The Sword of Damocles came down on the liberal progressive Left last week when SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade. All hell broke loose. Look at the smiling faces in the feature photo of Liberals in their 1970s rally. The reaction of today's Liberals are out of this world. They are freaked out, berserk, unhinged, vulgar, with outright murderous intent at anyone who oppose them. Democrat leadership and influencer celebrities are braying for an uprising and inciting acts of felony. In sharp contrast, conservatives spent the last 50 years holding annual peaceful 'March Of Life' rallies against Roe v Wade, and waiting for a majority of constitutionist justices in SCOTUS to review the law.
Abortion is an issue where most people subscribe to a Manichaean view of black and white. The extreme on the conservative Right takes Catholic dogmatism of life at conception. The Liberal Left's philosophy of normative egoism progresses to a logical conclusion of a more decadent culture that is in full bloom in US in current times, an extremism that pressures for abortion on demand right up to moment of birth, in fact, even after birth in the case of a failed abortion. This extreme Left position finds support amongst even those in health services, including those who have taken the hippocratic oath to do no harm.
The extremes of 'pro-choice' and 'pro-life' is a false dichotomy that can tear the nation apart, and woefully, this US disease has potential of being exported in an internet-connected world. Middle ground has to be somewhere based on balance of science and ethics. Economics should be kept out. Dialogues to heal is only possible in an emotionless meeting of minds, which unfortunately is impossible in the US where leaders try to extract political capital out of every situation, and dark money lines the pockets of even the whitest of whites.
Roe v Wade is a touchy topic which I actually wanted to avoid. A Facebook post by an ex-nominated MP prompted me to pen my thoughts. I was appalled that a scholar can get it so patently wrong.
First and foremost, the SCOTUS ruling has nothing to do with women's rights. The decision was against the non-constitutionality of the 1973 ruling. As Justice Alito, who penned the majority decision, pointed out, the 1973 ruling was egregiously wrong. There is nothing in the Bill of Rights that confers any right to abortion. The Constitution specifically directed that any issues on privacy where it is silent, will be referred to the States. That's what the law wants and exactly what SCOTUS did last week. The issue reverts back to pre-1973 status quo where states have different laxity to abortion.
The US has Federal Laws (apply to all states) and individual State Laws. Federal laws protect the rights of all citizens which States cannot override, but if States protect more rights, State Laws prevail. (Note that both Laws protect rights. This is where the Liberal Democrats and Conservative Republicans have deep-rooted fundamental differences. Power-crazed Democrats want the power of government to confer rights, Republicans say citizens' rights are inalienable, given by God, not governments). Federal laws cover jurisdictions like immigration, bankruptcy, patents, and Social Security - rules that apply nation-wide. State laws cover jurisdictions of criminal, domestic, welfare, and real estate matters. Thus abortion cannot be codified by Federal Government, it belongs to the realm of the states.
Secondly, it is never about women's rights but the rights of the unborn. On personal liberty, everybody's rights to swing their arms ends where the other person's nose begins. In the case of abortion, every women's rights to desecrate their bodies ends where the unborn baby's feet or head begins, depending on the foetal position. The question thus falls on when is there life in the unborn. Opinions are anywhere from conception to the day of birth. It is then incumbent to rely on community decision. People in the states vote in representatives who share their opinions and craft the legislation they want.
We can all agree that it is wrong to kill a week old baby. So why is it OK to kill an unborn baby a week before delivery? Or two or three weeks? The 1973 ruling puts viability on the 27th week of gestation, based on the presumptions of the time. On June 2020, Wong Mei Lin of Singapore, needed an emergency Ceasarian. Her baby Kwek Yu Xuan was only 24 weeks old. The baby girl is fine today. Advancements in medical science and neonatal care has given premature babies better chances of survival. Canadian James Elgin Gill was born in 1987 after 21 weeks gestation. Today, he is a healthy adult. Who is to say when life begins.
“Who is the patient if not that tiny unborn human being who can feel pain when
he or she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?” Ronald
Reagan 1983
Most would equate presence of life to having a soul, whatever that means. Can science provide the answer to the question of when life begins. Medically, life should mean a status of consciousness, which resides in the cerebral cortex. It was long believed that nervous fibres reach the cerebral cortex in the 3rd trimester. Thus it was a commonly held understanding that a fetus is conscious of, or can feel pain, from about 24 weeks onwards. The issue of fetal pain is an ethical one and it is why the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling allowed states to outlaw abortion at the 3rd trimester. Ronald Reagan, as Governor of California, had passed a state bill to legalise abortion. As a conservative, the ethics of fetal pain weighed heavily on him. When he was President, he brought the fetal pain issue up as hardly anyone was talking about it. Reagan's speech coincided with the screening of a documentary film called 'The Silent Scream' that came out at about the same time. They were instrumental in reviving medical interest and discussion on the troubling ethical issue of fetal pain in abortion.
In late 2019, Stuart WG Derbyshire and John C Bockmann, both from Psychology and NUS Clinical Imaging Research Centre, National University of Singapore, completed their study called "Reconsidering fetal pain"which they published in 2020 in the BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics. One of them is pro-choice, the other pro-life. Based on their research analysis, they concluded fetal pain exists as early as 12th week of gestation! This study is currently the topic of conversation in related circles.
