‘Rights’ to Abort a Child – Why is Roe V Wade Now Finally Getting the Scrutiny it has Always Warranted? 

It is difficult not to notice the well-crafted outrage being magnificently choreographed by the clearly biased media on the recent leaked documents from the S.C.O.T.U.S, re the potential overturning of the Roe Vs Wade precedent that has been wielded by pro-abortion groups for decades as a new ‘human right’. (Not the first group to pull this incongruent cultural card, but not unsurprising for this reignited debate) 

Medical News Today® were quick to bring comment on this latest hiccup to the so-called long-standing ‘progressive’ agenda with two quick fire articles. 

One piece outlined the leaked draft, with the second piece positing the potential outcomes of the overturning of the Supreme Court precedent. 

In their first article the platform focused on their understanding of the leaked document as the following excerpt reveals 

On May 2, 2022, news outlet Politico obtained a draft of the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This case provides an opening for conservative justices to reassess the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that protected the right to abortion before foetus viability in the U.S. 

The February 10, 2022, draft reveals the Supreme Court’s intention at that date to overturn Roe altogether. 

The Supreme Court released a statement affirming that the draft was genuine but said that, as a draft, “it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case.” 

Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., said that the Court’s work “will not be affected in any way,” and an investigation into the source of the leak is underway. 

Nonetheless, the publication of the draft served notice that the Court’s upcoming final decision may well eliminate a long-standing constitutional right that many have taken for granted. The draft leaves uncertainty about what lies ahead, particularly for people’s reproductive rights and racial and economic equity. 

The article summary as follows, 

A leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s deliberations in a related case suggests that the Court plans to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion. 
The Court’s Chief Justice says that the draft does not reflect the Court’s final opinions. 
Regardless of people’s beliefs on whether abortion should be available to pregnant people in the United States, the draft has caused a whirlwind of controversy and questions 1 

In their second article What happens if Roe v. Wade is overturned? What we know about the Supreme Court decision, Medical News Today went on to focusing of the potential ramifications of an overturning of this precedent. 

The summary of the article simply looked at the mechanics of a potential reversal. 

If the landmark case were overturned, the legality of abortion would be up to each state. 
Twenty-six states are expected to ban or restrict access to abortion if Roe v. Wade is overturned. 
Clinics in neighbouring states are preparing for a surge in patients from states that limit access to abortion.2 

Of course, in all this ‘what if’ theorizing, not a mention of the health and/or well-being of the unborn child and the potential saving of hundreds of thousands of lives, such a ‘brake’ on this carte blanche vehicle this would bring back to the public square. 

So, that’s a little on what, but why is this now happening. 

In her recent article, Why Roe V Wade Deserves to Fall Kat Rosenfield,  a columnist with UnHerd penned the following opening barrage in her critique of the fragility of this well-marketed, but incredibly dubious legal ‘precedent’ parading as enshrined Law. 

For 50 years, Roe v Wade has dangled like the sword of Damocles over the American political landscape. Pro-life dreams and pro-choice nightmares have fixated on the reversal of the Supreme Court case — which established a woman’s right to choose as an extension of the “right to privacy” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. 

Everyone knew Roe was shaky. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a lifelong pro-choice advocate, expressed regrets that the abortion question hadn’t been decided by a stronger case, one that centred on a woman’s right to bodily autonomy rather than the nebulous notion of “privacy”. Instead of surviving on the merits, the validity of Roe became largely a question of precedent: the best argument for the continued upholding of the decision was the fact that it had, so far, been upheld. 

On all sides, extreme rhetoric ruled the day, fuelled by a sense that abortion protections were perpetually hanging by a single thread. Yet nobody ever seemed to really believe the thread would break — until this week, when a leak from inside the Supreme Court revealed that the justices intend to rule in favour of overturning Roe. 

On the Left, radical pro-choice activists have demanded unrestricted abortion basically until the moment of live birth, engaged in coarse cheerleading such as the #ShoutYourAbortion hashtag, and cheered for a Yale student who announced that she had aborted half a dozen pregnancies as a form of performance art. Meanwhile, on the Right, deranged anti-choicers had shrieking meltdowns over the “sluts” who wanted access to birth control, suggested that exceptions for rape and incest were biologically unnecessary because the body would “shut that whole thing down”, and waved giant placards with images of mutilated babies outside women’s health clinics. 

Amid all this, it was easy to forget that the general American public has far more complex views on this issue, and far more in common with each other than with the loudest activists on either side. The majority of Americans are, in fact, quite pro-choice — when it comes to abortions within the first trimester, which 61% of people believe should be legal in all or most cases. But the majority also greatly favour restrictions to later-term abortion: 65% believe that second-trimester abortion should be largely illegal. 

