So I read the bill, and though I'm going to try to give a fair analysis, I must admit to my bias. I hate abortion. Even if I can be reasonable on it, no issue sickens me like it does. I think it's the biggest moral stain on this country, and I think that in time, history will judge us harshly for permitting it so broadly and so flippantly particularly in light of what we now know about fetal development.
Having said that, here's my take on the bill's impact, and I'm trying to give it a fair reading. It's fairly similar to NJ's, but I think he somewhat glosses over part of it that I think is pretty significant. His description of the different standards for each trimester is accurate. The law permits abortions up to the point of birth to protect the life or health of the mother while giving the absolute right to abort up to 24 weeks. Obviously, the key word is the completely undefined and unqualified term "health." It could be physical health, mental health, or hell, even financial health. It's a catch-all term that could be easily applied to justify any abortion.
Not every description from the Right has been accurate. I don't see any evidence that children born alive during botched abortions can be killed after they're born. Nothing in the law allows doctors to kill someone who was already born alive. In fact, the term "person" is still defined as, "a human being who has been born and is alive," so your Kermit Gosnells can still be charged for murdering a baby who was born alive during a botched abortion. Would a state that is so rabidly pro-abortion actually investigate and charge a guy like Gosnell? I doubt it, but they could.
I do think NJ glosses over the criminal changes. He recognizes that homicide charges cannot be brought incident to an abortion, so even if a prosecutor could prove that a doctor performed a late-term abortion that didn't protect a woman's life or health (never gonna happen anyway, but let's pretend for a moment), the doctor could face no criminal charges for it.
However, the bill goes further than that. It strikes previous language in the definition of "homicide" that had made it a crime to kill a fetus beyond 24 weeks outside the abortion realm. In other words, if someone assaults a woman and kills her 30-week fetus, he won't get completely off the hook, but his punishment will be much lighter. He'll get charged with some form of assault on the woman. Before, he could have been charged with murder for the dead baby. This shows the true radicalism and ideological nuttiness of the bill. They were willing to weaken the potential criminal liability associated with doing physical harm to a woman just to maintain the ideological purity of dehumanizing the fetus. That is truly sick and deranged.
To put it into perspective, Texas has a different stance when it comes to the fetus. Back in 2003, the Legislature passed the Prenatal Protection Act. It doesn't impact abortion. However, it makes it a crime for someone other than a doctor or the mother to kill a fetus at any stage, and it allows a wrongful death civil action to be brought against the responsible person. (Strangely but not surprisingly, it prohibits any civil or criminal action to be brought against a doctor who kills a fetus, even if he's not performing an abortion.)
Now here's the tough part as a staunch pro-lifer. We have the right to criticize the State of New York for its rank barbarism and depravity. However, we don't have the right to have a federal court invalidate their new law. They have the right to be sick. It doesn't violate the Constitution. The remedy for pro-lifers is to make their case directly to the people of New York. Educated minds and changed hearts fix this sort of evil. Abusive court rulings do not.
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Winner x 2
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Agree x 1
Last edited: Jan 26, 2019