Liberals, This Girl Is In Jail For Aborting Her Newborn. Why Won’t You Defend Her?
It is a wonderful time to be a member of the leftist Death Cult. There were four major news items from the baby-killing department just this week. You probably heard about three of them. Maybe not the fourth.
First, the Supreme Court ruled that abortionists have the absolute God-given right to kill babies in unsanitary, unsafe and unregulated pseudo-medical clinics.
Second, the Supreme Court sided with a Washington state law that forces Christian pharmacists to dispense abortion pills.
Third, alleged comedian Chelsea Handler wrote an article in Playboy discussing her own abortion experience. She explained how she once had two abortions in the same year. She said she’s “grateful” for her abortions and she doesn’t “look back” or think at all about her two dead children. They would have been very financially inconvenient, she reasoned, therefore it’s a great blessing that they were violently destroyed.
As post-abortive women in denial often do, she compensated for her feelings of intense guilt by thumping her chest and congratulating herself. She insisted that she should be “applauded” for aborting her kids because she would have been a bad parent – which, by the way, is a bit like blowing up your kitchen because you’re afraid you might be a bad cook. Handler also pointed out that there are 7.3 billion people in the world, making it “smart” and “sustainable” to exterminate surplus babies. She ended her essay/murder confession on a triumphantly feminist note: “I’d love for somebody to try to tell me what to do with my body,” she declared. “I dare them.”
Unsurprisingly, the left was enamored with Handler’s tale of fetal destruction and bloodshed. They called it “incredibly honest” and “brave” and “bold” and ”optimistic.” Her words were a “truth bomb,” they squealed. Her experience is “a demonstration of the importance of self-determination,” they cried. And so forth. You get the idea.
Now, keep all three of these stories in mind as we move to the fourth.
On Monday, right around the time that the Supreme Court was reaffirming a woman’s divine right to kill her baby, a judge in Ohio was sentencing a woman to life in prison without parole for doing exactly that. Emile Weaver, a former college student, now faces decades behind bars for killing her newborn daughter after giving birth to her in the bathroom of her sorority house.
The details are horrific but relevant to the discussion. Weaver became pregnant and apparently decided early on that she wasn’t going to keep the baby. She proceeded to spend her pregnancy drinking and smoking pot and playing dodge ball. She wasn’t worried about the child’s health because she knew she’d get rid of it eventually. One can assume that her unborn daughter – unaware that her mother’s womb was death row – suffered greatly as she awaited her execution.
For whatever reason, Weaver never aborted the baby while it was still inside her. She waited until she was born and placed her in a trash bag and tossed her outside. Seemingly quite satisfied with herself, she then calmly texted “No more baby” to the girl’s father. “Taken care of,” she continued to reassure him.
Weaver could have gotten as little as 20 years in prison, but the judge threw the book at her just like she threw her precious child into the trash. He decided not to give her the discount she may have expected as a young blond sorority girl. He elected to hand her the same sentence he’s probably handed other first degree murderers. Considering her callous premeditation and utter disregard for human life, it’s hard to argue with the judge’s decision.
But it’s even harder to ignore the connection between this story and the other three I outlined. Taken together, the questions they raise are obvious: Why is a woman sitting in prison for killing a baby in the same country that proclaims baby murder as the sacred right of all women? Why is Weaver branded a killer in the same country that brands Handler a hero? What are the actual moral and scientific differences between Weaver’s choice, which our culture considers criminal, and Handler’s choice, which our culture celebrates as empowering and liberating?
The answer, of course, is clear: There is no real difference. A couple of minutes is all that separates abortion from infanticide. If Weaver had simply been in a different place and gotten there a little earlier and used a different method to “take care of” her problem, she would be getting high-fives on Twitter rather than pat-downs at the big house. If that bathroom had been a clinic, if that trash bag had been a medical waste container, if the baby had been poisoned instead of suffocated, Weaver would be writing a self-congratulary essay for a feminist website rather than filing a motion with the court of appeals.
There are a million abortions in this country every year, and at least 11,000 late-term abortions. What Weaver did was a minute away from both of those statistics. If she’d just gotten around to carrying out her murderous plot one minute earlier, she’d be counted as another courageous feminist warrior, not as another inmate on cell block B.
We should note that there are people in this country who perform late-term abortions for a living. These champions of women’s rights were highlighted in a sympathetic documentary a couple of years ago. They’re invited to speak at colleges and feminist conferences. Yet they have, hundreds and thousands of times, done exactly what Weaver did, only they happen to (usually) do it while the fully-formed and developed child is in the womb. But so what? What difference does that really make?
Consider, too, that the penalties for performing illegal partial birth abortions – a method of abortion where the child is killed as it is in the process of being delivered – are quite minor. A doctor who kills a baby when almost its entire body is hanging outside of the mother’s birth canal faces the possibility of fines. Meanwhile, a woman who kills a baby a second after the head comes out of her birth canal faces life in prison. On what moral or scientific principle can we justify that sort of disparity? It should be obvious to anyone who thinks about this for even a moment that either that doctor is just as guilty as that mother, or that mother is just as innocent as that doctor.
