On January 22, we commemorate a date that is not one to be celebrated. On that date in 1973 the case of Roe v. Wade was decided.
No other date defines our time, our culture or how future generations will judge our actions. We live in an era where the killing of children while still in their mothers’ wombs is not only legal, but often referred to as a “sacred” right.
Those who celebrate this date plea that pro-lifers should just accept the fact that abortion should and will always remain legal. However, as the last 32 years have shown, the fight against the decision in Roe will not go away.
Roe has claimed millions of victims. Over 44 million lives have been lost entirely, and millions of women continue to suffer the physical and psychological effects of having an abortion. When children are no longer seen as the gifts from God that they are, they are no longer treated with respect and dignity. They are instead abused, neglected and ignored.
When motherhood is no longer seen as a grace from God, women also become targets for abuse and neglect, especially during their pregnancies. In fact, the leading cause of death of pregnant women is murder by their husband, boyfriend or acquaintance.
Let us look at a few truths to dispel the lies abortion proponents hope you will believe. First, there is absolutely no limit to when an abortion can be performed in our country, in spite of many who want you to believe that abortions only take place in the first trimester. A mother can request and receive an abortion at any time during her 9 months of pregnancy. While some states have more restrictive statutes, there are many abortionists willing to kill a child at any gestational age.
Second, the pro-abortion lobby argues that abortion is a safe and rare procedure and a decision that is made out of need, not want. However, the fact that there are over 4,000 abortions every single day in our country alone, with the primary reason being that the mother did not desire to have the child, proves that abortion is anything but rare, and is not performed out of need. The reports of injury to women, increase in infertility, and even death, shows that it is not safe.
Third, women are told that they are “terminating a pregnancy”, or having “a blob of cells and tissue” removed. This is the lie at the heart of the abortion industry.
The truth, backed by the scientific community (found in embryology textbooks across the country), is that a human life is terminated when an abortion is performed. At the moment when the sperm meets the egg (conception), a separate, unique, and identifiable human being is created.
The Supreme Court did not rule that fetuses are not human beings in Roe. Justice Blackmun, writing for the majority, stated that even though debatable, it was beyond its own ability to resolve the debate of when life begins, but ruled that, human or not, fetuses are not “persons” within the protections afforded “persons” under the constitution.
Many consider this the great defect (among others) of the Roe opinion. Consider this: after admitting an honest doubt as to whether a fetus is a human being, the Court had the audacity to then go on and implicitly resolve that supposedly un-resolvable doubt, against humanness rather than in favor of it, by allowing mothers to “terminate their pregnancies” without restraint from the government.
As we write this article, the first week of the South Dakota legislative session is complete. We need to say a prayer of thanks that a great share of time has been spent by legislators, both Democrat and Republican, discussing what can be done to stop the tragedy of abortion. Many ideas are being debated. What will become of this great debate will not be known until the end of session.
However, what is clear is that the Roe debate will not go away. South Dakotans understand the need to keep trying to solve this tragedy.