Abortion is not about a right to privacy
Two enlightening assessments of abortion appeared Tuesday on the Summit Daily News’ Views page. Morgan Liddick provided illuminating statistics on abortion. It is important to know that, out of the 879,000 abortions performed in 2017, 830,000 were not done for rape, incest or the mother’s health. That means that about 94% of abortions have nothing to do with “health care” but are done because the pregnancy is inconvenient or the baby is unwanted. Why is this important? It means that, in these cases, placing restrictions on elective abortions would not adversely affect a woman’s access to health care, as is so stridently claimed by activists.
On that same Views page, a letter to the editor dealt with a woman’s right to privacy. If a woman is having an appendectomy or open-heart surgery, then her right to privacy is entirely appropriate; it is a matter between her and her doctor. However, science clearly shows us that what a pregnant woman has in her womb is human and is genetically complete and unique — that it is not just “tissue,” an ameba or other non-specific living material. Thus, in addition to the woman and her doctor, any “right to privacy” neglects a developing third human being. What Liddick cleverly calls a “fourth-trimester abortion” (a baby surviving abortion at term, who is “kept comfortable” and allowed to die if mother and doctor desire) was publicly supported by the governor of Virginia. This shows how far this “right to privacy” has been taken.
Isn’t it time we stopped accepting these euphemisms and recognize the truth: Abortion destroys a human life and has no justifiable use for elective birth control. And claiming a right to privacy does not justify destroying the developing life of another. We Americans must rise above this.
John Longcamp
Dillon