Religion & Law

When I talk to self-identified pro-choice people, they usually say that, of course, they are opposed to late-term abortions and support their legal prohibition.  Certainly a viable or nearly viable child ought not to be deliberately killed.  But when it comes to actual legislation trying to do anything about late-term abortions, they are more often than not AWOL . . . or worse.  A case in point.  Mark Parkinson, the Governor of Kansas, has vetoed a bill that simply would have required physicians who perform abortions at 22 weeks gestation or later to record the specific reason for the abortion.  Under Kansas law, the abortion of a potentially viable child is prohibited unless undertaken for certain specific reasons relating to maternal health. For the law to be enforceable, however, obviously abortionists would need to identify the putative reasons for the late-term abortions they perform.  They would need to say which maternal major bodily function would be placed at risk of grave harm unless the child were removed in a way that necessarily involves taking its life.  Why did Parkinson veto the bill?  Because abortion, though a "tragedy," is "a private decision and should not be dictated by public officials."  In other words, Parkinson really doesn't want to prohibit post-viability abortions.  Evidently, he's happy with an essentially unenforceable law that merely purports to afford legal protection to the child.  My friend Carter Snead of Notre Dame Law School informs me that former Kansas Governor (and current HHS Secretary) Kathleen Sebelius vetoed an identical bill in 2009.  (He also informs me that despite so heinous an act, the group calling itself Catholics United for the Common Good endorsed Sebelius's nomination.)  According to Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, there have been some 3,000 late-term abortions since the late-term abortion act was passed in Kansas in 1998.  One wonders how many of these were actually performed to prevent grave damage to maternal health, and how many were, in truth, elective abortions.  More fundamentally, one wishes that pro-choice politicians like Parkinson and Sebelius would just tell us the truth.  If they really do favor a right to abortion that extends even to the killing of viable children, they should have the courage say so.  They should not claim to favor legal protection for viable children while acting to ensure that the laws protecting these children are meaningless.  Here's a link to the Wichita Eagle's story on Parkinson's veto:  http://www.kansas.com/2010/04/16/1271594/governor-vetoes-bill-on-abortion.html