04 Apr 2013 Slippery Slide Toward Infanticide
Newborn baby, wrapped in a white blanket, crying.
A recent hearing regarding a state-level bill in Florida that would guarantee medical care to a baby surviving an abortion procedure brought to the forefront a gruesome aspect of the knee-jerk protection of abortion that pro-life activists have long feared lay just below the surface.
It would seem that the life of a baby is secondary to safeguarding the right to choose. This revelation, coupled with the revelations at the murder trial of West Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, paints a very alarming portrait of the abortion industry and its supporters.
At the Florida hearing, Alisa LaPolt Snow — a lobbyist representing the interests of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates — was repeatedly asked if her group could support requiring, as the bill would, medical assistance to a baby that was viable after being separated from the mother during an abortion meant to terminate the baby’s life in utero.
When not trying to dodge the question by claiming not to understand or noting that she is not a doctor, Snow said that trying to save a baby in this situation was something that should be left to the woman and medical staff rather than become an understood practice to save a life.
Choosing to let a living, breathing baby that may be struggling to survive die? Many call that infanticide, or at least uncaring. In the Gosnell trial, the abortionist was charged with murder after at least six children born in this manner were allegedly brutally put to death.
Project 21
member Derryck Green is shocked but not surprised. He sees this as a natural progression for abortion activists.
When presented with the prospect of making the abortion process safer for the mother and to prevent the possibility of born-alive babies being the victims of infanticide, it appears to have been revealed that the popular “keep abortion safe and legal” mantra used by the abortion movement might be more appropriately replaced by the radical battle cry of “abortion on demand and without apology.”
Derryck believes this mindset goes all the way to the White House, with Barack Obama having been opposed to born-alive protections back when he was a state legislator.
All this bodes ill for America’s moral future, notes Derryck:
State legislators in Florida recently considered a bill that would provide medical care and services to infants who survive abortions. Opposing the bill was Alisa LaPolt Snow, a representative of the Planned Parenthood Affiliates in Florida. What she stated before a committee essentially suggested that her group supports what can very well be called post-birth abortion.
In a moment of breathtaking frankness, stunned legislators repeatedly asked Snow to clarify her position. She had said that any decision about proceeding to save a baby born alive during an abortion should be left to the mother, possibly some family and clinic staff. In other words, Snow was being given an opportunity to restate her position in a less gruesome way. In fact, she was given several opportunities to clarify her position.
Rather than walk back her barbarity, Snow doubled-down on her (and, apparently, that of the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates) heartless and callous position that a baby born as a result of a botched abortion, can be allowed to die by the call of the woman, her physician and her family.
Once again, the selfish protection of choice prevails at the expense of the child.
Just to be clear, this Planned Parenthood representative wouldn’t advocate for a baby that’s born alive as a result of a botched abortion. In her comments, she actually seemed to favor the option of denying medical care for such infants — at least if that’s what people in the room wanted at the time. But what Planned Parenthood does regularly is advocate killing unborn babies if the mother chooses to kill it.
In so many words, I consider Snow’s many answers a definition of infanticide.
Is this any surprise? Not really.
Last year, two professors who are ironically considered “ethicists” — Alberto Giubilini of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia and Francesca Minerva of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne — argued in the Journal of Medical Ethics that killing a newborn should be legislated as legal just as abortion is legal. They justified their position by arguing that a newborn isn’t a person and should be considered the moral equivalent of a fetus that does not, in their opinion, deserve a right to life. Minerva went as far as saying: “Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life.”
Peter Singer of Princeton University is also in favor of infanticide and proudly stands by his position. Singer, in 1993, suggested a newborn baby is not really a person. In his judgment, and what he would like to be the law of the land, is the ability to kill a child until around 30 days after they are born.
In practice, abortion clinic owner Dr. Kermit Gosnell is facing a jury of his peers on charges of murder for performing illegal abortions in unsanitary conditions with uncertified staff. He now faces murder charges for allegedly killing born-alive babies. Yet this is not causing a Newtown-style movement for reforming the abortion industry.
Based upon his votes against successive variations of a state-level “Born Alive Infants Protection Act” in Illinois, President Obama shares the same position as Snow, Giubilini, Monash, Singer and maybe even Gosnell.
There should be no misconceptions, however, regarding our society’s slide toward actual infanticide — it’s the logical and inevitable conclusion of “choice.” It’s also the result of a morally-degraded culture that has allowed religion, particularly Christianity, to be pushed out of the public square.
The lack of public outrage regarding Gosnell’s actions and Snow’s statement, along with the silence of abortion providers attempting to distance themselves from infanticide, is evidence of that degradation.
Maybe Christian values, especially regarding the sacredness of human life, aren’t so bad after all.
top photo credit: iStockPhoto
David W. Almasi In the wake of widespread reporting about their lobbyist’s callous answers to questions regarding the safety of potential born-alive infants in abortion facilities, the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates issued a statement on 4/4/13 attempting to “restate their position.”
The statement never really addresses the comments made by their lobbyist who — at one point — said a decision to save a baby born alive during the abortion process “should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician.” The group tried to push away criticism by stating “a Planned Parenthood doctor would provide appropriate care to both the woman and the infant.”
Derryck comments on the FAPPA statement:
In the response from Florida’s Planned Parenthood umbrella group, there was no definitive condemnation of what [group lobbyist Alisa LaPolt] Snow said which would purposely separate her support of abortion from the statements that seemed to shrug off potential infanticide. Nor did I read what I might consider the group distancing itself from Snow’s comments at the hearing.
By default, I think this says that they support not only what she said but possibly even what seemed to be implied.
The group attempts to put the onus of responsibility on the care-providing physician and staff rather than directly stating that they support a medical obligation to treat the born-alive baby as a planned pregnancy or, as the legislator said, a newly-born patient.