By Mona Charen
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
It’s a deeply felt conviction among liberals that they
are the caring party. It’s not too much to say that liberals are quite confident
that they are nicer, more moral people than conservatives.
It must require truly titanic powers of denial for the
“moral” and “compassionate” party to maintain its position on abortion — a
position that leads them into some macabre rationalizations. Consciences among
the morally superior party are agreeably quiescent.
But recent headlines have not been similarly cooperative.
In Florida the legislature is considering a variant of the “Born Alive Infants
Protection Act,” which would require that abortionists provide medical
assistance to infants who are “accidentally” born alive and kicking during an
abortion. (Then–state senator Barack Obama vociferously opposed similar
legislation in Illinois.)
Ms. Alisa LaPolt Snow, representing the Florida Alliance
of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified against the bill. Florida
representative Jim Boyd, apparently unsure that he had understood her
correctly, asked:
“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you
this question because I’m almost in disbelief. If a baby is born on a table as
a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have
happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
Ms. Snow responded that her organization “believes that
any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the
physician.” In short, as The Weekly Standard summarized, Florida Planned
Parenthood is in favor of “post-birth abortion.” This is consistent with the
position of the president of the United States and most members of the caring
party.
Ms. Snow was asked why she didn’t support simply
transporting a breathing, moving infant to a hospital where he or she would
have the best chance of survival. Snow developed a sudden concern for ambulance
convenience: “Those situations where it is in a rural health-care setting, the
hospital is 45 minutes or an hour away, that’s the closest trauma center or
emergency room. You know there’s just some logistical issues involved that we
have some concerns about.” Really? Logistical concerns?
So if a baby is brought to a rural clinic suffering from,
say, meningitis, and the nearest trauma center is 45 minutes away, does Planned
Parenthood have “concerns” about the “logistical issues” involved? Or does
Planned Parenthood stand for the principle that when a woman chooses abortion,
she is entitled to a dead baby?
Snow’s testimony comes at an inopportune moment for the
deniers — the “abortion rights” absolutists who hotly deny that infants are
ever born alive during botched abortions — because in Philadelphia, an
abortionist is on trial.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell is on trial for murder in the deaths
of one woman and seven second-trimester babies. The 41-year-old woman had
sought an abortion and was given an overdose of narcotics at Gosnell’s clinic.
The seven babies were all born alive, according to the indictment. Gosnell then
used scissors to “snip” their spinal columns. One of his assistants, who has
pled guilty to third-degree murder, said that such “snippings” were “routine”
for late-term abortions — so there were probably many more than seven.
Gosnell wasn’t at all particular about gestational age.
An ultrasound technician recorded the age of one baby as 29.4 weeks, or about
7.5 months. In Pennsylvania, abortions are not permitted beyond 24 weeks (and
the survival rate is above 85 percent for babies born at 27 weeks). In one
case, a nurse testified that a baby cried after being born. Gosnell snipped his
neck and told the nurse that there was nothing to worry about. The baby was
placed in a basin on a counter. Another large baby was disposed of in a shoe
box, but he was too large and his feet dangled over the sides. In another case,
Gosnell allegedly joked with a nurse that a baby was so big “he could have
walked to the bus stop.”
Gosnell seems to be a particularly freakish “provider.”
He kept fetal feet in jars in an office prosecutors described as a “house of
horrors.” (Pictures are on the Internet, but beware, they are graphic.)
Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.), who engaged in an
unwise colloquy with then-senator Rick Santorum about when infants deserve to
be treated as people, spoke for many of the caring elite when she said that
life begins when “you take the baby home from the hospital.”
Some day, our descendants will look back at this and ask
how we could have tamely accepted such barbarism. A special obloquy will attach
to the Orwellians who call it compassion.
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