McCroskey: New Laws on Abortion Are Barbaric

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Originally I expected to write something about our Legislature and state Attorney General’s fixation on people owning guns, and their endless assault on law abiding gun owners.

They describe this quest as only trying to come up with “reasonable” and “sensible” restrictions that will halt gun violence, but it really won’t. This effort, of course, is for the “children” and therefore must be noble. 

That’s what I planned to write about and then, the state of New York passed a new and seemingly unrestricted abortion law that appears to allow for killing a baby up to delivery. It also relieves whoever is performing this awful procedure from providing any medical care to a baby that survives the pain of the abortion. 

 Equally as disgusting was the cheering and standing ovation this barbaric state law got upon passage. They claim this is to protect women’s health and save lives. I haven’t heard how many women will be saved by killing viable babies during a late-term abortion, but we do know under existing law how many aborted babies are killed each year.

But it got worse.

In Virginia, not to be out done by their crazy neighbors to the north, a state delegate Kathy Tran, a democrat, introduced legislation that will allow abortion as the baby is being delivered. Further it would allow for the killing of that baby after the delivery. The governor, a doctor, described how this might happen; after delivery, the baby would be made comfortable while they (presumably the doctor and the mother) determine the fate of that baby.

If they decide to revive it, they can, or they can simply kill it. But at least the governor says the baby would be comfortable. This sounds awful and a lot like murder to me.

Perhaps ironically, on the same day Kathy Tran proposes unrestricted abortion, she also introduced legislation to save a caterpillar. In what world does that make sense?

Then came Vermont. They are considering H-0057, which would give women the right to abort a baby at any time and for any reason even after delivery has started. 

“Every individual who becomes pregnant has the fundamental right” … to abortion and this proposal would “… prohibit public entities from interfering with or restricting the right of an individual to terminate the individual’s pregnancy.” 

The bill goes on to specifically claim the “fetus” has no rights under Vermont law. So what exactly is a fetus defined as? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “The unborn offspring of a mammal, in particular an unborn human baby more than eight weeks after conception.” A medical dictionary includes language describing a fetus as having all the recognizable external characteristics of a human being.



Hmm … human baby; characteristics of a human being. Sounds like they’re aborting babies to me.

I hope this all sounds as barbaric and shocking to you as it did to me and, so far only New York is law. Knowing Washington, I won’t be surprised if they try to pass something similar.

Most states would not allow animals to be treated like this and here in Washington, mole traps are illegal because they were deemed too cruel. Whole industries have been destroyed protecting some critter and that makes sense but protecting babies doesn’t? 

I believe life begins at conception and ends at natural death but I also understand not everyone does. What I can’t understand is once a heart is beating, how can anyone can say that’s not a life? But some do. (If death is the absence of a heart beat, wouldn’t it follow life is the presence of one?) But if that’s not enough, isn’t the fact it looks like a baby, moves like a baby and feels pain enough to protect it?

Nope.

Most Americans of all persuasions and by a significant percentage believe there should be some “reasonable” and “sensible” restrictions on abortion. If that standard is good enough to try and restrict an actual constitutional right to own a gun, shouldn’t it also apply to protecting the life of the unborn?

That would be a noble effort and would actually be “for the children”.

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John McCroskey was Lewis County sheriff from 1995 to 2005. He lives outside Chehalis, and can be contacted at musingsonthemiddlefork@yahoo.com.