When New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the recent law called the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), he was greeted with an ecstatic cheer of joy from the crowd gathered to witness this historic event. Cuomo also ordered the new Freedom Tower illuminated in pink to mark this momentous and happy occasion.
What did the RHA do, exactly? It removed any hindrance to having an abortion until the moment of birth. Oh, yes, there are still meaningless conditions requiring that a woman’s health or well-being must be in jeopardy, but such “obstacles” are so easy to overcome as to be completely superfluous.
The fact that this law was celebrated so gleefully should give us all pause. Let us be clear: we are celebrating the ability to kill a baby in the womb at a stage when it is completely viable outside the womb.
Since abortion is often shrouded in euphemism, let me explain briefly what a third trimester abortion entails.
On Day 1 of the 4-day process, a large needle is used to inject digoxin or potassium chloride into the child in order to stop its heart. This is at a stage of development (25 weeks plus) when the baby can for sure feel pain, and the pain of a giant needle penetrating the child’s body must be excruciating.
On Day 2, the medical worker (no longer necessary to be a doctor in N.Y.) uses an ultrasound to confirm if the baby is dead or not. If not, another injection.
On Days 3-4, the mother is induced into labor and the dead baby is delivered. If the labor occurs prematurely before the mother makes it to the clinic, she is told to deliver the baby into a toilet. If she does not go into labor, the medical worker uses clamps and forceps to tear apart the baby piece by piece so they can be removed.
This is what “reproductive health” looks like. Besides the brutal killing of an innocent human life, for it can be called no other thing, this process can be very damaging to the woman’s body given the nature of the procedure. One really wonders how this can be considered an act of “healthcare” since neither the baby nor the mother receives “care” that really restores “health.”
And to be clear, it would be easier and safer to just deliver the baby at this point and let it be adopted. And let us also be clear that at this stage it is NEVER necessary to abort a child to save the mother or for the benefit of the “mother’s health.” All such rationalizations are demonic diversions from the truth of the matter.
The hysterical cheering that accompanied Cuomo’s signing of this most heinous of bills reminded me of the movie “Schindler’s List,” when the little German girl yelled with a mixture of glee and contempt, “Jews, Jews,” to a crowd of Jewish prisoners being taken to the concentration camp.
We think we’re so advanced and civilized now, but when we cheer euphorically for a law that encourages the painful, barbaric death of our most innocent members of the human family, I cannot think we have come very far at all from the hell on earth of the concentration camps.
And that tower in N.Y., erected next to the site where so many innocents died, to be illuminated in celebration like a giant needle, like the needle used to extinguish life from that innocent child in the womb … that’s a cruel irony I cannot even comprehend.
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
