Doing what's right and doing it now

Why a bill as plain and simple and right as the one banning partial-birth abortion should prove to be so difficult for the New York State Assembly to pass should not surprise anyone with a sense of history. After all, legislative bodies in this state and nationally took far more time than necessary to pass legislation that prohibited slavery, allowed women to vote and restricted child labor. Often, lawmakers arrive at justice only after a long and circuitous journey, and only after a firm shove or two from their constituents.

It is now far past time for the Assembly, especially its leadership and Health Committee, to stop temporizing and to admit what is restraining it from acting: It is enthralled to the extremist wing of the pro-abortion movement, which opposes any restriction on killing unborn children, even as they hang outside their mothers, and any method of killing them, even sucking their brains out.

If legislators would admit that they are co-dependent to such a dysfunctional viewpoint, they would be freed to pass the ban on partial-birth abortions, a ban which the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate have passed overwhelmingly, and which the vast majority of Americans support, including those who are pro-abortion. After all, it was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the U.S. Senator from this state (who generally votes with the pro-abortion side), who labeled partial-birth abortions as "close to infanticide."

Earlier this week, pro-lifers gathered in Albany to rally in favor of the bill (S.1800 and A.5463) and to lobby for its immediate passage. "This is an urgent moral issue of the highest priority," said the Rev. Duane Motley, executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms.

His succinct statement, the testimony of doctors who decry the practice, the witness of women who chose life when faced with a difficulty during pregnancy and justice itself demand that the State Assembly stop its legislative delaying tactics and act. It is the plain and simple and right thing to do -- now.

(05-22-97)

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