Sad, Disturbing, and Confusing

A rather sad, disturbing, and confusing story brings the week to a close. The Detroit Free Press reports that a 25-year old mother was convicted of first degree murder and child abuse for having her baby in a garage and then letting it die.

It’s sad because a mother killed her baby. It’s disturbing because a mother killed her baby.

it’s confusing because I am not sure why it matters. (Don’t leave me yet.)

Isn’t this the natural end of being pro-choice? If, as the Supreme Court ruled forty-three years ago, it is okay for mothers to kill their babies, then why is this mother being charged for it? Is it the location that makes it a crime (i.e., it was in a garage rather than a clinic)? It is timing (i.e., had she done this just minutes before the baby emerged it would have been okay but she wait a few minutes too long)?

In a related story, this week, the Supreme Court is considering an abortion case regarding a Texas law that requires abortion clinics to have some basic medical standards in place such as the doctor having admitting privileges at a hospital within thirty miles and the clinic meeting standards for ambulatory medical centers. It’s difficult to see the problem with this bill. It’s hard to imagine these weren’t already requirements.

We have been routinely told that abortion is a medical procedure, a matter between a woman and her doctor.

In a strange twist, abortion supporters are now arguing that this medical procedure should not be required to be treated like an actual medical procedure.

Let’s tie these two stories together: Abortion supporters are arguing that mothers have a right to kill their children, that those who perform abortions do not need to admitting privileges at a hospital, and that abortion clinics do not need to meet ambulatory surgical center requirements.

This young mother meets all three parts of this argument.

So why is she charged with murder?

The fact that I even raise the question might be considered wrong. I am sure that everyone agrees that her act was heinous. It was. Heinous and heartless.

But why would a pro-choice person support the prosecution and conviction of this young mother? Why was there not a demonstration outside the courtroom protesting this prosecution?

She is what the abortion movement is about—a young woman who is pregnant and unable to care for another child. That’s why abortion exists—because young women should not be required to to be a mother if they don’t want to. And why should the state put undue burdens on her, like leaving her garage or something.

This young lady simply exercised her constitutional rights.

The fact that she chose to do it in a particular way should not really matter, should it? After all, doesn’t she have a right to choose what to do with her body?

There is something about this case that destroys the pro-abortion argument. It is simply this: Everyone knows this mother’s actions were morally wrong and reprehensible.

Why do they know this?

Because they know that that “thing” living inside of her was a baby and it didn’t change into a baby in that Eastpointe garage when it suddenly met the cold December air.

Nope. It was a baby in her body and it was a baby outside of her body.

And everyone knows that.

We are truly a corrupt and calloused people, not because we prosecute this young woman, but because we don’t see the intense irony of prosecuting her for doing exactly what she chose to do, to exercise her constitutional rights as a woman.