PPL News - Fall 2003

Presbyterians Pro-Life NEWS
Fall 2003

G.A. affirms abortion decisions for late term babies who could live if born

"Only in the rarest of circumstances and … when necessary":
How rare? How necessary?

Ed. Note. The General Assembly adopted a statement in 2002 that says that the "ending of a pregnancy after the point of fetal viability is a matter of grave moral concern to us all...." It then continues by stating so many exceptions in which viable babies late in pregnancy may be aborted, that no protection for those babies remains. Under the current legal definition of "health" in abortion policy, even temporary distress qualifies as a "health" reason for abortion. That is why abortion is legal through all nine months of pregnancy in the United States. This statement was designed by its authors, members of the Advisory Committee on Litigation (ACL) and The Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP), to pave the way for the submission of amicus briefs and other lobbying in favor of partial birth and other late term abortion. Their original report to the G.A. in 2000 says so.

The General Assembly has been duped by these Standing Committees into supporting what most Americans and most Presbyterians deplore. The G.A. action supports what Scripture states is forbidden: the killing of the innocent. The facts of the matter are clear and have been presented to General Assemblies clearly, in testimony and in writing, by physicians, counselors, pastors, and mental health experts. The facts are:

1. The subject is babies who could live if born

The moral guidance called for in the statement pertains only to "viable" babies, defined as babies who could live outside the womb if they were delivered live.

2. Late in pregnancy no procedure is safer or healthier for mother or baby than live delivery

There is no life or health or other situation in the case of either mother or child late in pregnancy that makes abortion safer or healthier or in any way more advantageous than live delivery. Taking the life of a baby late in pregnancy is never a medical necessity (please see the wording of a petition signed by nearly 200 Presbyterian physicians below).

3. Every baby must be delivered—dead or alive

Every baby must be delivered. There is no other option. The moral guidance pertains to whether a baby who could live outside the womb should be delivered live or delivered after deliberately ending the life of the baby.

4. Abortion late in pregnancy does not preserve a mother’s life or health

Abortion instead of live delivery late in pregnancy does nothing to preserve a mother’s life or health. That is because live delivery can be accomplished easily within a couple of hours of the decision to end the pregnancy. Abortion requires additional steps which make the delivery riskier and of longer duration than live delivery. Therefore, giving moral approval for abortion in cases of life or health, is giving moral approval to killing a viable child without reason, as well as increasing the risk to the mother.

5. Objections to abortion for abnormalities

Abortion to end a pregnancy in the case of severe life-threatening fetal anomalies raises at least four objections. First is the G.A. statement’s reference to "viable." If the baby is not viable–able to live if delivered, even with some intervention–then the statement does not apply.

Second, an increasing number of "life-threatening" conditions are now treatable both before and after delivery. Surgeries and other interventions in the womb are increasingly common. Many of these interventions allow a baby to proceed toward completely normal development. Abortion as an intervention ends the possibility of life-preserving treatments.

Third, anomalies that affect human beings do not render them less than human or disqualify them for life. There is a rather frightening eugenics quality to this exception.

Fourth, adoption is always an option. More than a quarter of all adoptions are of special needs children.

6. Objections to aborting viable babies of rape and incest

The final exception allowing abortion in the statement is for incest or rape. The reasoning, though none is expressed in the statement, appears to be that even though the baby could be delivered alive, it should be killed instead because the mother could not deal with a baby as the result of rape or incest.

The baby conceived of rape or incest may be perfectly healthy. There are at least two million couples waiting to adopt a child. Many of them are childless and have been waiting for several years hoping to adopt. Many of them would welcome a baby conceived in rape or incest—or a handicapped child—and would gladly whisk that baby away from the delivery room immediately if they were allowed to do that.

There need be no delay in ending a late term pregnancy in cases of rape or incest. Live delivery allows a child to become part of a family and also allows the mother to continue the process of healing. There is no burden in delivery of the baby in these cases. In fact, the mother is spared the guilt of ending the life of her own child.

G.A. statement will not prevent a single late term abortion

Late term abortions constitute a small percentage of abortions in our country, but the numbers may exceed 15,000 in a given year. That is no small number. The exceptions approved in the G.A. statement would not prevent a single late term abortion.

These are the facts. These are the reasons why the church ought to favor life over death when problems arise late in pregnancy. These are the reasons why the General Assembly should have replaced exceptions to allow abortion with the affirmation of life that came from four of our presbyteries:

[That the General Assembly] reaffirms [its] moral counsel "to the church and to our culture that the procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (commonly called ‘partial birth’ abortion) of a baby who could live outside the womb is of grave moral concern" and, furthermore, offers the moral counsel that if it were necessary to end a pregnancy to protect the mother’s life or health in the later months of pregnancy when the baby would be able to live outside the womb, a procedure should be chosen which gives both the mother and the child the opportunity to live.

(Language is from Huntingdon Presbytery’s overture. Presbyteries of Lackawanna, San Gabriel, and Sacramento adopted similar language. Click here for PPL's GA Report)

Presbyterian physicians petition G.A. to protect babies late in Pregnancy

In addition to testimony by Presbyterian pediatricians before the General Assembly committee to which the abortion business was referred, physician Ed Ho, a member of Corona Presbyterian Church in Denver, presented the committee with a petition signed by nearly 200 Presbyterian physicians. The most pertient wording of the petition is:
We, the undersigned physician members of the Presbyterian Church (USA) affirm that with modern medicine, abortion of a fetus who is able to live outside the womb is never needed to preserve the life or health (including future reproductive capability) of the mother....If problems develop in a pregnancy at a point when the fetus could live outside the womb and continuation of the pregnancy endangers the life or physical health of the mother, abortion is not the only or a necessary means of terminating the pregnancy. The mother’s safety can best be ensured by using procedures that provide the fetus with a chance for live birth. Common medically-accepted procedures for terminating late term pregnancies that allow the fetus to live when problems develop are prematurely induced labor with a vaginal delivery or a scheduled or emergency Caesarian section.

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