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Not sacred, but with reverence

The South Dakota legislature missed the real issue, Wednesday, when their Senate approved H.B. 1215 on a 23-12 vote. The bill declared that "life begins at conception, a conclusion confirmed by scientific advances since the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade..." and that based on experience since 1973, "abortions in South Dakota should be prohibited."

The bill, which has yet to be signed into law by the governor, is designed to reach the U.S. Supreme Court as a test case in an attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade. South Dakotans, according to NPR News, apparently even have a silent backer willing to pay up to $1 million for the challenge.

The premise of the South Dakota legislature, that life is sacred and to be preserved at all cost. Since life begins at conception, in vitro fertilization will either have to be stopped, or radically changed. The world's first successful in vitro fertilization (IVF) was carried out in the United Kingdom in 1978, and since then, according to Science Daily, around one million IVF children have been born around the world. Most of those attempts have mixed sperm with more than one egg to increase the likelihood of success. This means that while one million children owe their lives to the process, hundreds of thousands of other embryos have been discarded. Does the South Dakota legislature presume to lead the charge to preserve those lives?

If life is sacred, no doubt the South Dakota legislature will want to commute the sentences of the four prisoners on death row in the state and repeal their law on capital punishment. And, if life is sacrosanct, the South Dakota legislature will also want to lay down their arms and take up pacifism.

Where did the South Dakota legislature's premise come from? The idea that life is sacred or sacrosanct had best not have a religious basis. It would be improper -- and against the Constitution -- for one religion to attempt to impose its preconceptions of the sanctity of life on others. Or is it a mistaken parsing of the Constitution, where they need to be reminded that "born" is a key word in the ninth amendment that defines citizenship rights: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...."

Ultimately, the underlying issue has nothing to do with the sanctity of life, but with an issue the South Dakota legislature could not bring itself to face. The real issue isn't abortion, but how do you take care of unwanted children. How does the state guarantee that unwanted children will be treated with honor and respect -- that they will grow up in a loving household, be provided quality of life, and decent schooling. How will the state finance foster families and make adoption easier. The issue is that, if life is not sacred, how will the state treat the living with reverence. To leave children in families unwanted and unloved is to commit a secular sin.

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