Let’s go back to Handler’s heroic Playboy editorial. You recall that she offered three rationales for her decision to kill two children in a single year. Weaver could qualify under all three:
1. The world is overpopulated.
If the the mythological overpopulation of the Earth makes abortion “smart” and “sustainable,” surely it makes post-birth abortion just as smart and just as sustainable. In fact, it makes all murder smart and sustainable, especially the most efficient forms of it. Genocidal dictators, terrorists, and serial killers have done far more to solve the overpopulation problem than Handler. Why should she get all the credit? If Handler can be “applauded” for terminating two human beings in the name of environmental sustainability, surely Pol Pot deserves a standing ovation.
Weaver did not contribute as much to the depopulation effort as either Handler or Pol Pot, but pro-aborts should still be grateful for her modest effort. And they certainly shouldn’t support locking her in prison for it.
2. She would be a bad parent.
If the possibility of being a “bad parent” can justify abortion in the womb, obviously it can justify abortion outside of the womb. Weaver was a reckless, selfish, cruel and immature sorority girl. If she can’t make a claim to being a bad mother, or a potentially bad mother, nobody can. So if any woman can kill her child because of the potential of being a bad mother, why can’t she? Why should the return policy end at birth? As a matter of fact, why should it end at any point?
After all, a mother doesn’t really know what kind of parent she’ll be when the child is still inside her. She still doesn’t know a second or two postpartum. But what about a mother who has actually given it a go and realized through experience that she’s simply not cut out for this whole mothering deal? Why should she be forced to continue in the endeavor indefinitely? Why did Handler get to kill a kid because she might be a bad mother, but actual bad mothers can’t? Weaver gave birth to her daughter, looked in her eyes, and still felt no desire to care for her. Why should she be forced into it if Handler wasn’t? Again, what is the moral and scientific reasoning behind imposing motherhood on one woman but not on the other?
3. She can do what she wants with her body.
If Handler can kill her kids because it’s her body and she can do what she wants, why couldn’t Weaver? Remember, Weaver faced a stiffer sentence because she drank and smoked and played violent sports while carrying a baby in her womb. But she made those choices with her body, didn’t she? Shouldn’t pro-choicers be outraged that this poor woman is being persecuted for using her body as she saw fit? The baby didn’t even count as a legal person while Weaver was poisoning it with liquor and drugs. Why should it be held against her?
And after the child was born, Weaver still retained “autonomy,” did she not? She didn’t even kill the kid directly. She simply put it in a bag and refused to do anything for it. By pro-abortion logic, why should she be forced? Why should she be compelled to use her body to hold the child, carry it, feed it, clothe it, etc.?
Yes, she could have put her daughter up for adoption. She could have even surrendered her at a hospital rather than kill her. But that requires her to use her body, doesn’t it? She has to make phone calls, drive somewhere, probably fill out some forms. Worst of all, in the mean time she’d still have to provide some basic care, entirely against her will as a sovereign and independent woman. Newborn babies are very delicate and require immediate, hands-on attention. If they don’t receive that attention, they’ll die. The law requires a mother give that attention, but on what basis? The thing is just a few breaths removed from being an inhuman blob of cells. How important can it really be? And at any rate, how can an autonomous woman be turned into the thing’s slave?
How can we coerce a mother into physically – with her body – tending to the child if we cannot coerce her into simply remaining pregnant for a few months. I have it on good authority from virtually every woman I’ve ever heard speak on the subject that caring for a newborn is infinitely more difficult and demanding than being pregnant. Why should the harder job be required if the easier one is not? If a woman can be judge, jury and executioner of her unborn progeny, why should she lose that authority upon delivery? Why should her godlike powers over life and death end at her vagina? Why are feminists limiting themselves in this way?
Liberals should be outraged by Weaver’s conviction and sentence. She did exactly what millions of other women have done, and she did it for exactly the same reason. They ought to rally to her defense. They ought to be condemning this judge – this man judge – for daring to question the difficult choice a woman had to make. There ought to be #JusticeForEmile hashtags. Liberals ought to be taking pictures of themselves looking somber and holding signs that say “Bring Back Emile” and “Free Weaver” and “Emile’s Body Emile’s Choice.” Liberal politicians ought to be championing her cause. Hillary Clinton ought to be coming ferociously to Weaver’s defense, explaining how her oppression is an oppression of all women everywhere.
I just want liberals to be consistent. I want them to approach this issue with their eyes all the way open, which is something most of them have never done. I want them to accept the unavoidable reality that what happened in the sorority bathroom is the same as what happens in abortion clinics every day. They are identical situations. You cannot escape it it. You cannot deny it.
I want them to confront the awful fact that every argument they make in favor of abortion also applies to infanticide. I want them to see that the arguments are the same because the actions are the same. Then I want them finally to decide if they can really remain on the side of the argument that justifies, whether inadvertently or inadvertently, the first degree murder of infants.
And if they find that they can – if their conscience is so dead that they can actually take their abortion logic to its reasonable conclusion without wincing – then let them go out and make their case. But let them make it honestly for a change. Let them come out and show themselves. Let them become unabashed defenders of violence and brutality. If we cannot drive the Devil out of this country, at least we can strip off his mask.
This article was originally published in The Blaze.