OPINION:
Life is fleeting, so the adage goes. It doesn’t follow, though, that it has to be cheap. Abortion serves to devalue human life, and President Biden intends to reinforce the coldhearted practice. Killing of the unborn by the millions is, in essence, a form of familicide — the killing of members of the human family.
The woman’s choice of whether to bear a child is a type of freedom, and freedom is the American way. So say the purveyors of law in Washington who shape public policy and the promoters of hedonism in Hollywood who shape public opinion. And since life comes with no money-back guarantee, they insist, women have a limited time horizon to make their mark on the world. Devoting attention to pregnancy and child-rearing gets in the way.
Mr. Biden’s ethics on abortion are as clear as the view in a hall of mirrors. The authenticity of his Catholic faith is not to be questioned, but it’s hard not to notice his embrace of the Democratic Party’s thoroughly anti-Catholic condoning of the practice. Pro-life Americans see it as a moral blind spot.
Coronavirus restrictions made the movement’s annual March for Life to the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington mostly virtual on Friday, the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. New Jersey Republican Rep. Chris Smith joined the small crowd in person. “He used to understand that abortion was the taking of human life, he used to be against funding,” Mr. Smith told Eternal Word Television Network. “But now 180 degrees, you’ve got the most powerful man in the world now the abortion president, Joe Biden.”
On the president’s third day in office, the White House published a statement saying, “The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to codifying Roe v. Wade and appointing judges that respect foundational precedents like Roe,” referring to the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion. Mr. Biden went further, signing an executive order last Thursday, reversing the so-called “Mexico City Policy,” once again allowing U.S. aid funds to promote and pay for abortion around the world.
Contrary to its “progressive” label, abortion is wildly out of step with Americans. A Marist poll released last week found only 15 percent of respondents favoring unrestricted abortion. A slim majority agree that abortion should either be banned or legal only in cases in which the mother’s life is endangered, or only as a result of rape or incest. Nearly six in 10 oppose using taxpayer money for abortion, and 77 percent abhor funding the practice in other nations.
In some places, resistance to unrestricted abortion is building. On Friday, the South Carolina State Senate approved a bill that would ban termination of a pregnancy in which a fetal heartbeat is detectable, usually around six weeks after conception.
Mr. Biden may be on-board with familicide, the killing of the human family, but Americans aren’t ready for life on the cheap.
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