Let’s be clear: Non-parenthood is Planned Parenthood’s answer to unplanned parenthood. Got it? Let’s refine that. Planned Parenthood is for neither planning nor parenting, but rather for encouraging lack of planning (in sex) and aborting parenthood (violently), even later term.
Where has this end-the-baby-as-born idea been pushed, since the Supreme Court handed authority back to the 50 States to assess how and when abortions will be performed?
While the majority of states disfavor late-term abortions, protecting the child after viability and often in the second trimester, several have taken a radical path, pushing the exact reverse.
Pushing abortion at birth – let’s not gild the lily – is killing a viable child before her first breath. Big national money pushes Democrat or divided states to do that, as they make money on it.
While no legislator that I know, Democrat or Republican, Maine to New York, would walk into a neonatal or ICU unit and proceed to suffocate, dismember, and dispose of, or sell a baby’s body parts, many have voted for a parallel process for the late-term fetus, seemingly unrepentant.
What exactly is a late-term or at-birth abortion, conducted in the third (and often second) trimester of pregnancy, authorized by states like Maine, Massachusetts, New York, DC, and a handful of others?
First, if cold comfort, only 1.3 percent of abortions occur after the 21st week, seven months, a point when kids can live outside the womb. To make it personal, I have close relatives born then, thriving.
Second, while states vary on when, how, and on what basis abortion is allowed, only one state – Virginia – prohibits third-trimester abortion. By contrast, six states and Washington DC impose no restrictions on abortion, from wanting a boy to anxiety at parenting.
Third, understanding tough facts – hard to hear – is maturity. The procedures Democrat legislatures and governors in places like Maine soft-shoe, try to cover up or politically excuse, are gruesome.
Moreover, pro-life Democrats in places like Maine are actually threatened by their own leadership to vote “yes” – against their conscience – or be primaried, and lose funding. That fact alone is revolting, a craven leadership with no integrity, ethics, morals, or respect for another’s conscience and faith.
Why? If ever there were a touchstone for integrity, a red line no party should cross, it is forcing a fellow legislator – of any party – to abandon their faith or conscience for political gain, for anything.
Taking a life is serious. When one believes abortion does that, no House or Senate leader should punish that belief – yet they did recently in Maine, and have elsewhere. That is a gut-wrenching “double fail,” as those of faith should not depart it, and those opposed should not impede it.
To be clear, this principle is not partisan; it is about integrity, having it, and honoring it. It does not relate just to forcing a pro-life Democrat to vote for abortion under threat of harsh political retribution, as Democrats did in Maine. It is the same for capital punishment or euthanasia.
Returning to the underlying issue, late-term abortions are gruesome. People should know facts. The utero child, viable or nearly so, is literally torn apart. Neonatologists confirm the child is “conscious.” Since federal law prohibits “intact dilation and evacuation,” the living fetus is partially removed, feet first, killed graphically and removed in parts. No abortion advocate can soften it.
Using more polite and “comforting” language, in NPR cadence, some re-write the procedure to mask the reality, which may work for some but no one really interested. One pro-abortion provider says this, aiming to comfort the mother soon not to be: “You’ll likely be given intravenous sedation or general anesthesia, so you’ll probably sleep through the procedure.”
Then, as if just returning her to heaven – which in some ways is happening, horrifically – they say: “Vacuum suction and other surgical instruments will be used to extract the fetus and placenta.”
If this does not turn the stomach, one is hard-pressed to know what would. Even writing it hurts. Yet, if we ignore reality, where are we? If we pretend votes like Maine’s are antiseptic, who are we?
Bottom line: Responsible people – those elected to preserve, protect, and defend life – should be responsible, and truthful about the coercion used in places like Maine’s legislature, a total miscarriage of integrity, justice, fairness, and constitutional obligations – defying the state’s majority will.
They should also be truthful with themselves: You only lose integrity, like a child, once. Let’s talk truth, shall we? Non-parenthood is Planned Parenthood’s answer to unplanned parenthood. Planned Parenthood is for neither planning nor parenting but for late-term abortion. Anyone who votes with them or defends them is complicit in what they do. Hard to hear, but true.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
