North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper-- a liberal mainline Presbyterian-- vetoed last week the bill passed by General Assembly Republicans to protect infants born alive during botched elective abortion procedures. Cooper claimed that current law protects the newborn infant.
The media/left complex has raised questions as to whether this scenario has been a problem in North Carolina. If enough abortions are performed, however, infants will be born alive. National reporting has suggested they are then often subjected to willful neglect until they succumb. (In fact, this is precisely what the Virginia governor famously advocated recently.)
WRAL had an editorial last week that typifies this point of view:
This bill doesn’t protect the lives of anyone who isn’t already protected under current law. INFANTICIDE IS AGAINST THE LAW. If a baby is born alive, no matter the circumstances, doctors must take all appropriate measures to preserve that life. It is already a crime to kill a baby.
Any doctors that do it violate the law, their medical ethics and go to jail.
Others have claimed that a doctor would be in trouble with the Medical Board if the baby were to die.
I am not so sure about these interpretations.
When an abortion procedure is performed, the physician's contract is with the mother-- the pregnant woman. The pregnant woman is his patient-- not the baby. His role is to kill the baby, so it is difficult to conceive that he has a traditional doctor-patient relationship with the baby, and all the obligations that kind of relationship implies.
Let's presume that the abortion is botched-- and the infant is born alive, but in medical distress. Let's further assume this is a freestanding abortion clinic where no other doctors are present. Does the abortionist have an obligation to provide care for the baby? Remember, the baby is NOT his patient; and the pregnant mother-- who IS his patient-- wants the baby dead. Is he affirmatively required to provide state-of-the-art medical care including resuscitation for the baby born alive, even when he does not know how to provide this care properly, and even though it is outside his training and experience? Is he required to provide this care even though he has not agreed to do so?
Moreover, when this happens, is the North Carolina Medical Board likely to require this of the abortionist, even though his sole obligation is to the mother who wants the baby dead? Nobody is truly responsible for the appropriate care of the baby in such an instance. This is the hornet's nest created by Roe v. Wade.
I think this scenario likely has occurred in North Carolina on numerous occasions. And it has likely occurred in the shadows, beyond the view of the public, and beyond any real accountability. All that is required is for a few people to remain silent.
Cooper's liberal mainline Presbyterian heritage is overtly pro-abortion. Let's remember the various worldview elements held commonly within liberal mainline Protestantism-- radical feminism, sexual liberationism, secularism, cultural relativism and socialism. In fact, the worldview elements common within Cooper's denomination are very similar to those typically held within contemporary Judaism. Some might argue the denomination is not authentically Christian because it is systematically unrepentant.
Cooper was not going to sign this bill. No way. It would have been contrary to his worldview.
Let's hope the General Assembly is able to override, even though the GOP no longer enjoys a veto-proof majority.
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