Recently, three South Carolina Republican Senators were awarded THE JOHN F. KENNEDY PROFILE IN COURAGE AWARD. This award was given to Senators Katrina Shealy, Sandy Senn, and Penry Gustafson. The reason for the prize? It was given for their support of abortion. Let’s take a closer look at this situation.
When the Supreme Court of the United States of America overturned the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, they did not ban abortion. What they said was crystal clear: the federal government had no standing in establishing either an acceptance of abortion or the elimination of legal abortions. They said it was an issue that had to be decided at a state level. In other words, an individual state would have the legal authority to establish laws that would allow a woman to terminate a human life at any stage of pregnancy or make it illegal for such a procedure to be allowed.
What South Carolina decided to do was pass a law that would restrict a woman’s right to an abortion to the time between conception and the start of a heartbeat. Many wanted a very reasonable alternative to a complete ban on the procedure. This interpretation fell in line with the state determination of life, which is either the presence of or the lack of a heartbeat. Further, it would be defensible in court since it did not involve the issue of life at conception, a theological belief that I and many others hold. However, it would conflict with the SCOTUS interpretation of the separation of church and state.
The three supposed Republican senators joined two Democrats in a two-day filibuster that blocked passage of this abortion bill. The senators used the arguments of lack of access to contraceptive means, inadequate privacy laws, female reproductive rights, and the complexities of pregnancy. In other words, they used the typical liberal bullet points to justify the killing of the most helpless of all human beings, the unborn.
I want to explore and offer my opinions on those bullet points and their fallacy. The first one is “female reproductive rights.” Yes, I believe that all women have this right, just not in the framework the left uses. A woman has every right to have intercourse with those who she chooses. She has every right to conceive a child or to prevent that conception by the use of readily available contraception devices offered for free by various organizations. What she doesn’t have is the right to use abortion as a birth control method. Now one might say, “What if she is raped?” In this case, her right to only have intercourse with the person she chooses has been violated. In this case, yes, I believe she has every right to end the pregnancy. The same holds in the case of incense. But, if she chooses to have a relationship with a male and conception is the result, since it involves the creation of life by choice, she does not have the right to end that life. And as I stated before, as defined by the State of South Carolina, life is determined by the presence of a heartbeat.
Finally, these women said that a woman has a right to an abortion. Well, most of South Carolina’s citizens say this is untrue. But does this prevent them from obtaining an abortion? The answer is simple: NO. That woman has every right, in my opinion, to travel to a state that feels abortions are a woman’s right and obtain the surgery there. What they do in another state does not affect their living in South Carolina. Just as a person can cross a state line to get a drink on a Sunday or smoke marijuana, what is done in another state has no bearing on South Carolina law. That is what the SCOTUS said and what the people of South Carolina must honor.
What these three “Republicans” have done is betrayed the trust placed in them by those who cast ballots for them with the understanding that they would support the Republican Party’s platform on abortion. What they did has earned them the new label of “RINO,” commonly known as “Republican In Name Only.” But even more, what they have won is the end of their careers as Republican South Carolina Senators. And the sooner they are replaced, the better South Carolina will be.