"Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life." - Potter Stewart, former associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice
The aftermath contains the blood and gore of any heinous act.
Tiny limbs are broken. Little hands, smaller than the tip of your finger, lie crushed. A tiny body is quiet with the eerie stillness of a life cut short too soon.
This is the reality of a first trimester abortion, and it is not for the easily offended.
This the act that Planned Parenthood members yearly march around the Capitol to defend; what the activists, dressed in hot pink, are screeching about when they fight for "reproductive rights." This is the horrible scene that plays out legally 1.3 million times per year in the U.S. This the grisly "procedure" that women in the United States have "the right to choose."
Most people, I have found, do not like to talk about abortion. They do not find it a pleasant topic of conversation. Much like the civil-war era southerners did not spend a lot of time contemplating the facts of slavery, the reality of abortion is so well-concealed in our society that people are shocked when I mention it in conversation.
No one likes to remember that hundreds of times a day, an American infant is being crushed within the womb because it is "unwanted." No one wants to realize that a small unborn baby can legally be killed by a powerful saline solution injected into the amniotic fluid.
But the horrible truth, though hidden, does not change.
And if the current health care package being proposed in the legislature is signed into law, this is the reality you will soon be funding with your tax dollars.
As currently proposed, the health care reform bill passed by the House Finance Committee includes an amendment that would utilize taxpayer dollars to fund abortions as a "necessary benefit."
The Capps amendment, a provision in the House version of the health care reform bill named for Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.), would effectively provide for government sponsorship of abortion by adding the abortion procedure to the services offered by the public plan.
In an article published Thursday in the Wall Street Journal, Charmaine Yoest, the president of Americans United for Life, said that the Capps amendment "takes us toward a new era of unprecedented federal abortion funding."
"If (the amendment) becomes law as part of health-care reform it would make abortion coverage a part of the public option, funnel tax dollars to private health plans that cover abortion, and ensure that every area of the country will have at least one health insurance plan that covers elective abortion," Yoest writes. "If this should happen, for the first time in more than 30 years the federal government would be in the business of funding the destruction of unborn human life."
No one wants to think about that, either. But that is the reality.
The words used in support of the amendment are carefully chosen to skirt the truth. With phrases like "removal of pregnancy," and "safe surgical procedure," pro-abortion activists have attempted to frame the debate. But when insurance companies start discussing the "evacuation of the fetus," the shocking reality of abortion cannot be hidden long.
Unlike most "surgical procedures" provided for in insurance benefit plans, abortion leaves carnage behind. And now, more than ever, Americans are becoming rightfully uncomfortable with that.
According to Yoest, "a Rasmussen poll released last month showed that only 13 percent of Americans want the health care reform bill to use tax dollars to fund abortions. A Pew Research Center poll two weeks ago showed that support for legalized abortion has dropped to its lowest level in years to 47 percent, down from 54 percent last year."
If Congress passes the current version of the health care bill, members will be deliberately voting for a measure that 87 percent of Americans oppose. But they will always be doing far worse than that.
In their rush to use taxpayer dollars to make abortions "cheaper and more affordable," they are putting a government stamp on one of the biggest human rights violations of all time.
As Judie Brown of the American Life League asks, "Where is justice for the child in the womb? Where is their right to healthcare?"
For the 3,700 unborn babies who will be aborted today, there is none. And in the midst of a discussion about health care, that is a reality that is difficult to grasp.
Katie Wright is a staff writer for The Times-Gazette. She can be reached at kwright@timesgazette.com.
