LET HER HAVE IT!

A Texas abortion case is threatening to put the pro-life movement in the worst possible light.  Despite Texas’s commendably strict abortion laws, the woman seeking an emergency abortion in this instance should get it.  Otherwise, her health may be jeopardized, and the pro-life movement will appear too extremist to win more public support.

At the center of this case is a Dallas woman, 20 weeks pregnant, and seeking an abortion because her unborn baby has been diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder causing physical and mental deformities and almost always premature death.  Statistics indicate:

• 95% of all affected pregnancies result in miscarriages or stillbirths; only 5% result in live births;
• 50% of babies born with Trisomy 18 do not live longer than a week; the median lifespan for such babies is 5 to 15 days;
• Only 8%-12% live longer than a year;
• Only 1% live to 10 years.

As if these facts weren’t grim enough, the woman also claims 

that giving birth in this instance will damage her ability to give birth to other, presumably normal, babies in the future. So she is seeking an abortion now to preserve her health and potential for future pregnancies.

Although a state district court judge has given the go-ahead for an emergency abortion, Attorney General Paxton maintains that the threat to the woman’s health apparently does not rise to the level that would justify an exception to Texas’s anti-abortion law and has threatened to bring civil and criminal cases against any doctor or hospital involved in giving her an abortion.  The problem for the woman is obvious, but the threat to the pro-life movement is also of concern.

As I’ve written in the past, I oppose all abortions of healthy unborn babies produced through sex between consenting adults.  But I also support:

• Abortion in cases of rape and incest, where the life and/or health of the woman is threatened, and in cases of gross and fatal fetal abnormalities likely to produce stillbirths or deaths soon after birth;
• Greater research, development, and implementation of sex education and birth control policies which will lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies (and therefore fewer abortions anyway, no matter what the law says); and
• Better means to deliver more effective and affordable prenatal and neonatal care to expectant mothers and their babies, whether born or unborn.

The greatest obstacle to the pro-life cause is the fact that we pro-lifers are in the minority, as far as public opinion is concerned.  Reliable polls show that at least two-thirds of the public oppose any restrictions on abortion in the first three months of pregnancy, when about 90% of all abortions take place.  Moreover, the public finds repellent the extremism of pro-lifers who oppose almost all abortions, including those of pregnancies produced through rape or incest, unless they present a far greater threat to the lives of pregnant women than the Dallas woman in question is confronting.

I have no formal medical training, but it seems to me that if ever there were a case justifying abortion, this case qualifies.  And if there ever were actions designed to illustrate anti-abortion extremism and damage the pro-life movement, those of Attorney General Paxton also qualify.

Pro-life advocates and activists who seek to be both humane and rational should see that humanitarian concerns alone justify abortion in this case, no matter how repellent abortion may be.  And reason should lead to the conclusion that the rejection of humanitarian concerns in this case in the name of ideological anti-abortion extremism will only support and reinforce public opposition to abortion limits.  So in this particular case of the Dallas woman seeking an abortion, both compassion and reason say, “LET HER HAVE IT!”

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Malcolm L. Cross has lived in Stephenville and taught politics and government at Tarleton from 1987 until 2023. His political and civic activities include service on the Stephenville City Council (2000-2014) and on the Erath County Republican Executive Committee (1990 to the present).  He was Mayor Pro Tem of Stephenville from 2008 to 2014.  He is a member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and the Stephenville Rotary Club and does volunteer work for the Boy Scouts of America. Views expressed in this column are his and do not reflect those of The Flash as a whole.