The Compleat Advocate

[David_Wahlberg]

February 4, 2009

Abortion - planned facility for second trimester abortions prompts reaction in Madison WI

This is from the front page of today's Wisconsin State Journal, of Madison WI

[sschulin]

Reaction to the plan to offer second-trimester abortions at a publicly funded center in Madison, Wisconsin also made The Capital Times newspaper in Madison, which even mentioned the difference between regulatory approach and the personhood movement: "Though seemingly natural allies, Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Right to Life have often kept their distance from each other because Pro-Life Wisconsin takes a hard-line no-exceptions stance on abortion and access to contraception." The article quotes Paul Lagan in last month's Wisconsin Christian News: "Abortion has declined," Lagan wrote, "because there are fewer doctors willing to kill babies, less abortion facilities, and the fact that our nation has been educated as to what an abortion really is." He added that "the strategy of showing photos of the gruesome reality of abortion is working." Lagan urged anti-abortion activists to shift their focus from the political to spiritual arena. "We have forgotten God's role in all of this," he admonished. "We need to realize that abortion is not about a woman's right to choose or a baby's right to life. Abortion is about God ... Abortion is the transcendent moral issue of our time because our strength to preserve comes from realizing God's supremacy over all things including His work in the womb."

The newspaper reported that 800 or more activists from around the state braved chilling winds to attend a rally Saturday on the University of Wisconsin-Madison Library Mall, before marching over to 1 S. Park Street to protest outside the Madison Surgery Center, which is where the proposed abortuary would operate, a joint effort of Meriter and UW hospitals and the UW Medical Foundation.

The newspaper web site posted comments from readers. Many of them were quite vocal about the religious aspects of the pro-life position. Here's my comment, posted under the name Steve from Maryland:

The very basis of our claim to the right to self-govern was set forth in the Declaration of Independence: that we are all endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights including the right to life. The denial of the personhood of those created, but not yet born, thus tears at the foundation of our nation. The Constitution puts us on equal level with those yet to come when it refers to securing the blessings of liberty for us and our posterity. Modern science is unequivocal in being able to identify individals as human beings from even before the common medical definition of conception.

The personhood issue today is very much the same as was faced when slavery was legal. The U.S. Supreme Court opinion that Dred Scott wasn't a person was wrong then, just as the awful Court opinion in Roe v. Wade was wrong several decades ago.

I very much agree with those who stand up to protect the innocent from having their lives taken. I don't see how rape or incest exceptions are ethical, because that's the equivalent of saying it's ok to kill the child because the father committed a crime.

I've voted in the past for candidates with varying views on the right to life, but I'm resolved to never again cast a vote for a candidate who favors any law that ends with the equivalent of "and THEN it's ok to kill the baby". I recommend the Personhood Imperative proclamation and pledge, fashioned after the Emancipation Proclamation, and the strong pro-life America's Independent Party.

- - - END OF MY COMMENT AT CAPITAL TIMES SITE - - -

The full text of the article, and the comments of others, is available at
http://www.madison.com/tct/news/stories/436410