Our elected representatives in Washington should champion policies reflecting the will of the American people and cease their divisive rhetoric.
The fact is the issue of abortion is not nearly as divisive as politicians would like to make it. While most Americans believe abortion should be legal in the first trimester (69% support), majorities also oppose abortion being legal in the second (55% oppose) and third (70% oppose) trimesters.
This is the will of the American people. It also tracks the standard of Europe, where most countries protect the right to an abortion in the first trimester but restrict it after that. But politicians seek to obscure support for this compromise position to further their parties’ agendas.
Recently, Vice President Kamala Harris became the first vice president in history to visit an abortion clinic. as part of her Fight for Reproductive Freedom Tour. Speaking at this event she referred to duly elected state legislatures, who vote for standards on abortions, as “extremists'' and said President Trump hand-picked his Supreme Court nominees because “he intended for them to take your freedoms.”
Once upon a time, this type of rhetoric was called out for what it is: unnecessarily divisive and wrong. In 1990, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a prominent Maryland Democrat, called out such rhetoric when the National Abortion Rights Action League used a quote from her late brother, President John F. Kennedy, out of context.
“I read with indignation the use of a quote from my brother, President John F. Kennedy, in an advertisement placed by the National Abortion Rights Action League to defend its position on unlimited rights to abortion and at the same time attack the National Conference of Catholic Bishops…,” wrote Ms. Kennedy Shriver in the pages of the New York Times.
Many of us read, with similar indignation, the words of Vice President Harris, and President Biden when they say, from their positions as government officials, that any American who supports standards on abortion is an “extremist” and is taking away the freedoms of others.
What’s even more irksome is the spending bill, passed on Saturday, which includes a $1.8 million earmark for a hospital that performs late-term abortions, as well as the House Democrats’ two-times passage and reintroduction this year of the Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA), which would enshrine late-term abortion in federal law and supersede state laws placing standards on abortion.
Both of these actions are contrary to the will of the American people, yet one provision is now law and uses taxpayer funds to support late-term abortions, and the other, if passed, would put the U.S. on par with communist China and North Korea as one of the few countries in the world permitting late-term abortions.
The divisive rhetoric, along with the pushing and adoption of policies against the will of the American people angers me, just as it angered Ms. Kennedy Shriver. She expressed her views, and those of President Kennedy, writing that this type of rhetoric, “sets group against group, religion against religion, to the detriment of everyone…President Kennedy believed and practiced the value that America should offer a free marketplace for all views, even those of Catholic bishops.”
Most Americans do not want and do not support late-term abortions. Likewise, a majority don’t want a full ban on abortion.
In keeping with the vision of President Kennedy, it’s time for the representatives we elect to cease their divisive rhetoric and champion policies that reflect the will of the American people, not their own distorted views of an America akin to communist dictatorships.
Lee Rizzuto is the former Consul General of Bermuda.
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