Ron Paul: "Too many laws already" to protect babies in early pregnancy

Last night's Google/Youtube/Fox News debate in Orlando, Florida, focused on jobs and the economy, but there was one question on abortion. It went to Ron Paul: "Congressman Paul, you have said that you believe that life begins at conception, and that abortion ends an innocent life. If you believe that, how can you support a rape exception to abortion bans, and how can you support the morning after pill? Aren't those lives just as innocent?"

Where the issue of abortion should be legislated--state level or national level--is one thing. It's quite another to say that unborn lives don't deserve protection because "we have too many laws already." He says laws against the morning-after pill (not clear if he includes older unborn babies conceived through rape in this) are too hard to enforce. A pragmatic answer to a question of principle. Hmmm. These drugs are only on the market because the FDA has approved them. If you ban the drug, the supply goes away. Sounds pretty easy to enforce to me.

Let's also be clear. The morning-after pill doesn't treat a disease that a rape victim might have. It kills a baby that may have been conceived. Rep. Paul confuses the issue by suggesting the pill might be used to treat a sexually-transmitted disease.

He closed with this statement: "Only the moral character of the people will eventually solve this problem, not a law." In a representative government like ours, laws are a reflection of the moral values of the people. Morals are where we need to start, but morals lead to laws against evil. Murder should not be legal in any form.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of this video is the amount of applause Paul received. He should have been booed off the stage for his impassioned defense of murder under pretense of futility or federalism.

We in the pro-life community have much work to do so that Americans can no longer claim to be "pro-life" while accepting the slaughter of the unborn for any reason.

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Wesley Wilson is the President of Let Me Live, a nonprofit dedicated to saving babies by showing the beauty and value of life to women considering abortion. Please learn more about the Let Me Live pro-life billboard campaign. Donations are tax deductible.

Disclaimer: Let Me Live does not endorse or oppose any candidates. The opinions expressed are those of the author, and do not represent an official position of Let Me Live or its board of directors.

GOP Debate Question on Rape and Incest Abortion Exceptions

The Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire last night brought no surprises about the candidates views on abortion. What was said was good. I was a little disappointed in what was not said by some of the candidates. A perfect example is Rep. Bachmann's response to the question whether she was comfortable with Tim Pawlenty's opposition to abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or the life of the mother.

What she said is good, but she could have distinguished herself had she actually answered the question. She evidently either thinks a rape or incest exception is ok, or she doesn't think she can frame the argument in a winning way. Unfortunately nobody else on the stage distinguished themselves on it either.

How would you answer if you were running for president? What about this for an answer.

Rape is a horrible crime, and rape victims deserve our greatest compassion and care. They deserve to not be pushed into compounding the horror of rape with the murder of their unborn babies. I have friends who were conceived in rape. You can't tell me that they deserve to be dead. Let's punish rapists, not their victims or their children. Abortion is, in fact, one of the greatest tools of a sexual abuser, because it lets him cover up his crime, and many abortion businesses will not follow the law and report on an under-aged victim of sexual abuse. Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses cover up rape, incest, and other sexual crimes, enabling the abuse to continue. As President, I will not sign any budget with one penny of funding for Planned Parenthood.

Don't expect that answer this election season, but any of these candidates would at least sign most pro-life legislation--something President Obama clearly won't do.

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Wesley Wilson is the President of Let Me Live, a nonprofit dedicated to saving babies by showing the beauty and value of life to women considering abortion. Please learn more about the Let Me Live pro-life billboard campaign. Donations are tax deductible.

Open letter to SC State Senator Larry Martin on Rape and Incest Abortion Funding

From the South Carolina Citizens for Life:

COLUMBIA, S.C. (Wednesday, April 27, 2011) --A move to strip funding for rape and incest abortions from the state employees’ health insurance plan failed by one vote Wednesday in the Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate.  Senators Kevin Bryant, R-Anderson, and David Thomas, R-Greenville, offered the amendment during debate on the 2011-2012 state budget.

In what is known as Part 1B, Section 80C of the state budget, the state employees’ health insurance coverage reads in part:  “No funds appropriated for employer contributions to the State Health Insurance Plan may be expended to reimburse the expenses of an abortion, except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s medical condition is one which, on the basis of the physician’s good faith judgment, so complicates the pregnancy as to necessitate an immediate abortion to avert the risk of her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of major bodily function, and the State Health Plan may not offer coverage for abortion services, including ancillary services provided contemporaneously with abortion services.”

