By Judie Brown
I have always been fascinated by the manner in which our opponents couch their arguments. This is particularly true in the "field" of reproductive health, which is a fairly new area of medical specialty and is fully supported and encouraged by every anti-life scientist known to man.
Just before this past election, a small group led by Alta Charo and guided by the philosophy of the now-deceased Dr. Allan Rosenfield, wrote the following in a commentary for the New England Journal of Medicine, on the subject of how a new administration might deal with this all-important specialty:
Reproductive health policy has been mired in debates over abortion and sexuality, leaving unresolved a cluster of reproductive health problems. For a country of such wealth and technical prowess, the United States has long fared poorly in this key public health domain. The litany of grave public health problems is as familiar as it is long: elevated rates of pregnancy-associated deaths, infant deaths, low-birth-weight newborns and preterm births, adolescent pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and unintended pregnancies. Some of these rates have actually increased in recent years, and all are far higher than those in other developed countries. Moreover, these problems are concentrated among disadvantaged groups, and the disparities have persisted or worsened in the past three decades.
This introductory paragraph sets the tone for a screed aimed at disqualifying those who believe in personhood from entering into a professional-level debate on the value of the human person versus the mechanized practice of sexual relations without consequences. Note the use of terms such as "key public health domain" and "grave public health problems." Of course, they go on to make wild claims about the need to give attention to a host of questions, each of which is supposedly best addressed by increased federal funding of the sex-without-consequences agenda.
Rosenfield and Charo have a long history of anti-life activity. It was the late Dr. Rosenfield whose efforts inspired such leading abortion and birth control advocates as Frances Kissling, of Catholics for a Free Choice, and Sharon Camp, CEO of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, to remember him fondly for the contributions he made in the reproductive health arena. Some say that Rosenfield paved the way for the current push to indoctrinate young women, in particular, with information that equates sexual well-being with "accurate information," such as denying the clinical fact that many forms of contraception can actually cause abortion by interfering with implantation. Camp said this about Rosenfield:
Allan Rosenfield was a giant in our field and his death feels almost like the end of an era. He led in so many ways on so many issues. He was the only person ever to chair the boards of both Planned Parenthood and the Guttmacher Institute. There will never be another like him.
Indeed, Rosenfield did frame the debate, which many of us believe will now rage forward at breakneck speed if the Obama-Biden administration delivers on its promises. It is abundantly clear that the discussion will be ignited and sustained by using words that portray sexuality as a mechanical function rather than part of the whole person. This is how Planned Parenthood and its allies have long framed the debate, and the most recent discussion in NEJM carries it one step forward.
But before I show you what I mean, let's remember that animals reproduce and human beings procreate. However, when our foes discuss this subject, human beings are relegated to the status of animals with reproductive functions.
The article's tenor is that of sincere concern for women in all situations. Indeed, we are led to believe that their concern for those facing infertility is as great as it is for women who want to be sexually active while disregarding possible consequences. The authors want the government to address the needs of families who have to balance work and family, and they argue that because the government has allegedly ignored the needs of such mothers, many women delay their first pregnancy, which leads to higher rates of material morbidity and mortality. I am positive that much of what is in the article is true, but I am equally convinced that there is a method to the madness. The authors tell us,
We know how to improve the reproductive health of Americans: base policies on evidence, not ideology; improve clinical research and post marketing drug-safety studies; make accurate, comprehensive information about sexual health and family planning available to everyone, regardless of age; protect the privacy of patients; ensure access to reproductive health products and services; and adopt social policies that promote good health and facilitate individual choice about when to have children. As noted in the consensus documents from the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, care that promotes all these aspects of reproductive health is not just good policy, it is a human right.
"Ideology," according to the authors, refers to those individuals who understand, based on basic biology, that a preborn human being is a person from his or her beginning while those who deny it are the only ones to be trusted with framing the question and doling out the proper phrases – all for the purpose of promoting their own agenda, of course.
The "regardless of age" phrase tells us that these people want anyone, from kindergarten onward, to receive information that will make their sexual health as good as it gets, or should I say, only improves their ability to divorce moral absolutes from behavior.
Individual choice is and always has been the code word for unfettered abortion. Let's not forget that we are supposed to believe that even Obama is not really pro-abortion but, rather, "pro-choice"!
And finally, the proponents of the sexual freedom/reproductive health agenda write and speak in terms of human rights, while at the same time making an entire class of human beings subject to the whims of an ideology that equates human rights with giving a license to every expectant mother to have her own baby killed, unless she "wants" her preborn child – by "choice."
Human rights run amuck? Indeed, but will this be business as usual – at an accelerated pace – under the Obama-Biden administration? I think you can count on it.
Judie Brown is president of American Life League and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
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