Yes. This doesn’t weaken Roe, but it does give the possibility of a limit on Roe.
Roe says, on its face, abortion at will during the first trimester.
Today’s decision eliminates a procedure for later-term abortions, but doesn’t prevent the cutting up of the fetus in utero. That’s the next place to fight. Given that babies can live outside the womb at 22 weeks and earlier now, having medically at-risk women carry the baby until that point and then trying to save the baby becomes a real medical strategy. There remains the issue of babies who are discovered, after 12 weeks, to be horribly deformed, but that’s an argument that the other side can make, so that they’re arguing for eugenics.
Limit abortion to the first trimester, and you have limited it to post-pregnancy birth control. That’s still 90% of the problem.
The way to go after that isn’t Roe, it’s to keep pushing out dramatic ultrasound photos, emphasize the age at which babies feel pain, and push towards the idea that a developing baby, at least after the point of pain, is a PERSON. If more and more people start to believe that, it will be more and more possible, over time, to get a court to SAY that, and that would strike a mortal blow to Roe.
But there is more. It really won’t do to outlaw abortion without having a fully articulate and articulable plan for dealing with about 1 million more poor welfare babies every year. The usual conservative handwave about private sector and religious charity will not cut it, because it is unrealistic and will not work. If we really outlaw abortion, we are going to have to prepare the groundwork for an expansion of the Social State to embrace at least 1 million new poor kids on relief every year, year after year, 18 million ADDITIONAL minor welfare recipients. That’s the reality of a no-abortion regime, the “Latin American” reality. Abortion is illegal in Latin America, and one of the reasons there is such a burgeoning perpetual poverty problem is precisely that: babies who would be aborted by the underclass in America are born in Latin America, and every human being has the same physical needs for food, shelter, clothing, etc.
Pro-lifers have to get their minds around the fact that if we really abolish abortion, we are going to have to increase the social welfare state quite dramatically. We cannot force people to have babies who are then plunged into poverty. The electorate will NEVER accept that, and we should not propose it. It is irresponsible and unChristian to boot. Fact is, we have to have a fully articulated economic and social welfare plan for dealing with about 20 million additional minors on welfare every year once 2 decades or so after abortion has been repealed. It’s a demographic reality that half of the two million abortions every year are to the welfare poor. End abortion, the welfare poor will have those 1 million babies every year, and the numbers will rapidly accumulate.
Abolishing abortion means higher taxes and, unless we REALLY fix the education system to specifically lift up the underclass, more crime. It most certainly does. It also means a LOT more handicapped and congenitally ill children are born who are currently aborted, and THAT means higher Medicaid costs across the board. It most certainly does.
Doing God’s will and saving babies and caring for the poor, the weak, the sick and the orphan comes at a steep price. Let’s not kid ourselves. Abortion is a cheap way to keep social welfare and medical costs way down, not to mention crime, which is also supressed by eliminating so many of the unborn underclass. We are not credible if we don’t face the full reality, and accept the higher social welfare burdens that our beliefs require. If we will not do that, because we want to have our pro-life and our low-taxes, small social welfare state cake and eat it too, we’re not credible. The country won’t go that way. Pro-life means saving babies. It ALSO means feeding, clothing, housing and educating millions more poor babies, year after year, and providing government medical insurance for the congenitally ill whose parents cannot afford to pay for medical care. We shepherd them to birth by outlawing abortion, we have taken on the responsibility of shepherding them all the way to adulthood in all of those cases where the poor underclass woman has aborted precisely because she DOESN’T have the means or the will to raise a child. That child will become OUR collective social responsibility. There will be 1 million additional ones every year, about 20 million in 20 years. And that will go on forever. We have to plan for that, and platitudes won’t do.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I’m sorry that I can’t respond more fully to your articulate post (I don’t think my boss would appreciate it), but don’t you think that:
* a ban on abortions or certain abortion procedures may change some of the social attitudes towards casual sex and individuals not making sure that there is some form of birth control in place before they engage in the “do it if it feels good” mantra of our country?
* while the short term welfare state may expand, maybe the states can help eleviate some of this issue, maybe by making the adoption process easier and CHEAPER. Here in NY, the adoption process could cost someone close to $20,000. Granted, we would need to find other areas to shrink the welfare state besides just changing adoption laws, but a change in attitude and easier access to adoptions are good starts.
Right now, people are guestimating that over 1 million abortions are being performed a year in this country. And while I have not seen the numbers for abortions per year pre Roe, the welfare state back then was not what it is today. So, there is a solution, but we have to start with the basic premise that children in the womb have a right to LIVE. And we need to proceed from there.
By the way, you idea of ultrasounds is the key to cutting abortions. NARAL and PP have done a great job in misinforming women for decades. We have to get that part of the argument back.
Hey that is ok with me and I am poor as a church mouse. Now all we have to do to balance things out is get RID of the illegal aliens! And believe it or not the women I know who had abortions,money was not the problem!
I don't know that "welfare babies" would be the problem. At least, on a conservative talk show around here, the complaint is about underclass mothers always having babies because their welfare allotments go up with each baby.
I'm assuming that by "higher social welfare burdens" that you mean government and higher taxes. But what makes you think that it is within the purview of government in the first place, or that the government has any competence whatever to do any of these things? Even if you are correct that we have to have a "fully articulated economic and social welfare plan for dealing with about 20 million additional minors, it is a non-sequiter to simply assume that it is the job of government to "solve" these problems. The responsibilty and competency lies elsewhere. If your predictions are right, God help us if we rely on the government to do those things that were never intended by God for it to do. The end result will be even more of the problem that the government was supposed to "fix". If the present manifestations of the abject failures of the Welfare State, indeed, its exacerbation of such problems don't convince you of that proposition I don't know what else possibly could.
Cordially,
Just excerpting your excellent post.
You have spelled out the political and economic realities of abortion in America as clearly as I have ever seen. Kudos.
- John