Nothing angers pro-aborts more than reminding people what abortion is. That’s why they’ve been so desperate to discredit the Planned Parenthood undercover videos, and it’s why Salon’s Sean Illing hysterically denounces one of the mildest state pro-life proposals yet—an Ohio bill requiring aborted children be given a respectful burial or cremation—as “hideous” and a “new low”:
The latest anti-abortion gambit occurred in Ohio, where “State lawmakers are introducing new legislation that would require women who have abortions or miscarriages to designate arrangements for burial or cremation of fetuses,” according to a report by WVXU in Cincinnati. And no, that wasn’t a typo – women treated for miscarriages are also required to sign a form “designating burial or cremation of fetal remains,” because 6-week old embryos are human persons with friends and family members who need closure after their death.
Illing seems to hope his readers walk away under the impression that women who get abortions would then be forced to plan funerals for the babies they’ve just had killed. But the bill doesn’t do anything more than what it sounds like—the patient has to sign a form deciding whether her dead son or daughter will be cremated or buried, and then the abortion mill takes care of the rest. Signing one more form shouldn’t be burdensome at all to someone who’s as confident in the righteousness of her “choice” as Planned Parenthood constantly tells us its customers are.
And contrary to his sarcasm, funerals (which the bill doesn’t even mandate; just a disposal method more dignified than being dumped in landfills alongside trash) aren’t solely for those left behind; they’re because the deceased deserves that respect. But hey, when the position you’re defending is so reliant on denying basic humanity, this sort of feigned obliviousness is inevitable.
This is yet another politically-motivated attack on women’s rights. This won’t stop abortions, but it will make life for those who need them harder. And that’s the point. The cost of this measure, as the WVXU report notes, “would be passed on to the facility which could then pass it on the women being treated.”
Oh, so now abortion ideologues are concerned about how government regulations impact costs. Funny, that concern fell on deaf ears when their desire to force companies to subsidize employees’ abortifacients and birth control was the subject…
“None of this is medically necessary,” says Gabriel Mann of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, “The only reason that these bills are being introduced is because they want to try to harass abortion providers and harass women that are seeking a safe and legal procedure.”
This is an odd complaint, considering that abortions themselves aren’t medically necessary and most aren’t even sought for medically related reasons. But again, our opponents can’t discuss the real reason without inviting conversation as to the dignity and humanity of their victims.
The bill also appears to be a petty retaliatory response to Attorney General Mike DeWine’s failed investigation into Planned Parenthood in Ohio. Inspired by the debunked Planned Parenthood videos, DeWine looked for evidence that the organization was selling the body parts of aborted fetuses. No evidence was found, and this proposed bill is how Republican lawmakers responded.
This may be the most inexcusably dishonest paragraph in Illing’s entire piece. In addition to the shameless lies about the accuracy of the Center for Medical Progress videos and what the ensuing investigations have found, he leaves out a key detail: that DeWine’s investigations found that Planned Parenthood clinics in the state were having dead babies’ remains disposed of in landfills. That’s what inspired this bill—and a very different scenario than political retaliation.
The country has changed. Public opinion has shifted dramatically on a number of social issues, particularly same-sex marriage and abortion, and the law now reflects that.
Really? Twenty-one years of at least 54% of the country consistently saying they want most abortions outlawed certainly doesn’t sound like change. In fact, multiple pro-choice observers in recent years have acknowledged that changing opinions on same-sex marriage haven’t been accompanied by increasing acceptance of abortion. So it’s not public opinion the law reflects—when people get to vote, pro-life ideas do very, very well—it’s that the judiciary protects abortion from public opinion.
Indeed, it’s because Illing and his pals know abortion is so vulnerable to public opinion that they see this legislation as a threat. “We don’t bury medical waste, we bury people” are dots the abortion lobby can’t afford to let people connect.
