Great is the fury of the pro-choice community. And wouldn’t you be riled, too, if the State of Texas (or any other governmental entity, for that matter) had undertaken to train an unflattering spotlight on your philosophical premises?

That’s what Texas’ new requirement for respectful treatment of aborted babies is basically about, from the standpoint of abortion-performing facilities. Standard operating procedure, post-abortion, is to drop the Product of Conception into a sanitary landfill, as if it were an empty milk carton or a used-up light bulb.

The state’s Health and Human Services Commission, after two hearings and 35,000 public comments, adopted Gov. Greg Abbott’s recommendation that cremation or burial should henceforth be required for abortion victims. The commission emphasized the need for “enhanced protection of the health and safety of the public.” Abbott for his part denounced the idea of treating human remains “like medical waste . . . disposed of in landfills.”

A federal judge in Houston stayed the rule before it could go into effect, in response to a lawsuit filed by abortion-rights groups protesting the imposition of “a funeral ritual on women who have a miscarriage management procedure, ectopic pregnancy surgery, or an abortion.” A hearing in January will determine what happens next.

In the deeper sense, “what happens  next” is a wrestling match—civilization’s, as well as the Christian religion’s, reckoning of unborn life as Life itself, vs. the mainly secular and once-forbidden instinct to view it on the same level as phlegm. The concept of Christian burial stems from perceived duty to that on which God Himself has left His mark.

Naturally the pro-abortion lobby has no desire to drag such considerations into the daylight. Duty? Responsibility? Pain? Loss? Nah—it’s all about rights exercised under a Supreme Court decision that overrides the historic need to mourn, and to deal respectfully with, the extinguished spark of life.

“Life”?! Don’t go calling it any such thing, in the hearing of Americans committed to the sovereignty of the mother’s choice when it comes to preservation or eradication of the unborn!    Let us not talk of such, lest sorrow or remorse come creeping around, uninvited. Put out the light. And then put out the light.

The question of burial or cremation for abortion victims has its complexities. Funeral parlors, for instance, want to know who will be paying. And yet, what a creative response to Roe v. Wade, here in its fourth decade. Texas isn’t saying you can’t have an abortion. It’s saying, essentially, stop—think—look. Then think some more. Which should be fine unless, under Roe, you’re not supposed to think.

Could be; could be.

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