Responding to Rebuttals To My Support of HF 5 Iowa’s Late-Term Abortion Ban

I wanted to address a couple of comments I have received after my post in support of Iowa House File 5 which would effectively ban abortions after 20 weeks with the exception of a specific threat to the life of the mother or the loss of a major bodily function.

One commenter pointed out the failure of the partial birth abortion ban, saying no babies were saved.  First, how exactly can one say that?  How can you quantify that specifically?  I agree that banning one technique is extremely limited, but you really can’t equate that with this ban.

Another commenter basically questioned my pro-life bona fides when he said, “You can’t claim to be pro-life if (sic) support legislation that violates the core tenent (sic) that all pre-born babies possess an inalienable right to life… As Christians we don’t have the right to say it’s ok to kill certain types of babies.”

This gentleman also wanted to call National Right to Life and Priests for Life “fake” prolife organizations.  Really?  I’m sorry that is completely arrogant.  Let’s not confuse strategy from principles.

I reject the premise of his argument.  I’m not saying it is ok to kill certain types of babies.  I’m trying to restrict what I can.  It is already legal to have an abortion.  This bill makes it harder.  If I didn’t want to go further than this then I guess this guy’s criticism would be valid, but I don’t.

If you apply this argument to other issues – back before the Civil War, you’d say legislation that would keep new states from being slave states isn’t ok, because it doesn’t ban slavery outright.  Is that a reasonable position to have?  Is it not ok to keep slavery from being expanded while you work toward an outright ban?

How would this gentleman like me to turn this around on him.  By not supporting this ban you are saying it is ok for late-term babies to be killed if you can’t get a personhood bill passed.  As a Christian we don’t have the right to say it’s ok to kill certain types of babies right?  Well evidently he is ok with late-term babies to be aborted.  Besides if this is such a prochoice bill Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion Democrats should be in support right?

Just to note, I don’t believe that, and I’m not going to attack the character and principles of fellow prolifers who disagree with me.  It is a strategy, period.  Which brings me to the next commenter who alludes that I don’t support the Personhood amendment – HJR 3 .  He said I need to promote it.  In my defense, this was just introduced the afternoon before I wrote my previous post and wasn’t online yet.  So I didn’t know about it.

Let me be clear, I want a personhood amendment passed, and any other prolife legislation passed.  I have never said otherwise.  If Republican leadership fudges on these I will not hesitate to call them out either.