With recent appointments to the Supreme Court nudging the institution away from judicial activism and toward an originalist view of interpreting the Constitution, some state lawmakers supported by the abortion industry are panicking.
Hyperventilating about the mere possibility that the court might return decisions on abortion back to the states after reviewing the legally and socially disastrous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, they are introducing extreme state legislation that flies in the face of their constituents’ mainstream views.
New Jersey legislators, in particular, appear intent on pushing their state off the precipice of sensibility and sanity on the issue of abortion, trying to shove through a sweeping bill euphemistically titled the “Reproductive Freedom Act.” Whereas scientific polling shows that both “pro-choice” and “pro-life” people overwhelmingly support limits on abortion, this radical bill would jettison virtually all of them.
A scant 15% of people surveyed want abortion permitted at any time during pregnancy, according to a 2020 Marist poll. Only seven countries in the world, including North Korea, China, and Vietnam, allow abortion after 20 weeks of an unborn baby’s development. Yet the “Reproductive Freedom Act” asserts a right to abortion without any restriction related to gestation — meaning that a baby ready to be delivered could instead be aborted at that moment.
Fewer than one in five people support spending our tax dollars on abortions, the Marist poll found. In contrast, the New Jersey legislation “requires the Department of Human Services to establish and administer a program to reimburse the cost of … abortion care.”
Four in five people believe that laws can “protect both the health and well-being of a woman and the life of the unborn,” according to Marist. Anyone who has watched an ultrasound video of a developing baby smiling, squirming, or holding the hand of her developing twin immediately recognizes the humanity of the unborn little person in the womb. Yet, the bill coldly asserts that a “fetus shall not have independent rights under the laws of this state.”
Seven in 10 people support “laws requiring abortions to only be performed by doctors who have hospital admitting privileges, meaning they can admit a patient to a hospital to get tests and treatment,” according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. Yet, the “Reproductive Freedom Act” would lower the physician health and safety standard and “enable all qualified health care professionals to provide abortion services in the state,” including any “advance practice nurse, physician assistant, certified midwife, or certified nurse midwife.”
A majority of people, according to Kaiser, oppose laws that would “force employers who may have moral or religious objections to pay for abortions as part of their employees’ health insurance plans.” The New Jersey bill tramples conscience and religious convictions, requiring “all insurance carriers to provide coverage … for abortion care.”
Similarly, more than four in five people, according to a Heart and Mind Strategies poll, believe that “healthcare professionals should not be forced to perform procedures against their moral beliefs.” Yet, the New Jersey bill contains no provision to protect healthcare professional, conscientious objectors who could lose their jobs simply for following the life-honoring tenets of the Hippocratic oath.
State legislators who care about women’s health and safety, who recognize what science is revealing about the developing baby, and who listen to, rather than disdain, the views of their constituents need to hear from the vast majority of citizens who reject this type of radical fringe abortion agenda oozing through the states.
As we recover from a lethal pandemic and look for ways to achieve unity amid deep political divisions, we can continue the healing and bridge-building by rejecting such radical legislation, instead rallying around the consensus, shared ideals of protecting the health and lives of both mother and baby.
Jonathan Imbody is director of federal government relations for the Christian Medical Association and director of Freedom2Care.
