By: John Moor
During the vice presidential debate, J.D. Vance said that when conservatives in his home state of Ohio voted to pass a constitutional amendment that enshrined abortion as a right, he became aware of the public’s lack of trust in Republican leadership on this issue. While this may be the case, there is another reason that conservatives have shifted their view on abortion. Almost all media outlets have stopped including any mention of the human life in the womb. Over the last 50 years, this has slowly convinced people that there is only one person involved in the abortion decision. By remaining silent on facts and reasoning that support the existence of another human being, media outlets have persuaded their audience that there is no other perspective worth considering.
For decades, most media outlets have concentrated their reporting on the effects that pregnancy and abortion have on the mother. They consistently talk about “reproductive rights”, self-autonomy and women’s healthcare. By eliminating the preborn baby from the conversation, people have stopped considering when human life begins and when it should be protected. The humanity of the preborn baby is the central issue in the whole abortion debate and yet the media consistently neglect to address it. This is the core issue because it is the sole point of contention between pro-life and pro-abortion advocates. The pro-life movement believes in self-autonomy and healthcare availability for every person (including preborn children), but abortion advocates only talk about applying this to pregnant women. The conflict revolves around whether a child in the womb has any rights at all or are they just another piece of property that can be disposed of for any reason. By treating the preborn baby as property, they are being treated the same as Black people prior to the 14th Amendment which is a shameful aspect of American history. In pre-Civil War America, the location of a Black person determined whether they were a person with a right to life or property with no rights. For the 156 years since the 14th Amendment was ratified, no court or legislature has developed a standard for defining who qualifies as a person under the 14th Amendment which is based on their own innate characteristics. The legal standard has been any human between the time of birth and death, but birth is an event, it is not a characteristic of the person like death when organs stop functioning. The only change that occurs during birth is the location of the child and there is no precedent for denying the right to life based on location.
This has resulted in a double and contradictory set of values. If the mother wants the baby, then the public is horrified if another person comes along and ends that baby’s life (for example, by giving the mother Mifepristone). There is a cry for justice for the life that was lost. So, laws were created to punish those who do this. But if the mother does not want the baby, then other people are allowed to come and end that life. The only difference in these two scenarios is whether the mother wants the baby. There is no other instance in our society where we allow a second person to unilaterally end the life of another person without due process.
Another reason the media is silent on the child in the womb is so they can emphasize any restrictions on the rights of the mother. To amplify this theme, the media is fixated on talking about rare cases where a hospital is slow to treat a pregnant woman because they don’t have clear policy under the law. Defining policy always takes a while when a new standard for healthcare is legislated but it is not justification for ignoring the issue of protecting human life in the womb. This type of reporting plays to people’s dislike of restricting a person’s rights. No one likes to be told they cannot do something, but people will accept it if it is fair and protects others. The media should foster a debate over an appropriate compromise between the rights of the mother and the rights of the preborn child but they know this will lead to restrictions on abortion so they choose to ignore it.
Another tactic used to convey a prejudicial view without looking biased, is to use terms which appear correct but have a negative connotation. For example, some outlets refer to a ban on abortion in pro-life states. The definition of ban is to prohibit something but the implication is that there are no exceptions. The reality is that no state “bans” all abortions and every state has some restrictions on abortion. Pro-life states limit abortion to when it is needed, while pro-abortion states allow it when it is “wanted”. The courts and legislatures are still working through a definition of “needed” based on the ethical considerations when two lives are involved. This debate is needed and should be allowed to be fully vetted, but the pro-abortion groups don’t want this debate to be public, or continue, because it counters their main ideology that the abortion decision involves only one person.
Also, the media finds it easier to remain silent on the child in the womb by using pro-abortion sources. The presence of Planned Parenthood in abortion articles is ubiquitous. Their dominance in the abortion industry makes them a valid source for some information, but since they make millions of dollars by providing abortions, they are highly motivated to increase the number of abortions by focusing on only one of the lives involved in abortion. Also, articles frequently include interviews with pro-abortion OB doctors who have concerns about treating the mother but there is no mention of the OB doctor’s obligation to treat both of their patients (mother and baby). Interviewing a pro-life OB doctor would provide a different perspective that balances the needs of both the mother and the child.
