By Dave Andrusko
Mary Spaudling Balch, JD (left), director of NRL's Department of State Legislation, and Ingrid Duran, Department of State Legislation Administrative Assistant
At week’s end, let’s take a minute to catch up on what National Public Radio this week labeled the “Abortion Wars: Taking It to The States.” NPR is not happy that even though various and sundry federal judges have put holds on some recently passed pro-life legislation, pro-lifers (taking their lead from National Right to Life) have successfully utilized a “full menu of tactics to limit access to and funding of abortion procedures.”
What does this “full menu” consist of? Laws with which people with no stake in the abortion battles agree.
You REALLY want to abort unborn children who have reached the stage of development that they can and will experience unimaginable levels of pain? If you don’t, it’s two thumbs up for the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
You REALLY don’t care if women—many of whom feel rushed or coerced—have one last chance to pause and reflect on the life and death decision they are about to make? If you do care, you want these abortion-vulnerable women to have a chance to see an ultrasound of their unborn child and learn about his/her development at that stage.
You REALLY are indifferent whether “family planning” money goes to clinics a major source of whose income is abortion? If you do care, you’d make it a priority that state money goes first to agencies or organizations whose agenda is life, not death.
And finally you REALLY don’t care if women are victimized by abortion clinics which are either not regulated at all, or whose deficiencies regulatory agencies turn a blind eye to, or who make the most half-hearted effort possible? If you do care, you want abortion facilities t0 abide by the safety standards of ambulatory surgical facilities.
We hear over and over and over about how “outside the mainstream” these commonsense measures supposedly are. In fact they reflect the sentiments of a strong majority of Americans.
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