WASHINGTON, DC, Dec 19 — Here’s one for the books: pro-abortion democrats claim that “having a child is a major contributor to climate change.” They point to an alleged scholarly theory that’s been making the rounds over the past few years.
Take Travis Rieder’s theory. He’s a Director of the Master of Bioethics degree program at the Berman Institute of Bioethics. He put in an Opinion article published by NBC some time ago that, “While I recognize that this is an uncomfortable discussion, I believe that the seriousness of climate change justifies uncomfortable conversations. In this case, that means that we need to stop pretending the decision to have children doesn’t have environmental and ethical consequences.” More recently, in an update regarding his theory, Rieder wrote that he “does not imply that any policy that restricts reproduction would be justified, but just because something shouldn’t be regulated or restricted doesn’t mean that it’s not something deserving careful ethical reflection.”
Rieder’s not the only one seeking to promote the benefits of abortion as a critical component of dealing with climate change, notwithstanding the fact that there are thousands of authentic scientific climate change deniers. A pair of professors at Stamford University, Robert Proctor and Londa Shiebinger, the authors of a recent opinion article published by the Yale School of the Environment that promotes abortion as a means of checking global warming. Their claim: “Avoiding unwanted births — by making contraception and abortion freely available globally — would significantly reduce births and therefore (over the long term) human-generated carbon emissions. If the world’s total population were eventually reduced by 10 percent, this would reduce carbon emissions by 3.6 billion tons per year, which is more than the total combined emissions of Germany, Japan, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, and Australia.”
Killing babies might slow down global warming and save the planet as these academics theorize, but it isn’t the reason the vast majority of women opt for legal abortions. The Guttmacher Institute says that most women choose to end a pregnancy for personal reasons such as the cost of raising a child, personal relationship problems or they feel they are too old or too young to have a dependent youngster. A recent Pew survey shows that 63% of the women who were polled said abortion should be legalized.
Thus, you have the principal reason politically liberal lawmakers are keen to support easier abortion access, even President Biden: votes. He claims to be a “devout” Catholic yet he goes all out in support of killing unborn babies for the votes, despite the fact that his church considers abortion to be not just an ordinary sin, but a mortal sin.
He and the majority of Democrats in Congress objected vehemently against the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe vs Wade, the 50 year old Court ruling that legalized the right to abortion. They now seek other ways to make access to abortion available. Two weeks ago, Democrats introduced a bill in the Senate that would have the government [taxpayers] pay for travel, lodging, meals and the cost of pregnancy terminations in states where they are legal. And, in June, Biden’s Department of Veterans Affairs [VA] issued a ruling to provide, for the first time, taxpayer-funded abortions for eligible veterans. The VA says it took “this action because it has determined that providing access to abortion-related medical services is needed to protect the lives and health of veterans.”
However, a VA nurse practitioner, Army veteran Stephanie Carter, who has worked at the VA for 23 years, is challenging the ruling on the grounds that it violates her rights under the First Amendment. She’s being aided by the First Liberty Institute, which is asking the court to grant a preliminary injunction that would protect her religious beliefs by preventing the rule from being enforced in Texas at the facility where Carter works.