Yesterday, MSNBC published an article by Irin Carmon, MSNBC’s women’s health “expert,” decrying the state of reproductive health laws in Oklahoma. To set the stage for the smackdown on pro-life laws in the state, MSNBC opened the piece with the story of a low-income couple who, because of Oklahoma’s strict abortion laws, faced financial hardship in order to travel outside of the state and obtain a late-term abortion.
They made the decision after their unborn child was diagnosed with a fetal abnormality and they were told that he had little chance of living past his first birthday. Although exceptions to these terminal diagnoses (like this, this and this) are experienced every day, the couple believed that, rather than giving their son a chance, the decision to end their son’s life prematurely was merciful.
MSNBC exploited the couple’s financial hardship to arouse pity for couples who face difficulties when they want to abort their children, chronicling how the young family had to sleep one night in their car because they couldn’t afford a hotel stay for the entire three-day late-term abortion procedure. The baby’s father, commenting on the ordeal, said:
It’s sickened me about the state of Oklahoma, period. I don’t even want to be in this state.
Oklahoma’s pro-life laws are also offensive to its lone Republican pro-abortion representative, Doug Cox. An emergency room physician, Cox hinged his argument on the pro-abortion talking point that when abortions are legal, they are also safe. Legion evidence points to the fallacious nature of this belief, but it never goes away. Cox said,
As a physician, I don’t want to go back to seeing women coming in with a perforated uterus or a coat hanger or somebody doing an abortion who doesn’t know how to do it.
Cox seems to be unaware of legally-operating abortionists such as Douglas Karpen (the “Texas Gosnell“), former abortionist Kermit Gosnell, and Reginald Sharpe (just to name a limited few)– all guilty of malpractice and, in some cases, responsible for maternal deaths. Just yesterday, at a press conference outside of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast in Houston, OB/GYN Dr. Kathryn Kargess recalled that, in her years practicing medicine in Houston, she has seen numerous cases of women coming into the hospital with complications following legal abortion procedures at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility she was standing in front of. In spite of the documented reality that legal abortion does not equal safe abortion, Cox continues to bemoan the pro-life laws that look out for the safety of women and children in Oklahoma. He said:
All of the new Oklahoma laws aimed at limiting abortion and contraception are great for the Republican family that lives in a gingerbread house with a two-car garage, two planned kids and a dog. In the real world, they are less than perfect. What happened to the Republican Party that I joined?
What happened is that Republican lawmakers in Oklahoma stayed faithful to their party’s platform, which is dedicated to the health and protection of life, including children and women. It reads:
Faithful to the “self-evident” truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life. We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from people with disabilities, including newborns, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose active and passive euthanasia and assisted suicide.
