Democrat Presidential candidates are scrambling to denounce today’s Supreme Court decision upholding a law passed by Congress in 2003 banning the partial birth abortion procedure. But this is one time that bowing to pressure from groups like the National Organization for Women and Planned Parenthood might prove to be problematic with voters.
Unlike more routine abortion procedures, the gruesome realities of late-term abortion are not hidden inside the mother’s womb. In addition, the claim that partial birth abortions may be neccessary in cases where there are “serious threats to the health of individual women,” as candidate John Edwards said today, is plainly false. In order for the partial birth abortion procedure to be performed, the mother must first endure the trauma of labor and childbirth before the baby is snuffed. If childbirth didn’t injure or kill the mother, why will it improve her health to then kill the baby?
With so much information readily available online or on cable television about the development of the baby in the womb, the pro-abortion folks can no longer get away with terms like “fetus” or “unviable tissue mass.” We can all see babies with fingers, toes and beating hearts just weeks after conception on the National Geographic channel.
The Supreme Court did the right thing to take the politics out of this particular debate and Democrat candidates who don’t do the same may find that they have given a lot of fringe voters a reason not to vote for them.