Day of Infamy

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jan 22, 2005

January 22nd 1973 is a date that, like the name "Auschwitz," is never pronounced without a vibration of horror. Even the most ferocious advocates of abortion-on-demand prefer to focus our attention elsewhere than the Roe-versus-Wade decision, an act of intellectual and moral debasement so profound that those who profit from it can never quite rub the blood from their hands. Ramesh Ponnuro, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Roe, made some remarks still worth reading:

The abortion regime was born in lies. In Britain (and in California, pre-Roe), the abortion lobby deceptively promoted legal revisions to allow "therapeutic" abortions and then defined every abortion as "therapeutic." The abortion lobby lied about Jane Roe, claiming her pregnancy resulted from a gang rape. It lied about the number of back-alley abortions. Justice Blackmun relied on fictitious history to argue, in Roe, that abortion had never been a common law crime.

The abortion regime is also sustained by lies. Its supporters constantly lie about the radicalism of Roe: even now, most Americans who "agree with Roe v. Wade" in polls think that it left third-term abortions illegal and restricted second-term abortions. They have lied about the frequency and "medical necessity" of partial-birth abortion. Then there are the euphemisms: "terminating a pregnancy," abortion "providers," "products of conception." "The fetus is only a potential human being" -- as if it might as easily become an elk. "It should be between a woman and her doctor" -- the latter an abortionist who has never met the woman before and who has a financial interest in her decision. This movement cannot speak the truth.

For some exceptionally powerful essays on Roe and its consequences, check out the following by Will, Bottum, Arkes, George & Lee, Sobran, and Finnis.