Pro-lifers plead their cause anew at hearing

PROVIDENCE — The debate over life in the womb dominated a Statehouse house hearing last Tuesday on a number of bills related to abortion.

Six bills were on the agenda. One would repeal older state laws that restrict abortion with its supporters claiming that it essentially codifies the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade into state law. Advocates for the bill, titled the Reproductive Health Care Act, or HB 3740, claim it was necessary in case President Trump appoints another conservative justice, enabling the high court to repeal Roe or significantly roll it back.

But the other five bills would aim for the opposite providing more regulation and oversight of abortion and enhancing the protection of life of unborn children and their mothers. One would ban dismemberment abortions. Two would protect infants who had survived abortions and were born alive. A fourth law is a non-binding resolution that would declare that a fetus with a heartbeat is a human person and the fifth would criminalize the act of helping someone under the age of 18 obtain an abortion.

The Rhode Island House Judiciary Committee, which heard the bills, took no action on them, instead voting to hold them for further study.

While some who testified claimed that all HB 3740 would do is simply write Roe into state law, Dwight Duncan, a law professor at the University of Massachusetts said it would do a lot more than that. He said the “central holding” of Roe was that no “state could place” an “‘undue burden’ or ‘substantial obstacle’ on a woman’s getting an abortion.” But the proposed bill would go much further by “prohibiting any restriction whatsoever,” Duncan said, according to his submitted testimony.

Moreover, he added: “Why should this legislature want to codify Roe v. Wade to begin with? It is unquestionably the most controversial decision of the United States Supreme Court since the infamous Dred Scott decision that provoked the Civil War,” Duncan said. “And why should any protection for women via informed consent laws, or for minors via parental consent laws, or for conscientious objectors to abortion or for fetal life be only by way of exception, rather than the general rule? The proposed bill shares the ‘fetus counts for nothing’ view of the abortion industry. It institutes a laissez-faire policy with respect to the termination of human life.”

“I ask why do this now? It is unnecessary,” said Joe Cavanagh, a local attorney who has been active in promoting Catholic teachings on life and the family. “If and when, a case looms where Roe v. Wade is at issue, then our state, our legislature will engage in the debate about what our laws should be in Rhode Island. Until that time, a push to solidify and expand the abortion program is ill-conceived and untimely.”

The time might not be right for the bill, but Cavanagh said the hearing was a good opportunity to reckon with the human cost of abortion. “Deep down in our inner selves, we know that killing unborn babies is wrong. We, as a civilized people living in the most prosperous country in the history of the world, have to know that we can do better than allowing the widespread destruction of innocent human life,” he said.

Genevieve Kineke, a local Catholic author, asked how lawmakers could explain to the next generation of children that their siblings had been left to die in hospitals or that, despite the latest advancements in medical science not all were allowed to benefit from them. She called on lawmakers to reject the pro-abortion bills, saying that it was inconsistent with many of the values our society claims to hold, such as valuing diversity, caring for those with disabilities, universal health care.

“How will we explain to our surviving children that although we decry bullying in all its forms, we refused to stand up for their tiny siblings whose cries could not be heard and whose demise will forever be hidden by the powerful forces of this world?” Kineke asked.

Father Bernard Healey, the director of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference, denounced HB 7340 as an “attack upon the sanctity of life” that “would trample upon the human rights of the most vulnerable.” He said the measure is an “extreme example” of the “throwaway culture” that Pope Francis has warned is at odds with respect for life.

“This bill would result in virtually unrestricted and unregulated taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand right up to the moment of birth—including partial-birth abortions and late-term dismemberment abortions. Rather than considering this extreme bill, our elected officials should seek to protect the innocent unborn by passing a ban on the gruesome practice of partial birth abortions and late-term dismemberment abortions in Rhode Island,” Father Healey said.

Barth Bracy, the executive director of Rhode Island Right to Life, urged lawmakers to consider the measure outlawing dismemberment abortions. He said that “brutal type” of abortion was the method used “for procuring intact tissues, organs, and body parts” that a series of 2015 undercover videos revealed Planned Parenthood was selling.

