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Pastoral Reflections

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Political Pretense

31 Jan 2023
W. Ross Blackburn
Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act
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Save, O LORD, for the godly one is gone; for the faithful have vanished from among the children of man. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak (Ps 12:1-2).

 

Predictably, passage in the House of the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act last month caused fits in the abortion culture. Essentially, the bill requires that infants who survive abortion be cared for as patients, including being taken to a hospital (see https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/26). The vote was 220-210. Of the 210 members of Congress who opposed the bill, consider quotes from two who participated in the House debate.

The problem with this bill is that it endangers some infants by stating that that infant must be immediately brought to the hospital, where in under the circumstances that may be the right thing to do for the health of the survival of the infant or it may not. That is the problem with this bill, it directs and mandates a certain medical care which may not be appropriate, which may endanger the life of an infant under certain circumstances.  That’s why we oppose this bill.

                                                                                                      Jerrold Nadler, D-NY

 

As our chairman has said, not only is it illegal to not care for a born infant, but the law that you have provided on the Republican side actually could create more harm. It requires immediately taking a struggling baby to a hospital. That hospital could be hours away, and could be detrimental to the life of that baby. This is nothing more than a part of the effort to make abortion illegal nationally in this country.

                                                                                                                 Jan Schakowsky, D-IL    

 

Who knew that Nadler and Schakowsky cared about the lives of aborted infants? This is pure pretense.

But let’s think it through anyway. To assume an abortionist will willingly treat a child he has just attempted to kill defies common sense. Yet that is exactly what Nadler and Schakowsky imply, that the abortionist will seek to save the baby. The baby survived because the abortionist failed to do his job. (The reason that a live baby indicates a “botched” abortion is because the goal of the procedure is not termination of a pregnancy, but a dead child.) A contract killer is not paid to regard the life of his victim. He is paid to kill. Yet Nadler and Schakowsky seek to defer to his medical judgment.

Schakowsky may be right that the Act could have a “detrimental” effect, for it shows us that what we call abortion and what we call infanticide are effectively the same. It should bother us that a baby can receive intensive care in one wing of a hospital, while a baby of the same age can be dismembered in another wing. This is precisely the kind of mental turbulence that pro-abortionists want to bury. And precisely the kind we need to confront.

The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act unmasks the motives of the abortion culture, which insists that fetuses are not children, and that women should be able to control their bodies.  Yet it appears that a newborn living apart from the mother’s body doesn’t qualify for protections we readily extend to others.  No wonder Nadler and Schakowsky are nervous.

Although the bill won’t pass the Senate, the House vote was worth taking, for it exposes people for who they are. If certain members of Congress cannot be trusted to seek the welfare of our most vulnerable, with what can we trust them?

 

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About the Author
W. Ross Blackburn

Dr. Ross Blackburn has been ordained for 20 years and has served as Rector for Christ the King for the past 10. He earned a Master of Divinity at Trinity School for Ministry, and a PhD in biblical studies at the University of Saint Andrews, Scotland. He and his wife Lauren have been married for 23 years and have five children.
As a member of Anglicans for Life's Board of Directors, Dr. Blackburn is a regular contributor to AFL's Lectionary Life App series, and writes for the Human Life Review as well as  Christian Publications.

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