The traditional media is still trying to figure out how to spin a bizarre story out of the United Kingdom this week, where a 35-year-old woman named Sarah Catt was sentenced by a judge to eight years in prison for what the BBC is calling a “full-term abortion.” Catt, who had previously placed a child for adoption and aborted another one of her children, had taken pharmaceuticals she ordered online to induce labor and kill the child. The sentence was passed down for her “deliberate and calculated decision” to terminate her pregnancy, the judge said. The BBC reported Justice Cooke as saying that Catt had “robbed the baby of the life it was about to have and said the seriousness of the crime lay between manslaughter and murder.”
In light of the current Canadian debate surrounding Motion 312, Member of Parliament Stephen Woodworth’s attempt to examine the science surrounding the pre-born child in the womb, this case is extremely interesting for the number of contradictions that it highlights. First, it is important to note that in Canada, unlike the UK, abortion is legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy. The “full-term abortion” that Ms. Catt inflicted on her child would be completely legal—and paid for—here in the True North, Strong and Free.
Second, it is very fascinating that no abortion activist has yet jumped all over the wording used by the presiding judge—that she had made a “deliberate and calculated decision” to end her pregnancy, and that her actions were tantamount to robbing her child of life. All of these statements, of course, apply to earlier, legal abortions as much as they apply to the one that landed Ms. Catt in prison.
While the abortion crowd has been for the most part silent, Amanda Marcotte (who up until now has never met an abortion she didn’t like) couldn’t help but weigh in, assuring us all that this clearly was not an abortion, but a case of infanticide. (For abortion advocates, it’s all about location, location, location.) Marcotte whined that calling Ms. Catt’s actions an abortion is dishonest, mainly because of procedural differences between how Ms. Catt dispensed with her offspring and how an abortionist would have done so. She then babbles on about how very few late-term abortions happen, and thus we shouldn’t worry about them. Although, for the record, Marcotte informs us that she definitely supports late-term abortions, since “there are many reasons women should be allowed to have them.”
Reading the media coverage of this story and Marcotte’s subsequent reaction to it beautifully highlighted the schizophrenia of the “pro-choice” worldview. The BBC et al were forced to talk about how this was an abortion—but for once had to acknowledge the child as a victim. Marcotte wanted to distance this case from the abortions that she champions so badly she had to get offended that people would even call this an abortion, while simultaneously admitting that if someone had decided to stick scissors in the child’s neck while still inside the birth canal (aka “late-term abortion”), that would have been a different story. I have a kind suggestion for Ms. Marcotte and our friends in the media: If you’re interested in logic, why not join our side?