In 1983, President Ronald Reagan penned an essay that became a book entitled, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation. “The real question today is not when human life begins, but, ‘What is the value of human life?'” he wrote. “The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being. The real question for him and for all of us is whether that tiny human life has a God-given right to be protected by the law — the same right we have.”
We as a society must ask ourselves, as President Reagan did, “What is the value of human life?” We know that for those in the abortion industry, and especially the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, innocent human life has no value — unless the body parts are made available piece by piece.
In two videos released earlier this month, Drs. Deborah Nucatola and Mary Gatter, both senior PPFA officials, are shown discussing ways PPFA facilities are able to kill unborn children by altering abortion methods to more effectively facilitate the procurement of intact body parts to order, specifically hearts, lungs, livers and heads.
The conversation with Gatter enters the realm of utter depravity when she says she will explore “using a less crunchy technique to get more whole specimens.” The conversation regarding these two videos has been focused largely on defunding Planned Parenthood. But I would expand that to say no tax money should be given to any organization or corporation that participates in the killing of unborn children. We need to do more than defund the abortion industry.
We need to stop abortion. Two pieces of legislation championed by National Right to Life would at least begin to limit the ability of the abortion industry to deliver intact, well-developed baby body parts to order. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act has passed in 12 states, passed in the U.S. House, and is awaiting a vote in the U.S. Senate. This legislation would protect unborn children beginning at 20 weeks fetal age, based on congressional findings that by that point, and even earlier, the unborn child has the capacity to experience great pain during an abortion.
The Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act would prevent the killing of unborn children by dismembering them piece by piece. Earlier, Kansas and Oklahoma became the first two states to ban dismemberment abortions. If someone is troubled by what has been revealed in these videos, they should also be troubled by abortion itself, and the fact that more than one million unborn babies lose their lives to abortion every year.
After 43 years of abortion on demand, too many people have become numbed to the daily carnage and apathetic to the need for action. The lives of these little ones have value simply because they are human. They need all of us to be their voices.
Carol Tobias is president of the National Right to Life Committee. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