The article is worth a full read, as it is not about pro-choice or pro-life, rather about bad an incredibly divisive cause that was (as we’ll discover in the following data) essentially a cynical propaganda play, full of not only misinformation, but out and out lies; all couched to convince an already moral abandoning culture that using abortion as birth control should be any easy no fuss option. 

In his landmark best seller ‘The Marketing of Evil – How Radicals, Elitists and Pseudo-Experts Sell us Corruption Disguised as Freedom’, Award winning journalist David Kupelian, bothered, like none before him, to spelunk the dark caverns of cultural corruption that birthed this most cynical plan, which unleashed the taking of innocent life from the womb into catastrophic holocaust-esque proportions. 

“In marketing wars, the party that frames the terms of the debate almost always wins. And the early abortion marketers brilliantly succeeded in doing exactly that – diverting attention from the core issues of exactly was abortion does to both the unborn child and the mother and focusing the debate instead on newly created issue: choice. No longer was the orality of killing the unborn at issue, but rather “who decides.” 

The original abortion-rights slogans from the early 70’s – they remain virtual articles of faith and rallying cries of the “pro-choice” movement to this day – were “Freedom of choice” and “Women must have control over their own bodies.” 

“I remember laughing when we made those slogans up,” recalls Bernard Nathanson, M.D., cofounder of the pro-abortion vanguard group NARAL, reminiscing about the early days of the abortion rights movement in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70s. “We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical.” 3 

Just after Nathanson had finished a residency in both obstetrics and gynaecology in 1968 where he had seen a significant number of women coming into the hospitals and clinics at which he practiced who were suffering from botched illegal abortions. Around the same time Dr Nathanson, met the author of a recently published work Abortion which was demanding that abortion should be legal throughout the nation. In Nathanson’s words, “Lader and I were perfect for each other!” 

Together they concocted the first iteration of what was the organized pro-abortion movement and called it National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. (NARAL) 

Kupelian goes on to record the interview with Nathanson that speaks matter-of-factly about this burgeoning movement and the surprising traction it got. 

“During the tumultuous 1960’s, after centuries of legal prohibition and moral condemnation of abortion, a handful of dedicated activists launched an unprecedented marketing campaign. Their aim was twofold: first, to capture the news media and thus public opinion; and then to change the nation’s abortion laws. 

Their success was rapid and total - resulting in abortion being legalized in all 50 states for virtually any reason and throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Since the Supreme Courts controversial Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, American doctors have performed well over fifty-five million abortions. 

Although polls consistently show Americans disapprove of unfettered abortion-on-demand by a three-to-one margin, the movement’s well-crafted, almost magical slogans – appealing to Americans’ deep-rooted inclination toward tolerance, privacy, and individual rights – have provided the abortion camp a powerful rhetorical arsenal with which to fight off efforts to reverse Roe, which struck down all state laws outlawing abortion. 4 

So, what were some of the ‘keys’ to this meteoric rise and impact? Well, as previously mentioned one key was to get mainstream media in their pocket. Once they had ‘domination in the air’ (as with most wars) – they could ‘bomb’ an unwitting and primed population with fake news and embellished data in palatable morsels that the selfish culture is ready to swallow. Such cultural control has been in play by those seeking to dominate the ‘public square’ for millennia, but no more easily accomplished than in the late 20th and emerging new century – The idea that, ‘if you control language, you control culture.’ 

The recorded interview with Nathanson goes on to reveal just such tactics. 

“We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were inf favour of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U. S. The actual figure was approaching 100,00, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1 million. 

Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans, convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law. 

Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U. S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.” 

NARAL’s brilliant deceitful marketing campaign, bolstered by fraudulent research, was uncannily successful… In New York… “We lobbied the legislature, we captured the media, we spend money on public relations…Our first year’s budget was $7,500. Of that $5,000 was allotted to a public relations firm to persuade the media of the correctness of our position. That was in 1969. New York immediately became the abortion capital for the eastern half of the United States. 

“We were inundated with applicants for abortion, says Nathanson. “To that end, I set up a clinic, the Centre for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH), which operated in the East side of Manhattan. It had 10 operating rooms, 35 doctors, 85 nurses. It operated seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to midnight. We did 120 abortions every day in that clinic. At the end of two years that I was director, we had done 60,000 abortions, I myself, with my own hands, have do 5,000 abortions. I have supervised another 10,000 that residents have done under my direction. So, I have 75,000 abortions in my life. Those are pretty good credentials to speak on the subject of abortion.5 

I’m not going to launch into a inventory of the shocking and tortuous afflictions the unborn child experiences during the abortion procedure that takes their lives, as there is ample evidence of this. However, I do want to focus a little on the often ‘untold harms’ 6 that the vast majority of women opting to abort a child experience. Whilst type and depth of repercussion vary, the evidence indicates that these disturbing harms are real 7, present and rarely, if ever, addressed with those  believing abortion is their only option. 