It is critical that conservatives realize that this indoctrination from the media is taking place because referendums to support abortion are on the ballot in 10 states this year. These ballot measures are not compromises which balance the rights of the baby to live versus the rights of the mother. These ballot measures allow abortion the full 9 months of the pregnancy based on the physical, mental or emotional health of the mother. This can only be supported if voters believe the human life in the womb has no rights at all. Conservatives should think carefully before supporting abortion amendments that enable radical abortion policies. Different amendments and laws can be crafted which do a better job of protecting mothers and the human life within them, instead of the current amendments which support extreme left-wing policies. Voters should review the facts of human development and consider when human life should be protected based on its own innate and immutable characteristics, and the ethics involved in the decision to end a human life as compared to the wellbeing of the mother. If this does not seem necessary, then try listing all the reasons that the human life in the womb is not a person, with some rights to protection from harm, before voting “Yes” on one of these amendments.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
You can Google “silent scream” which shows an ultrasound of a baby being dismembered as it opens its mouth screaming feeling the pain…Only good thing is that the abortionist that did it quit doing abortions anymore. God will not not bless this country that condones this act. Hence we are are in the mess we are in.
All these abortion supporters need to watch a graphic video of an abortion procedure. They are clueless on how horrific it is for the baby in the womb.
Would it not be kinder and healthier to teach women not to get pregnant, to take care and responsibility of their bodies rather than demand abortion? It is 2024
I am a prolife Christian republican who will never ever support abortion. God loves his human creation and doesn’t want other people inventing contraptional instruments or any new law to bring abortion to light to kill his baby human creation, growth is an important process, maturity is also an important process. God needs mature individuals to be his working hands to do good here upon his earth that he gave to everyone to be born upon, to live grow and do good works for all, and for his creation and him be glorified within his world. God will not be on anyone’s side who wants to kill his human baby creation, he will punish them instead. Glory to God.
A baby is not part of the mother carrying the baby. The baby has different DNA, a different body! It is NOT part of the mother carrying the baby. People who argue for abortion try to make a baby like an appendix, a part of the body that is not necessary for the mother to live. THEY ARE WRONG!
Babies are a separate human being. Babies are made to become adult human beings and not to be thrown out like trash.
Abortions are at the bottom of the list while Illegal Alien Terrorist Invasion and Inflation are at the Top of the list among many other important things plaguing our country thanks to democrats.
The article is way off the real point, which is not whether a fetus is a person or not. It is debatable at which point in a pregnancy it should be invested with personhood, but it is reasonably clear that, while a zygote is not a person, a third trimester fetus, a fully formed unborn child, certainly is.
Yet if one truly believes in the absolute equality of men and women, which means that women, like men, have absolute ownership of their bodies, one has to concede a right to abortion even in the 9th month of pregnancy! Because, while a woman has no right to murder an unborn child, she does have the right to take it out of her body; if it survives, well and good. Of course, she then loses any claim to parental rights but that’s another matter.
Smart conservatives recognize this point as the best defense of the abortion right, as stated in an American Thinker article. Suppose you were drugged and when you woke up you discovered that you had been connected to a great violinist (or great whatever) who depended on, say, your liver and kidneys to survive for the next nine months (or nine days, not the point). Do you have the right to say let him die, I do not want my body to be used like this? Of course you do, admitted the author, proceeding with the ridiculous argument that the purpose of a woman’s uterus is reproduction, not any need of a woman’s body, so it is right for the state to commandeer it like it cannot do for your liver. But this is no answer, as you might as well impose prohibition on a man’s right to dispose of his testicles as he wishes. Of course the uterus is part of a woman’s body just like the liver and its function is irrelevant.
This is why I once supported an absolute right to abortion even in the 9th month of pregnancy. It is deplorable, immoral, say what you want about it, but it is still within the rights of a sovereign human being to dispose of his or her body as he or she pleases. Absolute equality of rights between men and women leads to a woman’s right to terminate the use of her uterus at any time, whether the child survives the removal from it or not.
I no longer support this absolute right to an abortion; I think it should be outlawed in the third trimester (after viability) and strictly regulated in earlier stages. But the only consistent way to do this, to deny a woman’s right to an abortion, is to abandon the full equality of men and women, as only the former then have absolute control of their bodies at all times. One must be honest and openly admit it rather than hiding behind sophistries.
The reason I eventually decided that absolute equality is not tenable can be found most succinctly in a video censored by YouTube, explaining why the feminization of the West since the 1960s is at the root of the disastrous decline of western civilization. Feminism directly leads to wokeism and the ruin of all values. It is no accident that successful women leaders like the grocer’s daughter are persons who are in female bodies but think like men. And that, conversely, we now have many politicians in male bodies who think sentimentally and “inclusively” like women and destroy their countries by allowing them to be overrun by third world invaders, in cohort with typical women politicians (as masculine traits are competitive and feminine ones nurturing). It is not abortion that was that reason, but this change in stand was a consequence.
The real issue is, are conservatives truly ready to propose the abandoning of true equality in order to outlaw abortion? And if the precisely 100% equality between the sexes is abandoned, what is in principle to stop 99.9% from becoming 90%, 80% etc until a woman is considered a man’s chattel once again? Not a real danger in our times, but a matter of principle that must be resolved.