Pain Awareness Act or Sedation Murder Act?

Colorado Right to Life is mistaken on this. While one can question the tactical wisdom of advancing a fetal pain bill at this time, the bill itself is not inherently evil the way that Mr. Rohrbough suggests.

Put simply, how does it follow that because pro-life lawmakers like Sam Brownback can’t save all unborn humans they shouldn’t try to save some with incremental legislation?

Let’s face it: Pro-lifers don’t have the votes in Congress or in the federal courts to sustain a stronger abortion ban. So what exactly does Mr. Rohrbough want pro-life lawmakers to do, foolishly propose an outright ban on abortion that will go nowhere instead of passing one they know will save some lives right now?

Of course, Rohrbough replies that incremental bills like this won't save lives. But how does he know this? According to research published at MIT by Michael New, laws banning tax-funded abortions and laws requiring parental consentdo, in fact, reduce abortion rates. So why should we believe Rohrbough? Sounds to me like he's just making assertions.

In the current political climate, Senator Brownback and other pro-life lawmakers have a duty to limit evil and promote the good insofar as possible given the circumstances. Their support for fetal pain legislation is not moral compromise. It is not settling for the lesser of two evils. It’s not a cowardly sell-out. It does not concede the legitimacy of any abortion. It merely recognizes current legal and political obstacles and acts within them to save as many lives as possible. Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict VI) explains this principle further:

“[A]ccording to the principles of Catholic morality, an action can be considered licit whose object and proximate effect consists in limiting an evil insofar as possible. Thus, when one intervenes in a situation judged evil in order to correct it for the better, and when the action is not evil in itself, such an action should be considered not as the voluntary acceptance of the lesser evil but rather the improvement of the existing situation, even though one remains aware that not all evil present is able to be eliminated for the moment.” (Cited in Fr. Peter West, Voting for Imperfect Candidates)

Pope John Paul II stated clearly the moral principle on which this approach is based in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. He begins: “In the case of an intrinsically unjust law, such as a law permitting abortion or euthanasia, it is therefore never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or vote for it.” In the next paragraph, however, the pontiff makes clear what does not fall within that prohibition:

“A particular problem of conscience can arise in cases where a legislative vote would be decisive for the passage of a more restrictive law, aimed at limiting the number of authorized abortions, in place of a more permissive law already passed or ready to be voted on. . . . In a case like the one just mentioned, when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.” (Cited in Clark Forsythe, Doing What can be Done.)

Five years later, on the publication anniversary of Evangelium Vitae, the Pope reiterated his call for Christians to limit evil:

“No effort should be spared to eliminate legalized crime or at least to limit the damage caused by these laws, but with the vivid awareness of the radical duty to respect every human being’s right to life from conception until natural death, including the life of the lowliest and the least gifted.”

It seems to me that JPII’s language here is quite clear. His words apply precisely to the context of a fetal pain or PBA bill where many pro-life lawmakers would like to end abortion once and for all, but find themselves in a situation where, given current legal constraints, they cannot pass such a bill. Hence, for the moment, they work to limit the evil of abortion “insofar is possible” while continuing to strategize toward the ultimate goal of protecting all children.

Had Colorado Right to Life existed during the 1800’s, I guess it would have condemned the presidency of Abraham Lincoln and the abolitionist crusades of William Wilberforce. Initially, neither of these men tried to ban slavery outright. Nor could they. Lincoln, you will remember, did not promise to outlaw slavery, but to preserve the Union by limiting it. Only after the Battle of Antietam (1862) did Lincoln transform the Civil War into a moral campaign against slavery by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation. That proclamation, by the way, did not declare all slaves free, only those south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Lincoln may have wanted to free all slaves, but he recognized the constraints of the moment and did what he could to limit the evil. Wilberforce, the great English abolitionist, took similar incremental steps in his quest to rid the British Empire of slavery. Working as a Member of Parliament, his first move was not to end slavery outright—a goal he simply could not achieve given pro-slavery sentiments in the House of Lords—but to end state-sponsored slave trade in Great Britain. Wilberforce’s bill went down to defeat in 1797, 1798, 1799, 1800, and 1801. Then, with the onset of war with France, talk of slavery was shelved until 1805, when the House of Commons voted overwhelmingly to abolish slave trade. However, victory was short-lived, as the House of Lords rejected the bill. In 1806, the House of Commons followed suit, reversing its earlier vote against slave trade. Many of Wilberforce’s colleagues in the Parliament thought his efforts a failed political exercise and urged him to attend to more important matters. In 1807, Wilberforce’s bill to end slave trade finally passed the House of Lords and the House of Commons. He then worked another 18 years to end slavery outright. In 1833, three days before his death, slavery was finally abolished in Great Britain.

