catholicsphere

Last week, South Dakota Govenor Mike Rounds signed into a law a bill that would ban most all abortions. Neil Steinberg, columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, rejects Gov. Rounds’ statement that “the true test of a civilization is how it treats its most vulnerable and helpless in its society.” Steinberg posits that the test is how a society treats its women. He goes on to assert that banning abortion takes away a woman’s right to decide “when to have children”.

Steinberg’s commentary is typical of those who care nothing for the arguments against them. They prefer to remain in their ignorance.

First, in most sex acts, except that of rape and incest, it is of mutual consent. In such consent the woman has expressed her willingness to have a child, and should know, from even the most rudimentary sex education, that a life could be created from the act.

Even where consent was lacking in the cases of rape and incest, it does not change the fact of the matter: a human life was created. While the choice was taken away from the mother as to when to become a mother, she is a mother nonetheless. The South Dakota law recognizes that fundamental truth that too many want to ignore or count as insignificant.

But, Steinberg believes that a “woman’s right to decide” trumps that of the life of the child. Already a mother, this woman can choose to continue the pregnancy and give birth to her child, or she can choose to kill her child. She cannot choose whether to become a mother or not — she is already a mother. The choice is whether she will be the mother of a dead child or a live one.

Many critics of the law in South Dakota believe that the “health of the mother” should be a factor in allowing abortion. However, this is where “abortions of convenience” — nearly 90% of all abortions in the US — came from. South Dakota has made the important distinction, between the life of the mother and the health of the mother. They can be and are quite different things.