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Doral, Florida - As I get older and gradually lose my viability every day, I worry that someone will have me aborted, based on my lack of viability. That is the standard to permit abortions set forth in Amendment No. 4 to the Florida Constitution that will be on the ballot in the general election on Tuesday, November 5 this year.
Conservative Position
The conservative position on abortion, expressed by Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for President, is roughly as follows:
(1) Abortion is not a federal matter because it is not covered in the United States Constitution. Instead, it is a matter left to the states, and we should not try to make a federal case out of it. Roe v. Wade constituted bad law and was wrongly decided because it had no basis in the Constitution. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a woke progressive icon, acknowledged as much and admitted this reality.
(2) Life begins at conception, when a new living organism is created, with his or her own unique genetic code spelled out in the chromosomes. Nevertheless, the conservative political position is that abortion should be allowed for up to 15 weeks or so after conception. Abortion constitutes the killing of an unborn person, but political reality requires that it be allowed by the law. This period of 15 weeks or so is also standard in the states making up the European Union, and rejecting this exception almost guarantees political defeat. Then the law would be worse and provide less protection for unborn children.
(3) This prohibition on abortion after 15 weeks or so should allow exceptions in the cases of rape and incest, and also in order to save the life of the mother. Without these exceptions, the political viability of the conservative position would likely be aborted politically.
This situation is similar to that confronted by our Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787. Individually, probably a majority of the delegates abhorred slavery, and would have abolished it if they could have. They knew that slavery was a stain on the foundation of American liberty. As Samuel Johnson observed when he read our Declaration of Independence in London during 1776, why is it that the loudest yelpers for liberty are also drivers of black slaves?
Many of the members of this convention were also members of societies for freeing slaves in their own states and elsewhere. For example, Alexander Hamilton was an early member of the New York Manumission Society, founded in 1785, and others founded the Republic of Liberia for freed slaves around 1820. The capital of this republic is the only foreign capital named after an American President: Monrovia.
Nevertheless, the Constitution did not address the question of slavery, but left it to be decided by our own Civil War in 1861-65. They left slavery in place so that they could achieve a Union of 13 states, without which they could not have, as they said in the preamble, secured the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.
The Judeo-Christian community should continue our work to change this political reality, but that work remains to be done.
Progressive Position
The progressive position on abortion, on the other hand, is that it should be permitted universally, at the local, state, federal and international levels, with no limitations at all, during the first 10 months after conception. This standard includes so-called partial-birth abortions, as well as the post-birth infanticide described by Dr. Ralph Northam, former Governor of the State of Virginia.
They propose that their position should be in effect not only nationally, but also internationally through the United Nations and similar organizations. They claim that abortions should be considered a Universal Human Right of Women (or at least of persons who get pregnant).
This position is, in effect, what progressives are proposing in this Amendment No. 4. They give the examples of where abortion is needed in the very few cases where the baby is already dead, or cannot survive outside the womb. If the baby is dead in the womb, then removing it is not an abortion. If it looks like the baby will not survive outside the womb, then why not give the baby a chance to do so, and let the baby die a natural death, if modern medicine cannot perform miracles?
Otherwise, why not abort adults who cannot live without life-saving medical assistance, such as kidney dialysis and other medical machines, or life-saving pharmaceuticals?
Adoption is another option to save the life of so-called unwanted babies. Many couples are unable to have babies on their own and are eager to adopt babies unwanted by their biological families.
The progressive position ignores not only the rights of unborn children to live, but also the rights of fathers to have a say in the lives of their children.
Recently we have heard about genocide in the Middle East. A real genocide has been committed in the United States since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 against unborn children.
Florida Constitutional Amendment No. 4 = NO
This Amendment is deceptive and extreme:
(1) It describes itself as an: “Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion.” Odd to have progressives wanting to limit government interference with anything, and we do have laws providing for government interference with murder and other crimes. A better description would be an: “Amendment to Permit Full-term Abortion for Mothers of any Age without Parental Consent.”
(2) It provides that: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay or restrict abortion before viability.” This provision removes all reasonable regulation of the abortion surgical procedure, even safety regulations for the protection of mothers. It also removes any requirement that abortions be performed solely in medical clinics or other safe facilities.
(3) The term “viability” is not defined in this Amendment. Accordingly, it will likely include late-term and post-birth abortions of babies that are deemed not “viable,” and this determination will not necessarily be made by medical professionals.
(4) It continues: “…or when necessary to protect the patient’s health,…” This last term, “patient’s health,” is also not defined. According to binding legal precedent, it includes not only physical health, but also emotional and financial health. It will likely include “mental stress” of the mother to require that an abortion be allowed. But what mother has not suffered mental stress from having a baby? And the mental stress only starts at your baby’s birth!
(5) All this: “…as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” So that this determination is not required to be made by a medical doctor, nurse or other medical professional.
(6) Finally, this Amendment prohibits requiring parental consent in advance for cases of abortions performed on minors. Instead, it requires only parental notification, even though parental consent for minors is required for any other medical treatment, such as giving them aspirin.
In any event, during election season this year, you should vote “NO” on Florida Constitutional Amendment No. 4, and let unborn people live, especially if there are doubts about their viability. Who lacks doubts about his own viability? Those unborn babies may appear to be unviable, inconvenient and unwanted, needing lots of investment in their human capital, but our Creator loves them, and calls us to do the same, each of us in our own way, as we are equipped.
