Has the definition of humanity changed?

By Tom Quiner

Iowa is about to become the late term abortion capital of the Midwest.

It will happen only if the Democratic Party allows it to happen. If a Republican-sponsored bill which will prevent abortions after 20 weeks of gestation is allowed to come to the Senate floor, the bill will surely pass.

Late term abortion will be stopped in its tracks.

Iowa won’t become the late-term abortion capital of the Midwest.

The power resides with one man, a Democrat, Majority Leader of the Iowa Senate, Mike Gronstal.

I’d like to pose a question to you: is it humane to abort a baby at 20 weeks? Senator Gronstal says it is:

“I also know that second trimester abortions are almost always a decision by a woman that desperately wants to be pregnant but something has gone tragically wrong with her pregnancy….”

The Alan Guttmacher Institute, a semi autonomous branch of Planned Parenthood, said he’s wrong. Here are the various reasons women give for aborting their babies in the 2nd trimester:

71%–Women did not realize she was pregnant

48%–Difficulty making arrangements for the abortion

33%–Afraid to tell parents or partner

24%–Needed time to make the decision

8%–Hoped their relationship would change.

In other words, the notion that women abort their babies in the second trimester because the fetus is flawed is incorrect, according to the abortion experts. So is the notion that the woman’s health depends on it.

These abortions take place out of convenience to the mother, not in the name of humanity, as Senator Gronstal suggests. And this assumes that killing a flawed human being is ever humane.

The essence of humanity is kindness and benevolence.

Modern science now knows that the baby in the womb feels pain as early as twenty weeks. What can be more lacking in kindness and benevolence than intentionally hurting and killing a living being for the convenience of another?

For Senator Gronstal and much of his party to prevent even a vote on such important legislation reveals how jaded they have become in discerning the essence of humanity. Has their definition of humanity really changed that much?

Harry Blackmun, who wrote the majority decision in Roe v Wade in 1973, said:

“If the suggestion of personhood [of the unborn] is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses, for the fetus’ right to life is then guaranteed specifically by the [Fourteenth Amendment].”

This idea of personhood, this idea that the fetus is imbued with the essence of humanity, is dawning on a growing majority of Americans as science now lets us look directly into the womb.

At 20 weeks, we can see the baby’s head.

We can see its little fingers and toes.

We hear its heartbeat.

We know it feels pain.

I pose a question to Senator Gronstal and his party: Roman Catholics tend to vote for your party. How can you look us in the eyes and tell us an important piece of legislation that will prevent Iowa from becoming the late-term abortion capital of the Midwest isn’t even worthy of a vote?

How can you?