Was William Wilberforce no different than pro-slavery leaders in the House of Lords because he supported incremental steps which banned some forms of slavery but allowed others? Or, should we celebrate him as a moral hero who did what he could to limit evil insofar as was possible at that time? If he is a moral hero, how is he any different from pro-life politicians in Washington who also work to limit evil, albeit incrementally?

Colorado Right to Life should apologize to Senator Brownback immediately.

Your right, Jivin J. Colorado RTL makes no sense at all on this. Consider the following thought experiment:

Suppose ROE is reversed or gutted. Two years later, pro-life lawmakers in another state successfully ban 97% of all abortions, though they lack the votes to enact a total ban. Still, thougsands of lives are saved as a result of the new legislation. Meanwhile, in Colorado, pro-life lawmakers follow the advice of Mr. Rohrbough and refuse to support any bill that is not an outright ban on abortion. As a result, abortion remains legal upon demand through all nine months, much to Warren Hern's satisfaction.

So who's the moral hero here? Gary would have to say he is. But thousands of dead children in his own state might beg to differ.

Should the pro-life movement be promoting legislation
which will make the public and the mothers more comfortable
with the killing?

How will we ever stop the murder of the innocent by assuring the moms their baby won't feel pain during the dismemberment, if they choose to sedate them? Could this inadvertently lead to more abortions?

Why are Planned Parenthood and NARAL not fighting against this
legislation?

Will abortionists see financial gain from the administration of
the pain medication? Who will monitor the administration
of the pain meds? Could the abortionist bill for the pain meds
and not give them?

Why does this legislation allow for the "good faith judgment of the abortionist" to determine fetal age? Isn't that an oxymoron?

No one has the right to "consent" to the unjust taking of another's innocent life, sedated or otherwise.

Shouldn't our law makers just stand up proudly and proclaim
abortion is the greatest moral evil of our generation and
it must be stopped?

Leslie,
You assume that telling women their unborn child is able to feel pain will make them more comfortable. I'm not sure that's a correct assumption.

Could you please tell me how this could lead to more abortions since the legislation only addresses women who are already planning on having an abortion?

I'm guessing the reason some pro-choice groups aren't lobbying against it (while others are) is because they realize 1.) lobbying against it will make more news (they don't want that) 2.) they'd look like fools lobbying against a bill to prevent fetal pain. On the flip side, why are some pro-choice groups like NOW lobbying against it?

I'm guessing abortionists if they wanted to could already make financial gain from pain meds. I don't see how this legislation changes that.

I'm not saying this legislation is perfect or that there aren't some issues with it. I do think it is wrong to call it inherently evil though. The prolife movement will go nowhere if some prolifers can't grow up and stop taking pot shots at other prolife organizations.

No one has the right to "consent" to the unjust taking of another's innocent life, sedated or otherwise.

So then is it your opinion that informed consent laws and parental consent laws (which have helped lower the number of abortion performed) are "inherently evil?" The current legal and political situation with abortion prevents us from banning all abortions - is it wrong to do what we can do to lower the number of abortions in the mean time?

I'm sure Senator Brownback has stood up and done that on a number of occasions. I don't see what that has to do with the issue at hand.

Brian,
You still haven't addressed the primary claim you made earlier, namely, "Any law that ends with "and then you can kill the baby, is an inherently evil law."

So far, all you've done is address tactical concerns with the proposed fetal pain legislation. Jivin J and I have raised substantial questions about your quote above and I, for one, would like to see you interact with our arguments rather than just making more random assertions.

Brian,
Could you please explain how legislation which tells women they're killing their unborn child makes abortion more humane?

Could you please explain how abortionist don't already have the opportunity to make money by offering pain drugs?

Could you please explain how this will lead more women to have abortion?

Right now, you've just thrown out a bunch of assertions without any kind of reasoning behind them.