November's victory for the right to life
The end of a heinous act
Jim Swift
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November 2003: a month that will live in infamy. Or is it January 1973? Whatever your belief on abortion, both of these months will remain in your memory, for on Wednesday, Nov. 5, President Bush signed the partial-birth abortion ban that Congress recently passed.
For those of you unfamiliar with what partial-birth abortion is, let me refresh your memory without all of those gruesome pictures you find offensive. Partial-birth abortions are carried out in the second and third trimester. Labor is prematurely induced, with the baby's torso outside of the woman's body, and the child is then killed before it is fully outside of the body.
This is potentially a huge victory because it may finally ruin the notion that fetuses aren't children until they are born, which has been a sticking point in the argument.
Soon after the bill passed, groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and National Abortion Federation said they intend to stop its implementation through legal action.
This is a significant threat, and not without reason. In the 1990s the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to overturn a Nebraska law that banned certain types of partial-birth abortion. The problem, according to the justices, was that the definition of partial-birth abortion was too broad (If you've read the Nebraska bill, you'd know that that is untrue).
The new bill will instantly save thousands of lives of unborn children. But some people, such as left-wing Democratic candidate Howard Dean, said the legislation "will endanger the lives of countless women."
It's sad that a physician such as Dean would fail to realize that, if a woman's life is truly endangered, and the child poses a threat to the operation (other than abortion) that she needs, she can have the surgery. If the child dies during the surgery, it's not actually an abortion; the intent was to perform the surgery, not kill the child.
I do not represent Students for Life, but go check them out. Go to the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., and make a difference if you feel passionate about this issue. I assure you that abortion will one day be illegal.
Jim Swift is a sophomore studying marketing.