The screaming pro-choice protesters that say the fetus is just a lump of meat of the pregnant woman should try to understand fetal pain when the doctor does a vacuum or suction aspiration abortion. The suction tube is inserted into the uterus and limb by limb is torn and sucked out. I think Calvin Cheng will agree the pregnant woman feels no pain under anesthesia, but he would be unable to hear the 'Silent Screams' of the real tiny patient.
Many may not know that in reality Roe v Wade in 1973 was a pack of lies. Jane Roe is a pseudonym and the real woman in the case was Norma MaCorvey. She passed away in 2017. The first half of her life was pitiful misery. Father disappeared, mother abusive and neglected her, sent to a relative to care for her but instead raped her every day, married at 16 and husband abandoned her on the day her first child was born, she slank to the sleazy world of drugs and sex to survive. When she was pregnant with her third child she sought the help of the state DA to abort. Abortion was illegal in Texas, where she lived then. She was asked to approach 2 lawyers who might help. Unknown to Norma, she was referred to Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, two recently graduated activist liberal lawyers. She was persuaded to lie that her pregnancy was conceived out of a rape. The lawyers took the case against DA Henry Wade all the way to the Supreme Court and won in 1973. Weddington and Coffee were the envy of their profession. Imagine 2 rookie lawyers had the chance to argue in the Supreme Court and win a historical landmark case.
Meanwhile, Norma delivered her baby in June 1970. All her 3 babies were adopted out. The sad circumstances of her life made it difficult for her to care for them. But 1973 Roe v Wade made her a celebrity for the pro-choice and she took in the status, more for the money that came her way as she was paraded around, in media and activist events. In reality, she was made use of, not that she cared. Norma herself was ambivalent about pro-choice or pro-life.
At about the same time of Roe v Wade, there was another case at SCOTUS that challenged the illegality of abortion. This was Dole v Bolton and "Mary Dole" was Sandra Bensing who passed away 2014. Whilst Roe v Wade was about abortion due to (false) rape, Dole v Bolton was abortion due to economics. Sandra already had several children and was unable to provide for a larger family. She too won her case with the decision announced on the same day as Joe v Wade, and on similar grounds of rights of privacy.
With abortion legalised, an industry evolved around it (e.g. selling tissue parts) and Planned Parenthood became a prominent national fixture. Millions of unborn babies were killed each year, funded by taxpayers' money via Planned Parenthood to the tune of billions every year. Both women, Norma and Sandra, whose cases championed a law that promoted promiscuity, had a late change of heart. When the carnage caused by the law and the dark money profits behind legalised abortion became apparent, both women had a change of heart in their later years and worked with pro-life organisations to try to overturn Roe v Wade. Norma was a born again Catholic eventually.
To the ordinary Liberal Leftists, and virtue-signalling people like Calvin Cheng, Democrats the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Elizabeth Warren, Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, Charles Schumer, and many more, must be their idols who with raised fists, called for bringing SCOTUS down. These politicians couldn't care two hoots for their constituents. Democrats talk about rights to choice only in a small area -- your rights to abortion, your rights to liberalised drugs, your rights to force your kids to change sex. They don't give choices with vaccine and mask mandates, health insurance, gun ownership, minimum wages, etc. Pro-choice in abortion is just another power play for the Democrats. With polls showing a tsumani of Republican wins in the mid terms in November, and the Biden admin running out of winning narratives, Democrats are left with only the abortion card to play. Trust them to make a huge huge mountain out of it. The Wall Street Journal says it best :
"The fury of the Left's reaction isn't merely about guns and abortion. It reflects their grief at having lost the Court as their vehicle for achieving policy goals they can't get through legislatures. The cultural victories they achieved by judicial fiat will now have to be won by persuading voters. We understand their frustrations, but they ought to try democracy for a change. They might even win the debate over abortion."
Federal law, whether codified by Congress or laid down by the Supreme Court, is anti-rights. These are laws for which the people have no voice. That Democrats are talking about SCOTUS taking away people's rights with the overturning of Roe v Wade is disinformation. State laws are participatory and whatever rights are protected or denied, they are majority-based.
Leftist media is quick to play on the views of Melissa Mills, Norma's eldest daughter, who was quoted as saying her mother would be devastated with SCOTUS decision that overturned Roe v Wade. The truth is Norma had been an activist for pro-life since the 1990s. She would rejoice from beyond the grave. The last words are probably best left to Shelley Lynn Thornton, the Roe baby who was born before the 1973 law could take her life. Shelley was brought up conservative and had always thought abortion is not what she is. In her late teens when she learnt of her connection to Roe, she struggled to re-examine the issue. She does not view it as pro-choice or pro-life, just that abortion law ought to be free of the influences of religion and politics. Her words: “I guess I don’t understand why it’s a government concern.” You will never get a Liberal Leftist, nor Calvin Cheng, to have this wisdom.
NOTE: For those who want the human story in all this, click HERE to see how a mother searches for the Roe baby given away for adoption. Did the Roe mother and daughter embrace? It's a story of sanctity of life and the distress of an unwanted child.
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