I’ve written before that it isn’t only pro-life scholars who believe the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion was fundamentally flawed: Honest abortion proponents agree.
In a June 17 Truth-out.org article, pro-choice sociologist Salvatore Babones writes:
The constitutional basis for the right to abortion found in Roe v. Wade is based on the thin reed of the Fourteenth Amendment, passed in 1868 to prevent states from reintroducing new forms of slavery.
The Fourteenth Amendment ensures that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” from which has been implied a general right to privacy, from which has been implied a right to privacy in pregnancy, from which has been implied a right to abortion.
This is good so far as it goes, but it is hardly a secure footing on which to base such a basic human right as reproductive self-determination.
Babones’ solution is to pass a federal law legalizing abortion that strikes a “balance between a woman’s right to an abortion and society’s interest in her fetus.”
One problem is Babones allows no room in his abortion fantasy for “society’s interest in her fetus,” going so far as to condemn the 2003 federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban as legislative overreach. So what law protecting the fetus would Babones approve of?
“Congress should step in to ensure that women in all parts of the United States have access to safe, affordable abortion services,” Babones writes. “It should also define the areas over which states can exercise reasonable local discretion in the regulation of abortion.”
Babones tries to balance his extremist carte blanche abortion view by adding a “reasonable” sounding caveat. But elsewhere in his article Babones goes so far as to condemn a common sense safety regulation ensuring hallways in abortion clinics are wide enough to fit a gurney or wheelchair. So what regulation would Babones approve of?
TRAP-ping abortion
As an aside, Babones erroneously claims these regulations “specifically target abortion providers – but not other, similar health care organizations.”
This is actually the opposite of the truth. In reality, states have historically treated abortion clinics differently, relaxing or nullifying regulations they imposed on mainstream ambulatory surgical treatment centers – and even animal clinics – or refusing to enforce regulations on the books, as we saw with Kermit Gosnell.
Abortion woes then and now
It is interesting to reread the 2005 Fox News article I linked to in the post referred to at the top of this piece. Nine years ago the other side knew it had problems:
Abortion rights activists say they found themselves increasingly on the defensive after the Republican Revolution in Congress in 1994, and on red alert since President Bush’s victory in 2000. The chasm between the pro- and anti-abortion camps has only grown wider, with right-to-life groups emboldened in recent years.
In the past decade or so, Roe’s breadth has been chipped away by legislation and rulings on a host of “sidebar” issues: parental consent, late-term or partial-birth abortions and public health care funding.
Back then what Babones notes as the current “major driver” for pro-abortion woes, “the so-called TRAP strategy: targeted regulation of abortion providers,” wasn’t even on the horizon.
These laws, which do regulate abortion clinics and force abortionists to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, have been tremendously productive for our side, particularly since a second Republican Revolution as well as discovery of Gosnell’s house of horrors, both in 2010, and despite the election of pro-abortion, pro-infanticide Barack Obama in 2008/12. Writes Babone:
The number of clinics that provide abortion services has fallen dramatically in the last 20 years with most of the remaining clinics concentrated in a small number of states, and nearly one-third of them are operated by a single organization, Planned Parenthood.
Research
from The Huffington Post shows that 11 states saw reductions in abortion availability of more than 20% over the brief period from 2010 to 2013…. All in all, 17 states experienced reduced availability. Only two states saw expanded access.
I thought it was interesting for Babone to note that one-third of remaining abortion clinics “are operated by a single organization, Planned Parenthood.”
Perhaps I’m reading into those words, but it seems to me Babone is saying without saying that if Planned Parenthood goes down, abortion is in real trouble.
It is no secret that a major goal of the pro-life movement is to rightfully and justly bring Planned Parenthood down.
With that in mind, it will be interesting to read what abortion proponents are lamenting nine years from now.
[Top two graphics via National Right to Life, which also has several quotes by pro-abortion scholars and legal experts criticizing the Roe decision; Gosling graphic via quickmeme.com]
LifeNews.com Note: Jill Stanek fought to stop “live birth abortions” after witnessing one as an RN at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. That led to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act legislation, signed by President Bush, that would ensure that proper medical care be given to unborn children who survive botched abortion attempts.
