Opinion: I'm going to write about abortion as long as I need to

I’m sure that regular readers of this column think all I ever talk about, write about, ruminate on and care about is abortion.

Those who think I write too often about abortion tend to think women should have access to the procedure with relatively few limitations, and that my continued harping on the essential inhumanity of the act is just wrong, self-defeating, offensive and my favorite recent critique, “misogynistic.”

I might even concede I spend far too much time focusing on this violation of the right to life when there is so much else going on around the world: war, famine, women being murdered for unfortunate wardrobe mistakes, child abuse, genocide and such.

My profession as an asylum practitioner actually does give me time to focus on those crises in real time, every day, so it’s not like I’m unaware of what’s happening to the sisters in Afghanistan under the Taliban or the fighters in Ukraine, or the children being trafficked across the many borders of the world, including our own.

And yet, I can’t ignore abortion precisely because people like Rebecca Traiser won’t let me.

Traiser, a New York Magazine contributor, was recently interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer, kept referring to abortion as “reproductive health,” which is fine since I tend to use the term “killing babies,” both of which are more hyperbolic than perfectly accurate.

Traiser and women like her keep prattling on about how one entire gender, one full half of the population is enslaved when they are unable to “control” their bodies.

In fact, Gov. Tim Walz just signed a bill in Minnesota that would essentially make abortion a right that no court could overturn. Rebecca must be thrilled.

You know who else won’t let me ignore abortion?

Merrick Garland and his Department of Justice.

As I wrote recently, the Biden administration came down hard against pro-life activist Mark Houck, making a literal federal case out of a sidewalk skirmish.

It was so obvious that this was a political prosecution that the presiding judge, Gerald Pappert, observed that the U.S. attorney’s office might have stretched the law a bit far in bringing the case.

Fortunately, a few men and women with no particular philosophical bias agreed with the judge and acquitted Houck of all charges.

The attempt by the Department of Justice to intimidate a vocal pro-life activist is chilling, but simply one of many efforts waged by those who are shocked that their monopoly on the abortion message has been hijacked by another reality.

They can no longer write the narrative that most Americans are OK with demonizing people of faith, with silencing uncomfortable voices, with vilifying those who pose no threat but who are attempting to do what civil rights activists have always done: follow the arc of justice.

And while I was angered by the Houck prosecution and gratified by his acquittal, the thing that continues to trouble me is not the attacks against adults but, rather, the continued crusade against young people.

A few years ago, it was Nick Sandman from Covington Catholic High School who was quite literally defamed for having the temerity to attend a pro-life rally wearing a MAGA hat.

While much of the ire seemed focused on the hat, it was clear that most of the then-16-year-old’s critics were more upset that he was attending the March For Life.

How dare he, this embryonic sexual abuser a la Brett Kavanaugh, protest a woman’s right to do whatever she wanted with her unborn child? We shall make him pay.

Ironically, they were the ones who ended up paying directly into his savings account.

And it never ends. This month, a group of students from Our Lady of the Rosary School in South Carolina were attending this year’s March for Life and decided to visit the Smithsonian Institute.

They were wearing pro life hats. According to reports, which were confirmed by the museum directors, the students were mocked mercilessly and then kicked out of the museum — the national museum funded by our tax dollars — when they wouldn’t take off their hats.

First Amendment, meet civil rights lawsuit.

So those who wonder why I keep writing about abortion only need to take their heads out of the sand and look around.

Being pro-life is still a big news item.

I suspect Merrick, Rebecca and Nick would agree.

Christine Flowers is a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times. Contact her at:

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