The Bryant-Thomas amendment would have removed the six words “in cases of rape; incest or” leaving the rest of the House-passed language intact....

Senator Joel Lourie, D-Richland, moved to table (defeat) the Bryant-Thomas amendment. The motion to table passed by one vote.  Those who voted against tabling the amendment were voting in favor of the Bryant-Thomas amendment.

To see how your senator voted, click here.

 My State Senator, Larry Martin (not to be confused with Sen. Shane Martin who voted the other way), voted to table the pro-life amendment, so I sent him the following letter.

Dear Senator Martin:

I am disappointed in your vote to table the Bryant-Thomas amendment which would have banned state funding of abortions of pregnancies conceived in rape or incest. The amendment, which lost by one vote, would have changed the language of Part 1B, Section 80C of the state budget. Your vote made the difference.

Let me speak directly. You voted to use my tax money to kill babies whose fathers are criminals.

The SC GOP platform says: "We believe that the unborn and the newborn child have a fundamental right to life which must not be infringed. Accordingly, we believe that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protection should apply to unborn children."

According to our party's platform, your vote was both unconstitutional and immoral.

I have appreciated many of the positions you have taken and your support for other pro-life laws. Please explain why you voted to table this amendment.

Sincerely,
Wesley Wilson

Update: Senator Martin responded promptly:

Mr. Wilson:

Thanks for your email and for your question about my vote on the amendment.  The language in the budget proviso regarding the limited instances that involve rape, incest, or the life of the mother,  in which the state health plan will pay for an abortion, is the longstanding policy of the state.  It goes back to the 1980s when the pro-life US Congressman, the late Henry Hyde from Illinois, was successful in implementing the same policy for Medicaid reimbursement.  The Hyde Amendment is a well settled policy in this important area, and the state health plan reflects that policy.  It is something that I have supported for many years going back to my service in the House, and I’m almost certain that there are other votes in previous appropriations bills.  Lastly, there are a limited number of individuals and families that are covered under COBRA policies that pay the entire employer/employee amount for their health insurance coverage under the state health plan. 

Thanks again for your email as it is good to hear from you.

Regards,

Larry Martin

I appreciate Senator Martin's prompt and cordial response. The Hyde Amendment was a huge step toward stopping the government funding of abortion. At the time, the political reality apparently required that the rape and incest exception take precedence over the sanctity of human life. That's politics. Better to compromise and stop paying for 99% of the murders than lose the vote and be unable to stop any of them. At least that's the theory. (Some readers will disagree, and I respect your views.)

I am thankful for the Hyde Amendment. I think Henry Hyde probably took all the ground he could at the time. What Senator Martin is saying, however, is that the Hyde Amendment is the goal, not just a step in the right direction. In South Carolina, where the electorate is strongly pro-life, and the state government is completely in Republican hands, this isn't a matter of compromising to make progress. Senator Martin apparently thinks that tax money really should be used to murder babies in the 1% or so of unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape and incest.

For the record, the House version of the budget last year did not allow funding for rape and incest abortions, but the Senate defeated the pro-life measure. This year, both the SC House and Senate versions fund those abortions.

Abortion: The Ultimate Cover-up

Crisis Pregnancy Centers often receive phone calls from people seeking abortion. I answered such a call recently from a woman who was calling on behalf of her married daughter.

I asked if the daughter had received a medical pregnancy test and an ultrasound to verify that it was not a tubal pregnancy—services that we offer at no cost. The caller was impatient. "You don't understand. This isn't her husband's baby. She has to have an abortion. She doesn't have a choice."

Stories like this are all too common. Some women who use abortion to cover up infidelity schedule an abortion for a week when their husbands are on a business trip.

It's not just women who cover up immorality with abortion. Abortion is the favorite tool of child molesters and rapists.

There's the 27-year-old Florida high school drama teacher Andrew Foster who was having sex with students and used abortion to hide the crime when he impregnated an 18-year-old.

In Connecticut, Adam Gault, 41, has been charged with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. He tried to hide that crime with an abortion performed by a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Earlier this year Michael Britt, 43, a Connecticut abortion clinic janitor and owner of a modeling agency, lured teenage girls into having sex with him in order to become models. He reportedly took a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old to the abortion clinic to cover up his crimes.

