In a move that’s drawing national media attention, Alaska House lawmakers included unborn babies in a resolution to raise awareness about victims of abuse.
The AP reports Republican state Rep. David Eastman introduced the amendment Monday, describing abortion as “the ultimate form of child abuse.” He said it would be wrong not to include abortion, the destruction of an innocent unborn baby’s life, in a resolution about child abuse.
A state House committee approved the amendment Monday, including it in a resolution to raise awareness about the high rates of sexual abuse and child abuse in Alaska, according to the report.
Here’s more from the report:
The amendment was approved by a divided House Rules Committee. The vote on Monday followed an about-face by Anchorage Republican Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, the committee chairwoman who last week refused to hear amendments.
LeDoux, who is part of a House majority coalition composed largely of Democrats, voted for Eastman’s proposal.
“I’m not interested in talking about that, thank you,” LeDoux told a reporter Tuesday.
Critics said the resolution is not the appropriate place to launch a fight over abortion. Alaska struggles with high rates of sexual assault.
Abortion rates, though dropping, also are high. In the U.S., nearly 1 million unborn babies are killed in abortions every year. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1,525 Alaska women had abortions in 2013.
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Abortion procedures are brutal, gruesome and deadly forms of abuse to unborn babies. These unborn babies already are separate, living human beings with their own unique DNA. By the time the mother realizes she is pregnant and schedules an abortion, her unborn baby’s heart almost certainly is beating.
Some abortion procedures involve dismembering the unborn child with a sharp clamp and then pulling the baby out of the womb in pieces. Others involve using a powerful vacuum to suck the unborn baby’s body out of the womb. Late-term abortions often involve injecting the unborn baby with a lethal drug to cause cardiac arrest and then inducing labor to expel the dead baby from the womb.
Abortion can be used to abuse the mother, too. Studies indicate women and girls frequently are pressured or forced into aborting their unborn child, often by a partner or parent and sometimes by an abuser.
Research indicates human trafficking victims often are forced or coerced into aborting their unborn babies. A survey by the U.S. Department of State found that 55 percent of sex trafficking victims had at least one abortion, with 30 percent having multiple abortions. More than half said they did not choose to abort their unborn child; their traffickers ordered them to, according to the survey.
In the past several months, LifeNews has reported several cases of women whose partners physically abused them because they refused to have an abortion. In several cases, the coercion and violence resulted in their unborn baby’s death.
