Columns

January 21. 2013 8:09PM

Another View: What Roe v. Wade has wrought

By KURT WUELPER

On Jan. 22, 1973, the Supreme Court of the United States issued an unprecedented landmark ruling, Roe V. Wade. After 40 years, we have many reasons to mourn this tragic decision, which led directly to more than 55 million abortions, virtually every one taking the life of an otherwise healthy baby, and suffering or death for millions of women.

Roe overturned the abortion laws of all 50 states and, combined with its partner case Doe v. Bolton, made abortion legal at any time from conception until the very moment of birth anywhere for any reason with virtually no restrictions or regulation of abortion procedures.

Roe undermined our medical system. Doctors, who previously had taken an oath to never harm a pre-born or prescribe an abortion-inducing potion, became murderers of babies. They invented the "partial birth abortion" procedure, fatally stabbing healthy babies only inches from normal birth in the back of the head, under the guise of "women's health." Some doctors, like Kermit Gosnell, became so corrupt they allegedly delivered babies and then snipped off their heads or left them to die unattended. Across the country, abortion mills maimed and sexually abused women.

Roe undermined our legal system historically based on the self-evident truth that all men are created equal and endowed with the unalienable right to life. Since Roe, neither is the right to life unalienable, nor are all men equal under the law. For the first time since slavery, an entire class of human beings (babies) has no legal protection.

When people protested, our rights to free speech were curtailed as never before. Now we have "bubble zones" where citizens are denied the right to advocate for the innocent babies and citizens are denied the right to even silently pray.

Even our religious freedoms are under attack to advance the abortion culture. At the federal level, we had to have laws (Hyde/Weldon amendments, Mexico City policy) to protect us against forced participation in the abortion genocide. Today, even that protection seems to have vanished as the current administration forces companies to violate their religious beliefs and provide abortion coverage and abortifacients to their employees.

Since abortion put all of the responsibility for children on the mother (fathers have no parental right to their pre-born children, even to save their lives), men were given carte blanche to exploit women. Where we used to hold fathers accountable for the children resulting from their sex acts, now a man just tells the woman to "get rid of it." When she objects, he can use physical or psychological force to coerce her into abortion, or just go his merry way. Women have been reduced to sex objects for men, thanks to Roe. Why do you think homicide is the leading cause of death of pregnant women?

The abortion regime has also hurt millions of women. Many are left sterile or incapable of carrying future babies to term. Untold millions more suffer or die from other medical complications of the "safe" abortion procedure. Then there's Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS), similar to PTSD, from which millions of women suffer as a direct result of their abortions.

Roe v. Wade continues to be one of the worst tragedies ever to face America.

Kurt Wuelper is president of New Hampshire Right to Life.