakest of us as well as the richest and strongest. As your Declaration of Independence put it, in words that have never lost their power to stir the heart: “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness…” A nation founded on these principles holds a sacred trust: to stand as an example to the rest of the world, to climb ever higher in its practical realization of the ideals of human dignity, brotherhood, and mutual respect.Yet there has been one infinitely tragic and destructive departure from those American ideals in recent memory. It was this Court's own decision in Roe v. Wade (1973) to exclude the unborn child from the human family... It was a sad infidelity to America's highest ideals when this Court said that it did not matter, or could not be determined, when the inalienable right to life began for a child in its mother's womb.America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships.Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being's entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign... I have no new teaching for America. I seek only to recall you to that faithfulness you once taught the world."
Vita Pro Omni!
[1] Alcorn, Randy. Why Pro-Life? p. 39-40
[2] Milligan, Luke M. A Theory of Stability: John Rawls, Fetal Homicide, and Substantive Due Process, p. 1178.
[3]HR 1997 was passed by a Senate roll call vote of 61-38,March 25,2004.
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