Controversy Over State Abortion Bans

baby, prolife, pro-life, family, marriage

The recent Supreme Court ruling against blocking the Texas Heartbeat bill has gotten the pro-life movement celebrating and the pro-abortion folks up in arms. In turn, the outmoded debate on when life begins was stirred up again when President Biden said he didn’t believe that life begins at conception contradicting his past beliefs, the beliefs of the Catholic Church, and that of the science community.

Reviewing all this and my over 25 years of being involved in pro-life activities caused a reflection on the different time periods during pregnancy the various state laws ban abortion. The Texas law and other state laws banning abortion at different stages of an unborn baby’s gestation can cause some confusion about when life begins and when a fetus can be seen as a human baby.

The pro-life message (as well as the scientific consensus) is that life begins at conception. As a consequence, the unborn baby should be protected from that moment forward. Banning abortions at differing time periods during pregnancy, however, can be seen as blurring that message. To help provide some clarification, the various justifications for the different state abortion bans can be explored.

Abortion Ban Justification Criteria

Thirty-three states have passed abortion laws within the last ten years, with varying time periods after which an abortion would be banned everywhere from 6 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. Working backward from the latest to the earliest time periods the following have been major rationales for state laws banning abortion:

  • One of the justifications for the timing of an abortion ban has been the viability of the fetus for when it could survive outside the womb. The range of opinions appears to be between 22-30 weeks with most around 24 weeks. However, there are some opinions that 20 weeks may be the minimum that has been adopted into some state’s abortion laws.
  • Another reasoning emerged with the advent of ultrasounds that established the liveliness of the fetus roughly at the end of the first trimester (13 weeks). The opinion is that at 15 weeks gestation, all major organs are formed and functioning, including the liver, kidneys, pancreas, and brain.
  • The time when an unborn baby can feel pain has been another rationale. Most opinions range between 20 and 27 (start of the third trimester) weeks. Recently, 15 weeks has been accepted as the minimum time period and is reflected in Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban law.
  • Finally, as seen in the Texas law, is the issue of when a heartbeat can be heard by ultrasound (6 weeks) as a criterion. It’s based on the assumption that the heartbeat is a key and universal medical predictor of whether human life exists.
A Bit by Bit Approach to Overturning Roe vs Wade

There are varying medical opinions on all those time periods meeting the various justifications (viability, liveliness, experiencing pain, or heartbeat). Regardless of the specific number of weeks, the different justifications and consequent laws based on them represent an attempt by the pro-life movement to gradually chip away at the Roe vs Wade decision legalizing abortion at all stages of an unborn baby’s gestation in the womb. The rationale is that it is too difficult a legal challenge, at this time, to confront Roe vs Wade directly or at a national level. The view is that in getting abortion bans established at the state level, using whatever justification or time period that can be legislatively passed, then a gradual national consensus can emerge to ban abortion eventually from conception to birth.

Another rationale is that these laws, although not banning abortion from conception, at least will save some babies. There is no question that this has been the case and it provides major support for the “bit by bit” approach.

Life Begins at Conception Message

As practical and noble the bit by bit approach has been, the question has been raised as to whether it can possibly undermine one of pro-life’s key message and rationale for overturning Roe vs Wade – that human life begins at conception. The dilution of that message is seen, for example, with Biden’s and other Democrats voicing that it is still an open scientific debate.  The progressive’s mantra for years has always been to “follow the science” and to “follow what is settled science”. If one were to go along with that, then clearly life begins at conception. There is no debate on that fact. Pick up any biology textbook and investigate what is the criteria for life. Most define five or six basic characteristics that define life.

  • Life responds to its environment. It reacts and adapts.
  • Life grows and develops. It does not remain static.
  • Life is capable of or has the potential for producing offspring.
  • Life maintains homeostasis. It can maintain its own internal environment.
  • Life has complex chemistry. It can metabolize nutrients and produce energy.
  • Life is made up of living cells.

The fertilized egg at conception meet all of these criteria. From the moment of fertilization, it can respond and adapt to the womb environment, grows and develops through cell division, has the potential to reproduce, can self-regulate its own internal environment, can acquire nutrients and produce energy and is made up of highly organized cells. Genetically, it is a human. Dr. Jerome Lejeune, called the father of modern genetics summed it up as follows:

To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion… it is plain experimental evidence.

The advent of microbiology and related technical advances have demonstrated this fact which was not around in 1973 when Roe vs Wade was decided. Many contend that if that court case was to be decided nowadays a different verdict would occur because, at the time, there was not a scientific consensus on when life begins as there is now.

Implications

The battle over abortion is not just a legal one but is, more importantly, one of educating and influencing hearts and minds. When there is recognition that life begins at conception, then one can grasp that abortion isn’t any different than arbitrarily killing a newborn, a child, or a teenager. All four meet the criteria for life and abortion is just one act along a continuum of taking away life at various life stages of a human being’s development. That kind of recognition is realized when we now see some atheists joining in on pro-life efforts. I think that the change from being pro-abortion to being pro-life starts with accepting that human life begins at conception. Without that basic understanding that the fertilized egg is a human life, why would one want to ban abortion?

In this context, what does it say when we advocate for abortion bans at 5 weeks or 15 weeks or 20 or 28 weeks when life can still be destroyed before those time periods? There is not an easy answer because the positive effects, especially in saving babies of the bit by bit approach is encouraging. The political climate of our times is such that there just may be no other alternative for now. To put it in football terms – “At least we are moving the ball down the field and making first downs”.

Perhaps, the implication is that we need to proclaim loudly and strongly in our rationale and justification for passing such laws, that they are just stopgap measures to bring us along as a society toward the final objective, which is – all life from conception to natural death deserves to be protected.

 

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3 thoughts on “Controversy Over State Abortion Bans”

  1. Pingback: Former Protestant Missionary Shares Eucharistic Encounter, What Is the Mark of the Beast Actually, and More Great Links! - JP2 Catholic Radio

  2. You indirectly suggest why Roe was wrongly decided: abortion is within a State’s police power; it should not be implicated in the Federal constitution. If the individual State of TX decides to have a strict abortion regime and NYS decides to have a very liberal one, well, that’s how states’ rights work.

  3. Pingback: FRIDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

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