In a spat about the fetal remains case Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky, Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas attacked one another’s concurring and dissenting opinions. Yet Ginsburg’s response must earn some prize for redefining the meaning of words. In a footnote, the liberal justice faulted her conservative colleague for using the term “mother” to describe women who choose abortion.
“A woman who exercises her constitutionally protected right to terminate a pregnancy is not a ‘mother,'” Ginsburg wrote in an aside. This brief statement illustrates the divide between pro-life and pro-choice attitudes on abortion.
“Friendly Atheist” Hemant Mehta praised Ginsburg for the comment. “This footnote from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is [fire]. She also says a footnote in Clarence Thomas’ concurring statement ‘displays more heat than light,'” Mehta tweeted with a picture of the ruling, highlighting Ginsburg’s “not a mother” declaration.
This footnote from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 🔥. She also says a footnote in Clarence Thomas' concurring statement "displays more heat than light." pic.twitter.com/3XzDCPE8Dr
— Hemant Mehta (@hemantmehta) May 28, 2019
Conservative Iowa radio host Steve Deace noted that Ginsburg’s comment reveals the “darkness” of the abortion position. “More and more we are forcing them to reveal their heart of darkness. You’re not a mother until you want the baby. You have no obligation to the child, rather it’s obligated to you,” Deace tweeted.
More and more we are forcing them to reveal their heart of darkness. You're not a mother until you want the baby. You have no obligation to the child, rather it's obligated to you. #ProLife https://t.co/Vc5uUY4aD7
— Steve Deace (@SteveDeaceShow) May 28, 2019
Indeed, this short phrase captures the dark power a mother has over her unborn child in the abortion regime.
From the moment of conception, a unique human being with individual DNA is alive inside the woman. As the baby grows during the period of pregnancy, the mother already makes sacrifices for the baby, directing nutrients to form and then feed the child through the placenta. In an abortion, the mother has the child within her put to death. But that does not make her no longer a mother. She still gave new life to a child, however briefly. That baby is still her son or daughter, even in death. A woman who loses her child to miscarriage is still a mother. So is a woman who has an abortion.
Yet according to the pro-choice mentality, a woman is not necessarily a mother even if she has her son or daughter growing inside her. No, she only becomes a mother if she chooses to give birth to the child and care for that child.
Following the dehumanizing logic of abortion, some say that the baby inside this mother’s womb is really just a “clump of cells” or equivalent to an organ of the woman’s body. These statements are disproven by simple genetics, but they provide Orwellian political support for abortion.
Only according to this logic could Ruth Bader Ginsburg make the ridiculous claim that a woman with life growing inside her is not a mother.
Ginsburg asks Americans not just to support abortion, but to deny the humanity of the unborn baby to the extent of refusing the basic biological fact that a pregnant woman is a mother. No, Americans must “respect” her “decision” for abortion, saying she was never a mother because she wants the life within her to never have existed.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg is asking for a legal fiction. Rather than accepting that abortion kills a human being inside his or her mother’s womb, she wants Americans to act as though the baby boy or baby girl never existed in the first place. The “right to choose” extends not only to killing the baby, but to denying his or her existence.
Conservatives like Steve Deace are not having it, and neither should Americans, whatever their position on abortion.
Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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