By Dave Andrusko
One of our jobs at NRL News Today is to keep readers abreast of every phase of pro-life legislation, from its introduction, to (hopefully) its passage, to the inevitable drawn-out legal proceedings which always ensue because pro-abortionists always challenge the law in a friendly court venue. These laws are typically enjoined and then the real action begins.
Along the way friendly editorial boards figuratively sigh and ask why do those pro-lifers keep trying? Glad you asked (in this case), Los Angeles Times.
Right now nine states have laws that say you can’t dismember a living unborn child. One of those states is Texas.
In November 2017, U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel ordered the Texas Dismemberment Abortion Ban law to be permanently enjoined and blocked from being enforced.
The ruling against the law followed what Texas Right to Life described as “a seminal five-day trial where attorneys for the state questioned several abortionists, bioethicists, and medical professionals.” We await the decision of the three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals which earlier this month heard oral arguments. The panel consists of Chief Judge Carl E. Stewart and Judges James L. Dennis and Don R. Willett.
So what was the thrust of the LA Times editorial. The headline, “A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women” pretty much tells you where they are headed.
They criticized pro-lifers in general for persistence and ingenuity—obviously not their words, but in fact what they are describing. The editorial begins
No matter how often a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion is upheld by federal courts, there’s a state legislature somewhere trying to make it impossible for her to have one. The assaults on abortion rights have come in waves, as state legislatures dominated by anti-abortion lawmakers simultaneously pursue the same new legal gambits until blocked by a federal judge, at which point they change tactics and try again.
First point is obvious. Were we back in the 1960s and 1970s when pro-abortion attorneys were laying siege to state laws, would the LA Times be complaining about “waves” of “assaults” on pro-life laws or a “change” in tactics?
Of course not. You don’t change laws—or in our case restore protective laws—in one fell swoop. You dig and you dig, probing to see how courts respond to new evidence. You find fissures in what was a solid wall protecting the “right” to abortion, and then you find another and another.
The editorial offers up many leaky argument. I only have time to address one more but it’s chock-full of unintentionally revealing remarks:
According to Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, the law is a response to the “brutality” of the D&E procedure. Yet there’s no legitimate medical evidence that anything brutal is going on here. All mainstream medical experts have concluded that the fetus at that stage does not have the neurological capability to feel pain. … The real intention of this law is to shock the public with its description of how the remains of an aborted fetus are removed from a woman’s body, and thus weaken support for abortion rights.
I wonder if the editorial board members had read some of the testimony presented to Judge Yeakel they’d be so cavalier. It is enough to make you nauseous—dismembering a living human being, piece by piece, using tools that remind you of a miniature slaughtering house.
And there are babies that clearly are pain-capable. That the medical and judicial establishments won’t accept this truth is about them, not the abundant evidence that exists. Here is an excerpt from a Texas Right to Life post (they attended the entire trial):
Dr. Colleen Malloy, a neonatologist who testified on fetal pain. She discussed how the pain experience for babies is different from adults but is pain nonetheless, and that because babies are unable to describe their pain, doctors must use indirect evidence such as hormonal responses, changes in blood pressure, and behavioral patterns. From her medical experience, she told of seeing babies in utero crying, grimacing, kicking, and moving away from noxious stimuli.
The Times’ editorial says, “The real intention of this law is to shock the public.” If the public knew, it would be shocked—a truth that the editorial writers know all too well.
Let’s conclude with this. What is the “real intent” of these editorial writers? It is to desensitize the public and to dehumanize and degrade the unborn child.