Whatever Happened to ‘Safe, Legal, and Rare?’
By Colonel Mike Angley
Do you remember when impeached, former President Bill Clinton, the master of equivocation, offered his viewpoint that abortion should be “safe, legal, and rare?” It was his way of straddling the fence, attempting to appeal to the pro-life community by asserting he personally didn’t like abortion, hence the “rare” prescript, while still defending abortion “rights” for the pro-choice crowd.
It became standard mantra of the left, a scripted line tossed out like Mardi Gras beads whenever their talking heads and pundits hit the airwaves. Back when I used to debate liberals, I would always counter that pablum with, “If you want abortion to be rare, then why not support ending abortion rights? Zero abortions are the rarest kind, after all.”
The dirty little secret among leftists is that they cringed when Clinton coined that phrase. First, it suggested that abortion was distasteful, even to the left. To call for abortion to be rare implied even the most ardent abortion cheerleaders felt it was wrong enough to merit limitation. Second, it simply was never true. The left and the Democrat Party never have wanted to limit abortions.
When Hillary Clinton ran for President, she dropped the pretense of rare and defended abortion “rights” as something that must be kept safe and legal. That brings us to today in this fast-moving evolution in infanticide.
‘Safe, Legal, and ABUNDANT’
New York State recently passed the ‘Reproductive Healthcare Act’ which has nothing at all to do with reproduction or health. It is about death. It allows for termination of a baby at any moment up to birth. Fully-viable human lives are legally snuffable so long as they remain on the mother’s side of the birth canal.
The reality is, Democrats don’t want abortion to be rare. They want it as abundant as possible, and New York’s law is merely the first down payment on this evil path that will only grow in momentum. It was bad enough the law passed at all, but to see the Democrats cheering on Governor Andrew Cuomo as he signed a death warrant for millions of lives only illustrated the callous disregard the left has for life.
Speaking of momentum, a Virginia Democrat just proposed a law to allow for the abortion of a baby while the mother is dilating – as in during childbirth itself. In other words, if this were to become law, a woman could legally change her mind and abort as casually as she can put a snack back on the rack in the grocery store checkout line while her order is being totaled.
What’s causing the rush to madness? Some pundits have suggested it is a fear that as the U.S. Supreme Court makeup changes and President Donald Trump appoints Constitutional originalists to the bench, that Roe v. Wade is at risk. Liberal states want to establish laws to protect a “right” they perceive may be threatened in the future.
I have a different perspective. I am certainly not a Constitutional scholar, but aren’t these new state laws such an over reach that they are likely to trigger court challenges? Wouldn’t those challenges make their way to the highest court in the land? If anything, the ‘Let’s-Kill-More-Babies-Laws,’ ironically, may result in the very thing the left wants these laws to insulate from…the loss of abortion rights. One can only hope.
Are There No More Defenders of Life?
I’ve had my fill of broken Republican promises, chief among which was to defund Planned Parenthood, the left’s chief abortion mill and Holy Grail (sick, but apt, pun intended). How long did the GOP have control of all the levers and pulleys of government in Washington, DC and fail to move a single bill to do so?
The left likes to scream about the alleged power and influence of the National Rifle Association, but the NRA has nothing on PP. Killing babies is big business and powerful people – Republicans included – seem determined to keep the scalpels sharp.
How about the Catholic Church? I am a Catholic and familiar with Canon Law 1398 which provides for the automatic excommunication of a woman who has an abortion in all but very limited circumstances. It also calls for the excommunication of anyone considered to be a ‘conspirator’ in abortion, which means essentially to facilitate it.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York is under fire for refusing to excommunicate Catholic Governor – and really good friend – Andrew Cuomo. His excuse: “Excommunicating pro-abortion politicians is not the answer.” Hey, Cardinal, Gov Cuomo has moved well beyond having a pro-abortion opinion to actually facilitating them, what Canon 1398 addresses well. When he signed that law, he sentenced millions of human lives to death. You cannot be okay with that.
Perhaps Cardinal Dolan, considered to be among the upper crust in New York’s social circles and on the Governor’s cocktail party invitation list, doesn’t want to miss out on elbow-rubbing opportunities. I guess being one of the ‘cool kids’ is worth the cost of a few million lives. Judas got a few pieces of silver for just one, so there is precedent.
