No, I’m not referring to what happened at Virginia Tech earlier this week, although the description above is certainly applicable.
I’m referring to partial-birth abortion, a procedure that Congress declared “gruesome and inhumane” and voted to ban. Earlier this week the Supreme Court upheld the prohibition. You can read the opinions here.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, cuts through the vague declarations about choices and procedures and uses the testimony of a nurse to describe the “procedure” in question:
“ ‘Dr. Haskell went in with forceps and grabbed the baby’s legs and pulled them down into the birth canal. Then he delivered the baby’s body and the arms—everything but the head. The doctor kept the head right inside the uterus… .
“ ‘The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out, like a startle reaction, like a flinch, like a baby does when he thinks he is going to fall.
“ ‘The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp… .
“ ‘He cut the umbilical cord and delivered the placenta. He threw the baby in a pan, along with the placenta and the instruments he had just used.’
It is jarring to read these words in a legal opinion from the United States Supreme Court. It is easier to recoil, to look away, than to confront evil.
I am thankful that the vast majority of Americans, even those who are “pro-choice”, and now five members of the United States Supreme Court, agree that a civilized society must end the infanticide described above.