The slippery slope of immorality can be surprisingly steep. Belgium, a citadel of “progressive” thought, is considering expansion of its liberal euthanasia law to also include children. A story in Reuters provides the surprising news. Here’s my spin: it seems that the Flemish Liberal party, in their endless quest for compassion, has determined that some young children would be happier dead. Talk about cradle-to-grave care from the Welfare State! I bet the noisy ones go first…. (Yes, I am aware of the excuses given for euthanasia, and recognize the need for compassion for the terminally ill – but when we trade prayerful compassion for the “merciful” convenience of actively taking the lives of those who suffer, we begin to play like we are God, and it is not uncommon to find the taking of lives expands beyond just the terminally ill.)

Meanwhile, in the enlightened Unites States, federal judges have struck down attempts to prevent the murder of partially born children (preserving the fiction that the baby is not yet a person if not completely born, and thus fair game). The existence of partial birth abortion in this country is a sign of moral depravity that demands public outcry. With the partial birth abortion nightmare, we are aborting unborn infants that are far enough along in their development that many of them could have lived outside the womb – and in some cases, perhaps could have had very healthy and happy lives. For an admittedly unusual example, see the story of the teenager who was once the world’s tiniest premature baby.

There has been a great deal of misinformation from the very liberal media on this topic. See Matt Evans’ post, “Why Won’t They Call it ‘Partial-Birth Abortion?’” at Times and Seasons. As Matt indicates, we can forget about objectivity from the media: 97% of the movers and shakers in the media are pro-choice, and it shows. Some useful information comes from NRLC.org’s page on partial-birth abortion, refuting some of the claims made by critics of the law banning partial birth abortions:

The bill bans “partial-birth abortion” and it legally defines a partial-birth abortion as any abortion in which the baby is delivered “past the [baby’s] navel . . . outside the body of the mother,” OR “in the case of head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother,” BEFORE being killed. The complete official text of the bill being signed by President Bush, in a searchable format, is here:
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/partial-birth%20abortion%20Ban%20act%20final%20language.htm.

The bill would allow the method if it was ever necessary to save a mother’s life. Such an exception has been part of the legislation since it was first introduced in 1995. Nevertheless, it is still not uncommon to see news reports that the bill would “never” allow the procedure, or to say flat out that it does not contain an exception to save a mother’s life.

Given the nature of partial birth abortion, is there any real situation where it is needed for the physical health of the mother? I also believe that using a vague and indefinite term like “health” of the mother would totally undermine any law against partial birth abortion. If the mother wants the baby dead, she could claim to suffer emotional distress and thus adverse mental health if it lived. As long as some doctor signs a note saying that it was for “health” reasons, what could be done to stop partial birth abortion under such a law?

The previously cited NRLC.org page also has this about the health issue:

What new evidence has come to light since 1997 only reinforces the conclusion that some practitioners use the method routinely during the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy, and even later, and that the vast majority of partial-birth abortions do not involve any acute medical circumstances. For example, Kansas became the only state to enact a law that requires reporting of partial-birth abortions separately from other abortion methods. The first full year the law was in effect (1999), Kansas abortionists reported that they performed 182 partial-birth abortions on babies who were defined by the abortionists themselves as “viable,” and they also reported that all 182 of these were performed for “mental” (as opposed to “physical”) health reasons. See pages 10-11 of the Kansas Health Department report. See page 11 of www.kdhe.state.ks.us/hci/99itop1.pdf. Nevertheless, in recent months, NRLC has witnessed attempts to revive erroneous claims about partial-birth abortion that were thoroughly discredited in 1996 and 1997. Articles and broadcasts in major media outlets, including the Boston Globe and the Wall Street Journal, have adopted the premise the partial-birth abortions are nearly always performed to deal with serious physical disorders of mother and/or baby.

As I asked previously in a discussion at Times and Seasons, isn’t partial birth abortion just a modern version of the ancient Molech Reproductive Rights Clinic? (Molech, of course, was the pagan god mentioned in the Old Testament to whom children were sacrificed). How long before we provide Retroactive Abortion Rights for those whose unwanted fetuses became children without the chance for an abortion?

The Lord gave us an important commandment in Doctrine and Covenants 59:6: “Thou shalt not . . . kill, nor do anything like unto it.”