September 7, 2021

Deep in the Hearts of Texas Babies

Is abortion the cause of our increasingly decadent culture, or a reflection of it?

In the matter of a new Texas law banning abortions six weeks after gestation, when a fetal heartbeat can usually be detected by vaginal ultrasound, suppose the headlines had been different? Instead of words like “most restrictive in nation” (The Wall Street Journal) and “Supreme Court refuses to block Texas law” (The Washington Post), along with four stories splashed across the front page of The New York Times that seemed to be written from the perspective of pro-choice writers, what if the headlines had instead reflected another point of view that took the side of babies and the women who carry them?

Those headlines and stories might have read: “Supreme Court decides to protect babies, recognizing Thomas Jefferson’s writing about endowed life coming from God.” Or, if that’s too long for headline writers, how about “Supreme Court takes side of the unborn”? Might that have changed the perception about abortion by people who are on the fence, or conflicted? Information, including sonograms for abortion-minded pregnant women, has been shown to change minds. So has compassionate counseling and adoption services at pregnancy help centers.

Much has changed since 1973 when a court majority found in Roe vs. Wade that a “penumbra” was hidden in the Constitution, which translated into a “right to privacy” so that a woman could legally terminate her pregnancy without interference from anyone, including the father. Since that ruling, the “right” to an abortion has been extended to include second-trimester abortions and to cover babies born alive after an attempted abortion.

Gov. Ralph Northam (D-VA), a pediatrician, has suggested that a baby who survives an abortion should be “kept comfortable” and “resuscitated” and then “a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.” Does this not infanticide?

The definition of “penumbra” is revealing: “the partial or imperfect shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body.” If that sounds unclear when applied to the Constitution, that’s because it is. Then-Justice Harry Blackmun, who used the word, clearly was not a textualist in the way Antonin Scalia was. It appears he read his own bias into the Constitution when he could find no justification for abortion elsewhere.

Judges reading into the Constitution their own biases, even prejudices, has long been a problem. It is a power the Founders never intended the courts and especially the Supreme Court to have.

The Texas law will still be challenged in other ways, as will a Mississippi law the Supreme Court has decided to hear this fall. That law, if passed, would ban most abortions after 15 weeks.

National Right to Life, which tracks figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Guttmacher Institute, estimates there have been more than 62 million abortions since 1973, and the number of abortions each year has been steadily declining.

Many women have said they regretted their decision to have an abortion, many uphold that difficult decision. It seems we long ago shifted from doing what might be best for others to doing what was best for self, perhaps a reflection of the spirit of the modern age.

Abortion and refusing to take personal responsibility for one’s actions have contributed to a general coarseness and disrespect for life at all stages as witnessed by the shooting sprees regularly occurring in Chicago and other major cities. The Texas and Mississippi laws seek to reverse, or at least slow down the process of squandering human life.

The question remains: Is abortion the cause of our increasingly decadent culture, or a reflection of it?

©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.