That case came on the heels of another Connecticut case where 22-year-old Kevon Walker impregnated his 14-year-old girlfriend three times in six months, and ended each pregnancy with abortion.

John Blanks, Jr., of Ohio used abortion to cover up his incestuous sexual abuse of his daughter.

In most, if not all, of these cases, the abortion clinic has failed to report the sexual abuse of minors as required by most states, enabling the abuse to continue.

Abortion is the ultimate cover-up of sexual crimes and immorality. Perhaps that's the biggest reason its supporters fight to keep it legal. Andrea Dworkin, a leading feminist, wrote in Right Wing Women:

In the garden of earthly delights known as the sixties counterculture, pregnancy did intrude, almost always rudely;...one of the real obstacles to female [immorality] on male demand....It was the brake that pregnancy put on [immorality] that made abortion a high-priority political issue.

Or put another way, abortion is the insurance policy of the sexual revolution.

It's past time to liberate women from the abuse of men who cover up their crimes with abortion.


Wesley Wilson

Wesley Wilson is the President of Let Her Live, a nonprofit dedicated to saving babies by showing the beauty and value of life to women considering abortion. Please learn more about the Let Her Live targeted pro-life billboard campaign. Donations are tax deductible.

Freedom of Conscience vs. the Right to Contraception

A liberal friend of mine recently asked me what I thought about doctors refusing to prescribe "emergency contraception" such as Plan B to rape victims. He referred to an MSNBC article on the subject.

In summary, a woman who had been raped went to an emergency room where she talked to a rape counselor and was examined by an ER doctor. The rape victim asked for the morning-after pill, and the doctor refused to prescribe it, allegedly because it was against his religion. She went back to the rape counselor who referred her to another doctor who wrote the prescription.

This happened a few years ago. Plan B is now available over the counter to people 18 and older.

The issue, however, remains. Should a person's desire for some form of medical care force the doctor to act against his or her conscience?

I believe the answer is a clear and resounding "No."

First, the doctor's objection to "emergency contraception" for moral, ethical, and medical reasons is reasonable. He has an obligation to "first, do no harm." We require new drugs to be approved by the FDA for this reason. We expect doctors to follow this principle in prescribing treatment to be sure the cure is not worse than the disease. Based on this principle, American Medical Association policy prohibits doctors from being involved in executions.

Plan B, the best known "morning-after" pill, works by preventing ovulation, preventing fertilization, and preventing implantation of a fertilized egg. A doctor treating a rape victim should be aware that he may, in fact, have two patients, as fertilization can occur in less than one hour. In that case Plan B would prevent the newly-formed human from attaching to the uterine wall, causing the death of the embryo.

Second, medical care, as nearly every other industry in the United States, is an open market. If you don't like your doctor, go to another one. My doctor might not be willing to try a treatment that works for some people but injures others. He is fulfilling his ethical obligation to do no harm with a treatment he believes is harmful. My doctor's knowledge of the treatment's risks may be my greatest protection. I can always go to another doctor who believes the treatment has a chance of success.

Third, freedom of conscience is one of the most basic human freedoms. It led to the settlement of many of the early American colonies. It is still sought by millions of legal immigrants. Freedom of conscience was recognized in the First Amendment right to freedom of worship; in the long-standing exemption from combat for conscientious objectors to all killing; in the patient's right to refuse medical care; and in the AMA's policies.

The MSNBC article alleges: "Catholic and conservative Christian health care providers are denying women a range of standard, legal medical care." Really? What standard, legal medical care? The article lists birth control prescriptions, abortion referrals, infertility clinic services for lesbians and unmarried women, and sterilizations. None of these are medically necessary, life-saving procedures.

What solution would the article's author propose? Perhaps a government mandate that physicians must do certain procedures on request, regardless of their best judgment? I certainly wouldn't want the government telling me how to do my work, and in my line of work, not one life depends on my judgment.

The article acknowledges: "In the end, the women in all of the incidents above were able to get the treatment they wanted, even if they had to go elsewhere." So the free market and respect for a doctor's freedom of conscience is denying needed medical care to no one.

Let's continue to let doctors be doctors, not victims of an ideology that would deny one of the most basic human rights—freedom of conscience—to them.

Wesley Wilson

Wesley Wilson is the President of Let Her Live, a nonprofit dedicated to saving babies by showing the beauty and value of life to women considering abortion. Please learn more about the Let Her Live targeted pro-life billboard campaign. Donations are tax deductible.