Maybe if our church leaders would start to enforce Canon Law when it comes to abortion, then a few Catholic politicians would think twice before gleefully pushing for abortion’s expansion.
The Other Two Lies
I’ve addressed the ‘rare’ piece of the myth that abortion should be ‘safe, legal, and rare.’ What about the other two?
Safe? That’s debatable. One only needs to read about convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell who ran an abortion clinic-turned butcher shop in Philadelphia. This was all under the watchful eye of government inspectors who paid visits and apparently couldn’t see what was right before their eyes.
Think he’s alone in his butchery? Don’t count on it. Whenever the left feels abortion “rights” are threatened, they scream the safe argument, claiming women will seek abortions in back alleys from men with coat hangers. Even if that were true – which it isn’t – how much safer are they when death doctors like Gosnell help them exercise that sacred “right” to kill?
How safe are they when the baby body parts industry preys upon pregnant moms, salivating at the chance to score an unborn’s brain, heart, or liver? Does anyone really think when tens of thousands of dollars are on the table that abortion providers are being 100% honest with women making such a profound decision?
How about the legal leg in the abortion stool? Sure, in a broad sense, the Roe v. Wade decision made abortion legal. But it is an interpreted Constitutional right. Unlike the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms which is chiseled in the Constitution as a standalone right, to arrive at the abortion “right” one must meander through other rights and court interpretation first.
I mention this because the 2nd AMT is under constant assault by the left despite its “shall not be infringed” warning label (thank you, James Madison). Abortion doesn’t enjoy that same rock-solidness.
If uninfringeable gun rights can be infringed upon, then certainly an interpreted right can be as well. Maybe it’s time we took this fight to the enemy and started passing laws to end abortion with the same zeal the gun grabbers go after gun rights
When the left worries that a future Supreme Court decision may threaten its precious abortion “rights,” it may have reason to be stressed. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the expansion of the killing fields in states like New York or Virginia, designed to protect this “right,” were to result instead in its unraveling?
God works in mysterious ways.
Colonel Michael (“Mike”) Angley is retired from the United States Air Force, a published thriller author, and a conservative writer who fashions himself as Attila the Hun with a laptop. Mike wrote for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government and Big Peace blogs before the Breitbart consolidation, receiving superb feedback and kudos for typically weaving in pop culture references with his far right perspectives. He enjoys writing about military affairs, national security issues, and politics and is an avid Second Amendment advocate. When he’s not writing, he’s busy annoying liberals with FaceBook posts and Twitter tweets that point out the obvious flaws and fallacies of the left.
During his 26-year USAF career, the Colonel was a Special Agent with the Office of Special Investigations (OSI). The OSI is a sister agency to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and has an identical mission that includes felony-level criminal, fraud, and narcotics investigations as well as counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations. His USAF experiences spanned multiple regions around the globe with five command assignments and duties at foreign, regional, theater and national levels.
He is a seasoned counterintelligence and counterespionage officer from the Cold War era, and if you ask him he’ll tell you the spy-vs-spy days were indeed the heady, glory era of espionage. During the latter half of his career he focused on counterterrorism missions in the Middle East and the Far East and operationalized many of today’s concepts for this unique arena while working the sand dunes of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and a few other “choice” locations. When Colonel Angley retired in 2007, he was a Senior Supervisory Special Agent and was in command of all worldwide OSI matters at Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs, CO.
Mike Angley is also a published, award-winning author of three thriller novels in the “Child Finder” trilogy. His debut novel, “Child Finder,” received a glowing review from the Library Journal which placed it on its Summer Reading list in 2009. “Child Finder” and its companion sequel novels all won various awards from the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) and the Public Safety Writers Association. In 2012, Mike was named MWSA’s “Author of the Year,” largely for work on his third novel, “Child Finder: Revelation.”
As an avid user of social media, Mike can be found and friended on Facebook (mike.angley) and followed on Twitter (@MikeAngley). His website is www.mikeangley.com. Following his USAF retirement, Mike and his family stayed in Colorado Springs, CO where they enjoy daily, majestic views of Pikes Peak and the Rocky Mountains.
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