This was published today in the Journal News - the Gannett daily newspaper of Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties. the headline was written by the Journal News editors. Besides being Program Coordinator for Lumina, the author is a co-director of the Hudson Valley Coalition for Life.
Spitzer's partial-birth abortion legislation must include all voices
Spitzer's partial-birth abortion legislation must include all voices(Original publication: May 30, 2007)For the first time in April the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a nationwide ban on so-called partial-birth abortions. In response, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed updating the state's abortion statute to specifically allow late-term abortions to protect the health of the mother. Here is a reply from an opponent of the governor's initiative.
Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed legislation in response to last month's U.S. Supreme Court opinion upholding a nationwide ban on partial-birth abortions. This legislation coincides with the extreme pro-abortion agenda purporting to "guarantee a woman's right to make decisions related to her personal reproductive health."
In a press release relating to the legislation, members of Planned Parenthood, The Center for Reproductive Rights, NARAL Pro-Choice New York and other pro-abortion organizations are quoted, praising the governor for his attempt. We are now told they will lobby for a bill they think is necessary because of the last month's ban of partial-birth abortion. One voice that continues to be ignored, however, by all these organizations and the governor himself, is that of women suffering as a result of a past abortion.
Pro-abortion groups continue to deny post-abortion trauma, and although they claim to speak for all women, they go out of their way to silence those not in agreement with their views. In addition to their attempts at silencing these women, and denying their experiences, they do all within their power to block legislation that would reduce abortion and give women the entire truth about its risks, both psychologically and physically.
These people, in order to keep all abortion legal at any time for any reason, at the expense of the health of countless women, even object to the banning of partial-birth abortion which has been proven to have no medical reason to be performed, even for the health of the mother. In the recent Supreme Court decision, thousands of affidavits were submitted attesting to abortion's harm by women who have experienced them. These pro-abortion extremists do not want you to hear their voices.
The high court's Gonzalez vs. Carhart decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion gives credence to these women when it states "The state has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed. It is self-evident that a mother who comes to regret her choice to abort must struggle with grief more anguished and sorrow more profound when she learns, only after the event, what she once did not know: that she allowed a doctor to pierce the skull and vacuum the fast-developing brain of her unborn child, a child assuming the human form."
I invite Spitzer, if he truly is concerned about the health of all women, to introduce legislation that would ensure women know all facts and risks of abortion. I invite him to have some of us who have experienced the devastation it has caused in our lives into his office to discuss our concerns. I challenge him to introduce a "Women's Right To Know" bill that may save countless numbers of women from becoming sterile, receiving cervical injuries, perforated uteruses, and developing endometriosis from abortion or suffering psychological consequences.
Enough is enough - it is time to call these pro-abortion extremists to task with the truth, which is finally beginning to come forward, as evidenced by the banning of partial-birth abortion and by the voices of those who have been there.
The writer, who lives in Harrison, is program coordinator of Lumina/Hope & Healing after Abortion in the Bronx.
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