Phyllis VanBuren: Abortion in 2024
With simple and repetitive lyrics, children easily learn a song and lesson of Christ’s love and light that they reflect. “This Little Light of Mine,” attributed to Harry Dixon Loes, was a civil rights movement song. Sadly, this encouraging song will be sung by fewer children in Minnesota.
Minnesota was not “nice” for 12,175 babies in 2022, and the number will grow after the radical changes in MN law enacted in the 2023 legislative session. With the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022, states were empowered to make life/death decisions about pregnancy.
While scientists have agreed that the lack of brain function defines the end of life, they have not yet agreed, as a profession, about the moment when human life begins.
A 2021 report from PubMed (NIH) stated that 80% of Americans trusted biologists to determine the beginning of human life. The report continued that 97% of biologists from 1,058 international academic institutions affirmed that life begins at fertilization.
The science of embryology clarifies that just as we all were infants, toddlers, and teenagers before becoming adults, we all were embryos and fetuses before birth.
Pro-lifers concur and believe in the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. Abortion rights activists claim the right of the mother to determine if the embryo/fetus/not-yet-born baby lives or dies.
We all champion human rights as delineated in our federal and state documents. All human beings are equally valuable. But the pro-life and pro-abortion groups debate that “equality.”
One faction cites the Preamble of the U.S. Constitution, noting that Life comes from their creator God as an “unalienable Right.” The words of candidate Joe Biden in March 2020 highlight the objectified worldly stand of the other side: “All men and women are created, by the, you know, you know the thing.”
In Minnesota on Dec. 15, 1995, the light of the Little Ones grew dimmer. That day the Minnesota state Supreme Court “interpreted” in Doe v. Gomez a state constitutional “right” to elective abortion subsidized by Minnesota taxpayers.
“Minnesota Nice” disappeared completely during the 2023 legislative session. With the governor’s signature on the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, Minn. Stat. § 145.409, on Jan. 31, 2023, abortion-on-demand up to birth became law. Minnesota’s Trifecta moved quickly because they feared a national ban on abortions following the SCOTUS Roe v. Wade decision the previous summer. In 2022, 12,175 babies died from abortions in Minnesota — a 20% increase over the previous year and before the 2023 liberalization of the statutes in our state.
Omnibus bill SF 2995 signed into law in May 2023 repealed the previous language of “reasonable measures consistent with good medical practice” be taken “to preserve the life and health of the born alive infant” and substituted just “care.” This provision extends to ALL babies born alive, not just those surviving an abortion. Nor is it any longer required to report to the Department of Health the number of babies that survive an abortion. The bill also removed the Positive Alternatives Act that had provided life-affirming programs, such as informed consent, support and alternatives for women considering an abortion as well as the provision that only licensed physicians could perform abortions.
Minnesota became an abortion mecca for persons, even minors, traveling to Minnesota from states that limit or prohibit abortion. While the taxpayer dollars do not directly cover the expenses, these abortion seekers may establish residency and apply immediately for welfare support.
Even with the plethora of changes from the PRO Act and the Omnibus bill, Gov. Walz and his allies want a constitutional amendment to guarantee a “right” that does not exist IN PRINT in either the federal or state constitution. A law may be reversed by a change in elected officials, as the Trifecta proved in 2023. With a constitutional amendment, the reversal would be harder and take longer.
At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in 2024 on an appeal of a federal court ruling to restrict the use of an abortifacient that is used in nearly half of all abortions performed in the U.S.
Despite the claims from the pro-abortion lobby, a 2022 KTSP poll reported that only 30% of Minnesotans want abortion legal in all circumstances.
Let their “Little Light Shine.”
— This is the opinion of Times Writers Group member Phyllis E. VanBuren, a lifelong learner and enthusiastic educator, who values family, friends, faith, honesty, liberty and integrity. Her column is published the fourth Sunday of the month.
This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Phyllis VanBuren: Abortion in 2024
