Bill de Blasio Wrong to Call Abortion a 'Sacred Choice'

The Oxford dictionary defines “sacred” as “connected with God (or the gods) or dedicated to a religious purpose and so deserving veneration.” As abortion unequivocally breaks one of the 10 Commandments, Thou Shall Not Kill, claims of “sanctity” are blasphemous, not to mention insulting to millions of Americans who believe that life itself is sacred.

De Blasio is not at all original in this: as Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia said, “The unborn child means exactly zero in the calculus of power for Democratic Party leaders, and the right to an abortion, once described as a tragic necessity, is now a perverse kind of ‘sacrament most holy.’ It will have a candidate’s allegiance and full-throated reverence . . . or else.”

De Blasio, like his fellow Democratic presidential candidates, is desperate to “out pro-abortion” the others; he throws around contradictory clichés willy-nilly without ever addressing the grave moral issues at stake.

To Hannity’s direct question, “Do you support any restrictions on the procedure at all?” De Blasio countered “I believe in Roe v. Wade,” and abortion is a “sacred choice” for women.

When Hannity brought up the now infamous radio interview with Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia, who said a proposed late-term abortion bill in Virginia would allow a child born in the process of an attempted abortion to be “kept comfortable” after delivery, and “the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother” about life or death, de Blasio actually responded: “I believe it’s a smokescreen because it doesn’t happen in America.”

Really? I wrote about one such baby here, Melissa Ohden, who in 1977 survived a saline abortion, and was left on the table to die — but an attending nurse couldn’t stand watching her gasp for breath and rushed her to the NICU.

De Blasio deflected Hannity’s last question on abortion with this: “This is a smokescreen. I’m not answering your way, I’m answering my way.” One of Mayor de Blasio’s “ways,” as announced in June, was to make NYC the first to offer free abortions — paid for by taxpayers — to anyone who wants one, including those from out of state. The Big Apple is now an abortion tourist destination, sadly appropriate for a city whose Governor, Andrew Cuomo, in a frenzy of perverse delight, lit up the Freedom Tower and two bridges pink to “celebrate” his Reproductive Health Act which gave New York women the unfettered “right” to kill their preborn and just-born children.

Nonetheless: The funny thing about the truth is, as Shakespeare wrote, “it will out,” and it has in a rare positive media message.

Pampers has a new commercial which has a no-holds barred appreciation of new life. It begins with a sonogram and the words “Whether he’s planned” and then a shot of a pregnant bride with “or not.” It continues: “Whether she’s three months early” with a photo of tiny premature baby, and goes on to spotlight other ways babies come to families, concluding with, “However it happens, Pampers believes every baby is a little miracle to celebrate, support and protect.” Wow. (Of course, there is incentive here: no babies, no need for Pampers! And the U.S. birthrate has been declining steadily.)

Recently I was at a neighborhood party. Among the children present was a little boy, almost three but big for his age, who was running around like the Energizer bunny and had an impish smile that lit up the room.

As the mothers started chatting, I learned that his mom had been hospitalized seventeen times while she was pregnant, constantly in fear of losing him, and that he was born at 6 months. She showed me how he had fit into her hand. I was amazed that this abundantly healthy child had been a tiny preemie. Yes, she said, catching him to give him a kiss, he is my miracle baby!

We are surrounded by the miraculous, if only we open our eyes, minds, and hearts to see. Those who deny the humanity of babies are the ones desperately putting up smokescreens.

Maria McFadden Maffucci is the editor of the Human Life Review, www.humanlifereview.com, a quarterly journal devoted to the defense of human life, founded in 1974 by her father, James P. McFadden, Associate Publisher of National Review. She is President of the Human Life Foundation, based in midtown Manhattan, which publishes the Review and supports pregnancy resource centers. Mrs. Maffucci’s articles and editorials have appeared in the Human Life Review, First Things, National Review Online, National Review, Verily, and Crux. A Holy Cross graduate with a BA in Philosophy, she is married to Robert E. Maffucci, and the mother of three children. Her interests include exploring opportunities for individuals with special needs. To read more of her reports — Click Here Now.