Great! Does This Mean That I Can Start Legislating?

I’d like to introduce you to the 25 most frightening words in the English language. Are you ready? Here we go:

“The Congress of the United States has determined that at this stage of development, an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain.”

Surely, I hear you saying, these are not the most frightening. There must be worse. “I am not a crook” could rank up there. Likewise, so could “I’m pleased to announce that I’ve signed legislation that outlaws the Soviet Union. We begin bombing in five minutes.” For that matter “wardrobe malfunction” is also kinda creepy. (In defense of Ronald Reagan, he did offer his own version of the most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” I agree that they’re scary, though probably not for the same reason he thought so.)

No, friends, let me share with you why these 25 words bring an unseasonable chill into my heart. These words are from the text of a script that doctors would be required to read to women contemplating an abortion performed after 20 weeks of gestation. The script is part of a requirement from a bill that was introduced in the Senate in 2004 and again this year that would require medical doctors to alter the manner in which they treat patients who are considering abortions.

The bill, which goes by the oh-so-charming name of the “Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act”, has been introduced by Senator Sam Brownback, Republican. Of Kansas. The Land of Oohs and Oz, if I’m to believe their tourist literature. According to Senator Brownback there is “substantial evidence” that a fetus feels pain when it is aborted. How does he know this? The Distinguished Gentleman from the Sunflower State has drawn his conclusions after an extensive read of the scholarly literature on the subject. Ahhh…Science.

I don’t want to think that I’m the only one who’s creeped out by the notion of a legislative body without any mass formal training deciding what words can be said in a doctor’s office. Big Brother is no longer just watching, he’s doling out your prescriptions as well. To say nothing of the wisdom of this initiative coming out of Kansas, the state that is currently trying to get scientists to recognize that all their theories about the origin of the universe are wrong. For a state with such a collective disdain for scientific inquiry, why in the world are they resorting to it now?

Congress has decided that they know better than doctors how to treat patients. Bill Frist aside, how do they know this? Did top-quality medical training suddenly get added to the new legislators’ orientation, right after they show incoming representatives where the copy machines are and how to dial out of the building? By the most recent counts I can find, dating all the way back to Teri Schivo, only about 20 or so of the over 500 members of congress are medical professionals.

I’m going to speak plainly: abortions should be limited. Women shouldn’t be getting them. They're unhealthy and traumatic. In a perfect world there wouldn't be a need for such a procedure. Here’s my thing, though: How many women do you know want to have an abortion? How many little girls are there out there just praying for the opportunity to have a D and C someday? My guess? Not so much any. Besides, come across any perfect worlds lately?

Congress, its wealth of medical knowledge and experience aside, needs to recognize that there is not a mass plague of women out there aborting things. The myth of the woman who uses abortion as a method of birth control is wrong. These bogeywomen do not exist anywhere near the level that politicos and wailing, ranting Pro-Lifers would have you believe. The choice to have an abortion is never easy. And that’s what it is, by the way – a choice. And whatever else you feel it is about, America is about nothing more than it is about the freedom make choices, right or wrong.

Here’s a fun analogy to ponder this whole choice thing: consider cigarette smoking. Smokers are often upset that so many localities now are going smoke-free. They don’t understand why they can’t light up in the middle of a bar, restaurant, ball park, hospital. “I have the right to smoke,” they proclaim. “It may be unhealthy, but I have the right to do it.” For the record, the reason you can’t smoke in public places is because your cigarette smoke is harming those around you who did not make the choice to be unhealthy. But to the analogy part, smokers make an unhealthy (read: wrong) choice, but they feel that it is their choice to make, regardless of the harm it causes them or those around them. So how can the same not be said about abortion? Remember, children: cigarette smoke kills too.

I know many people who are against abortion for moral or, more specifically, religious reasons. To them, I offer this conundrum: If the goal of Christian life is to stray from sin, doesn’t that imply that sin must be present in order to avoid it? Are we not redeemed into grace not because we never saw sin, but because we saw it, were tempted and choose to move in the opposite direction? You may believe that abortion is sinful. You may be right, I don’t know. I’ll leave it to those better qualified than I to determine what a sinful act is. But your responsibility is not to remove the sin from the face of the planet, but rather to bring the sinners to the light.

This is not accomplished by congressional action and it most certainly isn’t accomplished by altering the manner in which a doctor may treat her patients and the words which she must use to do so.