The Choice Debate

Right after Labor Day, we’re going to get an onslaught of political news coverage heading down the stretch of election season, and much of it will – in one way or another — involve the issue of abortion. So be prepared with some facts, because the campaign of disinformation has been out there all summer, and it’s only going to gain steam.

Ground Zero for the abortion battle now is South Dakota, as explained in the post just below (‘”Enough is enough” already’) because of the “Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Law.” The media rarely report that title. It’s widely known as the abortion ban bill, and it is the boldest and most comprehensive one passed since Roe vs. Wade made abortion legal 33 years ago. Opponents of this life protection law know how airtight it is, so they didn’t challenge it legally. They’re taking it to the people in a November referendum, and trying to sway public opinion against it by, well, lying about what the law says.

Here’s a representative sample in yesterday’s Washington Post online:

South Dakota is the unlikely home of this year’s most intense duel over abortion, a Nov. 7 referendum to decide the future of HB 1215, a measure that would institute a broad ban on the procedure. No exceptions would be allowed for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest — abortion would be permitted only when the mother’s life is in jeopardy.

Opponents of the life protection law are hoping that if they beat the “no exceptions” claim like a drum, their campaign to turn people against the law will work. Never mind that it’s not true.

House Bill 1215 has the most carefully crafted, narrowly defined rape and incest exception possible. Drafters of the bill agonized over how to completely uphold their responsibility to protect all life, and still allow some exception for rape and incest, without which no bill would stand a chance of becoming law. So in exacting words, they state that an emergency contraceptive drug or chemical could be “administered prior to the time when a pregnancy could be determined through conventional medical testing and if the contraceptive measure is sold, used, prescribed, or administered in accordance with manufacturer instructions.”

What’s most important to note about that, besides the fact that it does exist in this law, is it’s intent. The South Dakota legislators were so intent on protecting both women and their unborn children, that true victims of rape or incest would have an approximately 72 hour window of time afterward to get this drug if they chose to. And only after an emergency ruling verifying the attack. They may not have conceived at all. But if they had, the women would not know it, and not suffer the traumatic consequences that post-abortive women suffer when they realize they have ended the life of their child.

Someone who helped craft this wording told me, in a voice breaking with emotion, that while this may apply to perhaps one unborn child a year, even that is morally unacceptable. But that it’s the tightest protection they could provide and pass the bill to protect thousands of other unborn children a year. 

Abortion backers are doing everything they can to stop this. The Washington Post article reports that

“This has become the focal point in the country for the choice debate,” said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, which is channeling cash into the campaign. “The stakes are very high, especially for us to win in November and again say America is pro-choice, America doesn’t think politicians should be involved in these private decisions, and enough is enough.”

We’ve had 33 years of “choice” rhetoric, and it is a red-herring. The South Dakota legislation came about because these “private decisions” were not following the proper protocol for informed consent. Last year, lawmakers there passed HB 1166 to revise those laws, make them clear, and apply them to abortions the way they apply to any other medical procedure. It’s language was sharp and bold:

“The Legislature finds that all abortions, whether surgically or chemically induced, terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

Notice it doesn’t even allow for the never-ending, diversionary argument over “personhood.” It acknowledges the human being in all abortions. And then:

“The Legislature finds that there is an existing relationship between a pregnant woman and her unborn child during the entire period of gestation.” From fertilization on. And then:

“The Legislature finds that procedures terminating the life of an unborn child impose risks to the life and health of the pregnant woman. The Legislature further finds that a woman seeking to terminate the life of her unborn child may be subject to pressures which can cause an emotional crisis…The Legislature therefore finds that great care should be taken to provide a woman seeking to terminate the life of her unborn child and her own constitutionally protected interest in her relationship with her child with complete and accurate information and adequate time to understand and consider that information in order to make a fully informed and voluntary consent to the termination of either or both.”

THAT…..is choice. That’s how this whole thing began in South Dakota. The lawmakers started with this bill — not to stop abortion at that point — just to give women the information and let them consider it. So they would have a real choice. And the ‘choice’ movement panicked. Planned Parenthood took quick legal action to stop the enforcement of 1166, to eliminate the requirement to give women information to help them “choose,” information about their “choice.” Their lawsuit is still pending in a federal district court.

Meanwhile, those lawmakers passed the HB 1215 life protection act, and it would have gone into effect July 1, banning all abortions in the state of South Dakota. But the abortion movement gathered enough signatures to put it on a referendum, and now they have marshaled their national forces to turn public opinion in South Dakota against it. They’re banking on swaying the voters — by misinforming them – to reject the life protection law in November.

So in the end, it really does come down to choice, doesn’t it?