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03/24/2004: "Abortion extremism"
Here's a twist: Jonathan Turley, a self-described "pro-choice law professor," taking the Usual Suspects to task for their absolutist positions, shown forth in their defense of Melissa Rowland, the Utah mother whose bizarre and negligent refusal of medical treatment caused the death of one of her unborn twins:
According to the criminal complaint, starting on Dec. 25, 2003, doctors and nurses advised Rowland repeatedly that the twins were in danger. Doctors reportedly urged Rowland to have a C-section immediately because the twins were experiencing fetal heart problems and were developing poorly and she had dangerously low amniotic fluid. The doctors told her repeatedly that without a C-section the babies faced severe harm or death. Hospital staff reported she appeared indifferent to the fate of the babies.
On Jan. 13, Rowland showed up at a hospital in labor. Emergency room doctors and nurses reportedly attempted to persuade Rowland to have an emergency C-section, but, accordingly to the criminal complaint, she "was uncooperative and continually insisted on going outside for a smoke." After she finally yielded to their demands, a C-section was performed, but it was too late. One baby died and the other twin required stimulation, oxygen, intravenous support and antibiotics to survive. Both Rowland and the surviving twin tested positive for cocaine. The medical examiner's office determined that if Rowland had had the surgery when the doctors originally urged her to, "the baby would have survived."
The willingness of pro-choice groups to embrace Rowland reflects their extreme view of abortion as an absolute right in our constitutional system. But in our system, there are no absolute rights; our constitution is based on a balancing of interests.
Even the oldest and most fundamental rights like free speech or religion must yield in some cases to compelling state interests.
Yet, when it comes to reproductive rights, NOW and other groups reject even the most basic limitations—leaving reproductive rights so sacrosanct that even the most depraved acts by a mother cannot limit her "right to choose."
Though authorities' decision to charge her with first-degree murder (rather than manslaughter) seems excessive, I see no reason why Rowland should not be charged criminally. These twins were not immature fetuses at an early stage of development but were at full term and completely viable outside the womb, yet she knowingly withheld a common, safe surgical procedure while the life drained out of them.
No one would disagree that, if they had been delivered, Rowland could be charged criminally for any physical abuse. However, NOW is insisting that the babies had no rights until delivery, and that a mother can feed them cocaine, refuse pleas to save them and potentially cause the death of two fully developed babies at any time until birth—a position that has little legal support and even less basis in morality.
The decision of NOW and other groups to defend Rowland is only the latest evidence of how far these organizations have moved to the extreme. This month, NOW, the ACLU and Planned Parenthood opposed a parental notice law in Florida as a threat to the right to abortion—even though most pro-choice voters support parental notice. Lynn Paltrow, executive director of the National Advocates for Pregnant Women, has declared the charges against Rowland an "assault on motherhood." But the case is no more an assault on motherhood than an embezzlement case is an assault against capitalism.
I agree with Turley's assessment of the Usual Suspects, of course. But it seems to me that he's missing a couple of things. One is that Planned Parenthood is so fanatical about abortion at least in part because PP is in the business of doing abortions and getting paid for it. The other is that for NOW, NARAL, and their sisters, abortion isn't so much a right as a sacrament, a positive good to be defended with fundamentalist religious zeal. I'm NOT suggesting that women who actually have abortions think this way–most do not. Most are terribly regretful and anguished because of it. But with the high priestesses of the abortion cult, such as those Turley is writing about, it's another story.