The following inventory of harms was spelled out more fully and in more accessible language for the generally very under-informed public on the Abortion Grief Australia website. 

Self-destructive behaviours 

  • suicidal behaviours 
  • alcohol and drug abuse 
  • eating disorders 
  • self-injury 
  • abusive relationships 
  • risk taking behaviours 
  • workaholism 
  • setting self-up to fail 

Relationship problems 

  • marriage and family breakdown 
  • difficulty bonding with children 
  • child neglect / abuse / overprotective 
  • sexual dysfunction 
  • domestic violence 
  • with friends/work colleagues 

Replacement pregnancies 

  • repeat abortions 
  • the atonement child 

Mental health problems 

  • postnatal depression 
  • anxiety attacks 
  • obsessive compulsive disorders 
  • addictions 
  • phobias 
  • depression, mood swings 
  • personality disorders 
  • emotional breakdown 
  • hallucinations - hearing voices or babies crying, seeing child at would be age. 

Other symptoms 

  • chronic anger or rage 
  • frequent crying 
  • lowered self esteem 
  • chronic fatigue 
  • inability to concentrate 
  • headaches, chest or abdominal pains, gastro-intestinal symptoms 
  • flashbacks 
  • feelings of impending doom 
  • sense of hopelessness 
  • self-isolation 
  • inability to be around pregnant women, babies or small children 
  • unable to hold down a job / make decisions 

One must also remember that all these potential outcomes and their varying degrees of duress can be triggered at any time by 

Anniversary dates 

  • abortion date 
  • due date of birth 
  • (these anniversary reactions may not start until years after the abortion) 
  • Birth of a subsequent child (not always the first birth subsequent to the abortion) 
  • Birth of relative or friend’s child or grandchild 
  • Miscarriage 
  • Menopause 
  • Daughter reaches the age when the mother experienced abortion 
  • Some other event associated with children or reproduction 
  • A death experience 
  • Smells, sounds, location or being again in a position associated with the abortion, for example, smell of a hospital, positioned for an internal medical examination, sound of a vacuum cleaner or dentist drill 
  • Relationship break-up 
  • A personal crisis 

None of what I’ve written here, or in my previous piece on this subject are meant to rail against those who have opted for an abortion, rather, it is to bring back to the public square (much like the review of Roe Vs Wade is aiming to do) a more thorough and all of community involvement understanding and better addressing this harm causing process. 

I remain personally flummoxed by a so-called progressive society that rails against the death penalty for the most heinous of barbaric crimes – those who have tortured and taken lives – yet so readily and whimsically promotes the death of the most vulnerable in our society, the unborn with abortion, and those mentally ill or in distressing pain, through euthanasia. 

If the State is going to be involved in the death of its citizens, it must be consistent on all arenas, if Justice and Mercy are the pursuit. Or the State should not be involved in the death of any of its citizens, if again, Justice and Mercy are its predicates. It depends, doesn't it? But on what?

But then the questions come…Who or What gets to determine the origin of these historically Divinely sourced graces of undeserved favour, mercy and justice? 

If not the Creator, then who? 

If for the purpose of anthropocentric expedience, we determine (as with the deaf, dumb and blind chimps) the Creator God of the Bible, non-existent, or at the very least declare ‘him’ dead, then capricious humanity becomes the final arbiter over who lives and who dies and who gets harmed in the process. 

The overturning of Roe Vs Wade should not be inciting the pro-abortionists to ‘kill’ anyone who gets in their way of an unfettered choice to take life in the womb, but it clearly has done so in so many instances. 

Perhaps this is just another indicator of the need for a healthier, more compassionate and just review of the ever more barbaric ‘laws’ being foisted on a society in ‘protecting’ the right to harm not just another, but the self. 

Shane Varcoe 

For Further Reading 

References 

  1. Roe v. Wade leaked opinion explained: What could happen next? 
  2. What Happens if Roe v. Wade is Overturned? 
  3. Pp 256-257 Kupelian, The Marketing of Evil, Republic Book Publishers (c) 2005,2015,2022
  4. Pp 257-258 ibid
  5. Pp 259-60 ibid 
  6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK507237/ 
  7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3395931/