| Life Chain protests
abortion
By Jacob Harrison
Collegian Reporter
Hillsdale College
students and faculty were among approximately 150 Michigan residents
who participated in the national Life Chain event last week
in protest of abortion and in support of a bill recently proposed
by the state legislature to ban "partial-birth" abortion.
Dr. Charles 'Bud' Vear, president
of the Right to Life in Hillsdale, said that this was Hillsdale's
first Life Chain, which drew demonstrators to Highway 99, between
Hillsdale and Jonesville.
Participants held signs and stood
in solidarity against abortion, as part of what he said was
a "silent informational public display."
Vear, who has been a local family
practitioner for 24 years and the college's physician for 20
years, said the Life Chain is meant to educate the public about
abortion.
"The purpose of this event
is to illustrate that abortion is not a mere medical procedure,
but it in fact kills a child," he said.
Several college students joined
the Life Chain, including sophomore Alycia Polce, who said that
with abortion, women today are being told to make a value judgment
that no one should be willing to make.
"Abortion is either a right
thing or a wrong thing," she said. "Who is ready to
say that the life of one person is more valuable than the life
of another?"
In Michigan, the Life Chain event
was electrified by the state legislature's recent "Legal
Birth Definition Act."
On Sept. 30 the State Senate delivered
a bill to Gov. Jennifer Granholm that would have effectively
banned partial-birth abortion, except in cases of high risk
to the mother.
Signed by overwhelming majorities
in both the House and Senate, the bill was prepared to avoid
court censure by establishing a child's constitutional rights
at birth and defining birth as when "any part" of
the fetus is outside the mother's body.
Although a Detroit News poll reported
88 percent of Michigan residents supported the bill, Granholm
vetoed the measure last Friday.
The state legislature will likely
seek to overturn the governor's veto, since the bill passed
in the Senate only one vote short of the necessary two-thirds
majority to override.
Granholm said the bill failed
to "make exception for the health of the mother,"
a common complaint among abortion rights advocates.
In recent months the word "health"
has come under as much judicial and legislative scrutiny as
the words "birth" and "life."
Lucy Moye, associate professor
of history, participated in the Life Chain and is president
of the board at Alpha Omega Women's Care Center in Hillsdale.
She said the problem with the
"health" clause is that it can include psychological
or even economic interests, effectively removing all limitations,
rather than limiting late-term abortions.
"The medical community has
roundly determined that third-trimester procedures are unnecessary
and that health is certainly not the issue," she said.
The health risks involved in late-term
abortions rarely threaten the life of the mother, but often
involve psychological and emotional ramifications afterward,
Moye said.
Places like Alpha Omega provide
counseling that is not available through organizations like
Planned Parenthood, which refuses to recognize "post-abortion
syndrome" many women claim to suffer.
Instead, in recent late-term abortion
cases, women have been provided services such as fetal baptisms,
mourning rooms and physicians who will allow the mother to hold
her aborted fetus in order to "say goodbye."
In other cases, the woman is given
a doll to carry around for a few days, which she must eventually
bury herself as a method of achieving closure.
The landmark Supreme Court decision
in Roe v Wade determined that after the point of "fetal
viability," states may impose restrictions on or even prohibit
abortion altogether, except in cases where a mother's "life
or health" are at risk.
"I have delivered over 2,000
children, and never had occasion to choose between the mother
and child at that late a stage of delivery," Vear said.
"The 'health of the mother' clause sounds fine, but its
interpretation places no limitation whatsoever on third-trimester
abortions."
The recent attempts by state and
federal legislatures to ban partial-birth abortions are centered
on the two late-pregnancy methods known as D&X (Dilation
and Extraction) and D&E (Dilation and Evacuation).
D&X is a procedure in which
the body is turned and delivered up to the neck and the brain
extracted by a suction catheter that collapses the skull before
removal. In D&E operations, the physician dismembers the
body in the uterine cavity and removes it through the cervix.
A national movement to eradicate
partial-birth abortion gained momentum in the mid-90s, with
31 states enacting legislation to limit the procedure. The Supreme
Court has since struck down 20 of those state prohibitions,
ruling them unconstitutional.
The 2002-2003 winter session of
the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill prohibiting D&X
procedures, referring to them as "partial-birth infanticide,"
but a federal lawsuit has been filed to overturn their law.
A Detroit News poll this year
showed that while 45 percent of voters oppose abortion, except
to save the mother's life, 70 percent of Americans oppose partial-birth
abortion procedures altogether.
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Photo courtesy of Gloria Vear
Hillsdale residents and
college students lined Carleton Road waving signs in support
of a bill to ban partial-birth abortion. Last week's event drew
approximately 150 people. The issue was heightened by the state
legislature's Legal Birth Definition Act.
Sophomores Crystal Hubbard (L) and Rosa Thomspon participated
in the Life Chain.
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