Bracy also said that the bill criminalizing aiding a minor in getting abortions was necessary to prevent abuse. “In states lacking a parental consent law—states like Connecticut—an adult man can impregnate a young girl and take her to an abortion clinic without the knowledge of her parents. After this ‘secret’ abortion, this cycle of abuse may continue,” Bracy said, citing data from the Connecticut Catholic Conference, which revealed that 342 minors from Rhode Island had traveled to the state to get an abortion.

“It is noteworthy that four of the five surgical abortion facilities in Connecticut, including the facility nearest Rhode Island, are owned and operated by the same corporate entity that owns and operates the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Providence. It is not difficult to speculate that protections provided under Rhode Island’s parental consent law might be easily and lawfully circumvented by scheduling the abortion at a nearby branch across the state line,” Bracy said.

Brad Kehr, who represents Americans United for Life, which serves as the “legal architect of the pro-life movement,” submitted testimony in favor of the bills restricting abortion, including those that would protect infants who were born alive despite the procedure.

“The ‘right to an abortion’ does not include the right to a dead child. Through the enactment of the Born Alive Infant Protect Act, the United States Congress, and Rhode Island through previous legislation, recognized that the right to abortion has limits, and is not an absolute, ever-expanding right. In particular, the right to abortion does not extend so far as to justify the denial of fundamental civil rights and protections to born, living human children,” Kehr said. He noted that the U.S. Senate passed the federal version of the bill on a 98-0 vote.

Kehr also submitted testimony in opposition to the Reproductive Health Care Act. He pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court has approved of some limitations on abortion, ruling that the state has a “legitimate interest” “to ensure the informed consent and health of the woman.” He said that the proposed bill, by eliminating any restrictions on abortion, would endanger the life of the mother and prevent her from receiving all the information she needed to “consider the impact and consequences of an abortion.”

The hearing drew a number of supporters of abortion rights as well. One was Rabbi Howard Voss-Altman, of Temple Beth-El in Providence. He told the committee he believes that “human life begins at birth.” He said Judaism emphasizes the importance of “autonomy and personal choice above all else” and views the fetus as a “potential life.”

Rep. Arthur Corvese, a pro-life Democrat from North Providence who sits on the Judiciary Committee, seized upon the last remarks. He said the idea of potential life was a potential bridge between the differing views over whether life begins at birth or at conception. “All would not be able to deny potential of life in both those instances and everywhere in between,” Corvese said. “I think the word ‘potential’ someday will resonate beyond these halls, hopefully through the country, and that will be a guiding principle.”

Several local doctors testified in favor of the bills codifying abortion rights into state law and against the bills banning dismemberment and requiring protection of infants born alive. One contested the idea that a heartbeat is a reliable guide to when human life starts in the womb. Another said there is no scientific definition of when human life begins.

Their testimony was challenged by a pair of doctors later in the evening. Dr. Thomas Heyne and his wife, Dr. Nancy Hernández Heyne noted that a standard medical textbook on embryology defines life as starting with the zygote, the technical term for the fertilized egg in the womb. In particular, Dr. Nancy Hernández Heyne, questioned why a heartbeat could not be used to determine life, given that cardiac death is one of the two ways the medical profession concludes that a person is dead. (The other way is brain death.)

Several young people came out to testify on behalf of the pro-life cause, including a group from St. Patrick’s Parish. One young woman, Brittany Curran, told the Rhode Island Catholic that being pro-life was a matter of caring for a mother’s body. “When you take care of yourself you take care of the life that you have been given. You take care of the body that God did give you,” she said.

A number of students from Providence College’s Students for Life Group also turned out to support unborn infants and their mothers. “We live in a culture of encouragement. Everyone has a can-do attitude. Empowerment is our middle name,” said Haley Wolfe, the president of PC Students for Life, as she told stories of college friends, one of whom has an eating disorder and the other who was struggling with depression.

But not when it comes to young women who don’t feel ready to be mothers, Wolfe added. “We accept failure because we list off all the reasons she can’t have her child, instead of believing that she has the strength and determination to have it all,” Wolfe said.