Some in the pro-life community have had doubts and misgivings about supporting the pro-life Initiated Measure 11.
Unlike Referred Law 6 in 2006, this measure contains exceptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother. While these exceptions are carefully worded to prevent abuse and thus a loophole to return to abortion as birth control, some people who realize that even children conceived in rape or incest have the same human dignity and value as any other child.
Bishop Paul J. Swain of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls released a statement today on Initiated Measure 11. While it sounds as if he experienced some of these same misgivings, Bishop Swain has decided to support IM 11.
After stating that Referred Law 6, which would have been the best and most consistently pro-life measure possible, was defeated, Swain says
That electoral defeat, however, creates the environment in which Initiated Measure 11 is offered. It is the judgment of those who have proposed this law that a total ban on abortions is not politically possible based on that result. It is not for me to make judgments about political realities. We must, however, respond to what is before us.
He also says
Current law essentially allows abortion on demand. We have an opportunity to do what we can to "limit the harm done by such a law." If this law is enacted, over 95 percent of abortions currently performed in South Dakota would be prohibited. And it would send a clear message to abortion providers that the culture of death is not the will of the people of South Dakota.
Swain addresses the concerns that some have over misuse of the exceptions in IM 11.
Still others oppose the law because in some states the health of the mother exception has been used as a loophole to continue to allow abortion on demand. The language in Initiated Measure 11 has been reviewed by noted moral theologians and experts in bioethics. I have been assured that the language in this law is carefully worded and closes this loophole.
Bishop Swain also cuts through the malarkey that is the latest objection by the pro-abortionists:
Abortion advocates oppose this law because they say that it allows government into the private decision-making of individuals. If that were the standard there would be few laws. Law by its definition intrudes into the lives of individuals for the common good. What can be more significant for the common good than the right to be born? The unborn have no private decision making freedom.
Interesting that a group of people who would otherwise embrace more government control are willing to twist the average person's dislike for government meddling to what they see is their disadvantage in this case.
In actuality, the government interference began in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court took upon itself to create law, removing this right and responsibility away from the people and the states.
What IM 11 seeks to do is, as much as possible, end legislation by unelected judges and return power to the people.
Most Americans recognize that government should be small and limited, with one of its few key responsibilities being perhaps this most important one, as articulated by Thomas Jefferson:
"The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
If we do not have life, what good is anything else government might do for us?
Thank you, Bishop Swain, for speaking out clearly for Initiated Measure 11. With the pro-abortion forces in full propaganda mode, even using arguments they otherwise wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole, the pro-life community must stand solidly together to combat the confusion they seek to sow.
When South Dakota Department of Health statistics reveal that 84.6% of abortions in South Dakota are being done because "the mother did not desire to have the child," something desperately needs to be done to protect the hundreds of lives being lost every year on the Altar of Convenience.
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