By Luke Nolan
Staff Writer
On Jan. 22, the New York State Senate passed Bill S240, with Governor Andrew Cuomo signing it into law the same day. Commonly referred to as the Reproductive Health Act, the law “revises provisions of law relating to abortion.”
In it, lawmakers seek to appropriate personhood from the unborn by enshrining in law that a human person is “a human being who has been born and is alive.” This law is fundamentally and intrinsically contrary to the constitutional and God-given right to life and ought to be opposed by all Christians.
The law also expanded on past exceptions made by the Supreme Court case Doe vs. Bolton, in which the court defined as broadly as possible the exceptions related to reasons for abortion. “The medical judgement may be exercised in the light of all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman’s age – relevant to the well-being of the patient. All these factors may relate to health,” according to the court opinion given by Justice Harry Blackmun.
What the recent law does is enshrine the so-called “right to abortion” in law with the hopes of further codifying it in the New York State Constitution. Further, with the promotion of abortion as a “fundamental right,” it becomes much easier to take advantage of the law. It does so with its purposely vague language regarding health and well-being and apply the exceptions to practically every case of abortion from here on out.
All of this now makes it perfectly legal, and surely within the realm of possibility, that one seeking a late-term abortion could cite common health complications related to pregnancy, such as stress, nausea and vomiting, to justify having an abortion.
The only thing that would prevent someone from getting an abortion is one’s conscience and not the law. Now, a person is well within the law if they seek to and follow through with an abortion that occurs days or even hours before the birth of a child; the child which is deemed little more than “fetal tissue.”
New York lawmakers have committed a grave injustice against the dignity of the person in the passage of the Reproductive Health Act. Through the use of vague, dishonest language and rhetorical manipulation, the State Government of New York has sentenced thousands upon thousands of innocent unborn children to die, with those who oppose the wholesale slaughter of innocents forced onto the “wrong side of history.”
nolanl17@bonaventure.edu
