Rendering Society Callous

"Cardinal O'Connor preached most powerfully by his example the necessity of seeing in every human being, from the first moment of conception to the last moment of natural death and every moment in between...the image of a God to be loved and served. What a great legacy he has left us in his constant reminder that the church must be always unambiguously pro-life."

Cardinal Bernard Law's homily delivered at the May 8 funeral of New York's Cardinal John O'Connor

"The cardinal was passionately outspoken in his opposition to abortion, the issue that shaped his tenure from the very start." New York Times, May 4

"I took it that what you meant when you said that it bordered on infanticide had nothing to do with the viability of the fetus, but that the [partial-birth abortion] procedure looks more like infanticide when the child is killed outside the womb than when it is killed inside the womb, and therefore it can coarsen public perception to other forms of killing fetuses or children outside the womb."

Justice Antonin Scalia, responding to Nebraska Attorney General Donald Stenberg at the April 25 oral hearings in the case of Stenberg v. Carhart

Let me highly recommend that before you read this column you turn to page 21. Ernest Ohlhoff's account of the response of prominent pro-abortion politicians to the words of pro-life tribute delivered by Cardinal Bernard Law at the funeral of Cardinal John O'Connor makes for fascinating reading.

It was altogether fitting that O'Connor's powerful pro-life witness would one last time unnerve and unglue a gaggle of pro-abortion officeholders. Standing up to power characterized the spiritual leader of 2.4 million New York Catholics, not only throughout his 16 years in New York, but throughout his illustrious service to his church. The New York Times's Adam Nagourney set the scene beautifully.

A "moment's pause," he wrote, followed Law's observation "What a great legacy [O'Connor] has left us in his constant remainder the church must be always unambiguously pro-life." Then

rising from the pews came an unbroken roar of applause that lasted for one minute and 50 seconds. Most of the political leaders at the front, almost all supporters of legalized abortion, rustled in obvious discomfort as television cameras focused in on the moment.

Pro-lifers everywhere will miss O'Connor's wit and wisdom and pro-life constancy. I can't image that any prominent religious figure has more faithfully preached the sanctity of vulnerable human life, inside the womb and out. I would hope that you would jump online and read just some of the praise this great man received after he passed away. Please do so by checking out the May 4 and May 5 editions of "Today's News & Views," found at www.nrlc.org.

O'Connor frequently spoke of the grotesque savagery that is partial-birth abortion. This edition of the "pro-life newspaper of record" includes a brilliant analysis of the arguments made at the Supreme Court April 25 on page one and a few excerpts to give you the flavor of the give and take on page 13.

Ironically, a viciously pro-abortion newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, did a masterful job in summarizing what critics of Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortion allege its weaknesses. They are, the Post-Dispatch said in an editorial, that

* The ban could apply to other legal abortion procedures.

* It didn't include an exception for a woman's health.

* It covered nonviable fetuses.

The truth is that Nebraska Attorney General Donald Stenberg did a very good job is rebutting these objections when they were raised by various members of the Supreme Court.

For instance (addressing the first objection), the bill's language was carefully tailored to conform to comments from the American Medical Association (AMA). Why? Precisely so that Nebraska's ban on partial-birth abortions would not apply to other abortion techniques, most specifically dilation and evacuation (D&E), which is the abortion technique most often used after the first trimester.

That the law contained no "health" exception is supposedly "weakness" number two. But Nebraska had a good reason for its exclusion. The AMA said very clearly that a partial-birth abortion is never "medically indicated." (There is, of course, a life of the mother exception.)

Those who desperately want to believe that there are instances in which a partial-birth abortion is the "only" technique rely on the word of characters like abortionist LeRoy Carhart and a handful of others on the periphery of medicine. But contrary to what you read in the papers, the consensus among the medical establishment is that a woman's health does not suffer because she cannot obtain a partial-birth abortion because partial-birth abortions are never medically indicated. Period.

Point three: the ban would include children who are "nonviable." Consider the following from NRLC's Federal Legislative Office:

It appears that the substantial majority of partial-birth abortions are performed late in the second trimester-that is, before the 27-week mark but usually after 20 weeks (4 1/2 months). There is compelling evidence that the overwhelming majority of these pre-week-27 partial-birth abortions are performed for purely "social" reasons. Currently, many babies are "viable" a full three weeks before the "third trimester." Therefore, most partial-birth abortions kill babies who are already "viable," or who are at most a few days or weeks short of viability. (Even at 20 weeks, the baby is seven

inches long on average. And, at a March 21, 1996, congressional hearing, leading medical authorities testified that the baby by this point is very

sensitive to painful stimuli.)

There is a second dimension to rebuttal of this third assertion. And that is the question of location. To quote again from the Federal Legislative Department,

Under state laws, a "live birth" occurs when a baby is entirely expelled from the mother and shows any signs of life, however briefly - regardless of whether or not the baby is "viable," i.e., developed enough to be sustained outside the womb with neo-natal medical assistance.

If a child is born alive, true, we may not be able to save her. But that does mean we can kill her just because she is not "viable."

What laws such as Nebraska's do is to give the Court the chance to ask itself, Is this really what we had in mind? Are there absolutely no limitations to the brutality unleashed by Roe v. Wade?

Or, as Justice Scalia put it, "The state is worried about rendering society callous to infanticide," which he followed by asking, "Why is that not a valid state interest?"

It would be silly to try to predict what the Court will do. All we can say with certainty is that if Al Gore becomes our next President, I predict his appointments to the Supreme Court would make Ruth Bader Ginsburg look like Antonin Scalia by comparison.

dave andrusko [dha1245@juno.com]