On Monday evening, April 19th, ABC aired a social drama, which they titled Swing Vote. Ostensibly, it was a fictional story about a new Supreme Court Justice who would cast the deciding vote in a case involving a highly controversial state abortion law. Arguments on both sides of the issue were fairly presented. In fact, the second hour of the program was highly favorable to the pro-life cause, as demonstrated by three events.
First, a friend of the newly-appointed Justice (who eventually read the court’s decision) reminded him that the unborn child has all of its systems in place and its own heartbeat by the end of the first trimester. The times in which this information has been publicly acknowledged in the news or entertainment media have been few. Usually such details have been omitted so that pregnant women may avoid thinking that they are destroying human beings.
Second, the Justice talks with a woman who had had an abortion and admits that she did so simply because the baby would have been an inconvenience. She fully acknowledged that she could have afforded the child and taken care of it, but she preferred not to have a child by a man whom she did not love. She felt no guilt over her decision, and she pleaded for women to continue to have that freedom. Frankly, she came across as a very selfish person; the viewer was not compelled to be sympathetic toward her or the “pro-choice” cause.
Third, the Justice and his wife several years earlier had adopted their daughter from a woman who was going to have an abortion, but they offered to pay her expenses and adopt the baby if she continued with the pregnancy. Before the Supreme Court’s decision was announced, she came to visit their home, see her daughter, and convince the Justice to vote pro-life. She admitted that her previous favorable attitude toward abortion was wrong and realized it would have grieved her greatly now had she succumbed to the temptation to destroy her daughter in the womb. She made a powerful, eloquent, and emotional case against abortion.
All of these portions of the movie were a pleasant surprise to those who have been opposing abortion for 26 years. To have some of the best arguments presented in such effective fashion was greatly appreciated. No argument based on what the Bible teaches was presented, but that omission was not unexpected.
As much appreciation as we feel for the movie’s strengths, it displayed some severe weaknesses, also. No doubt, the producers thought that the court’s decision was eminently fair, and it did offer a compromise that would be better than what we have now. But the decision was fraught with hopeless contradictions.
The Justice began by saying that there were two fundamental rights that clashed with each other. He said correctly that the fetus was a human being and that there could be no doubt whatsoever of that fact. But he also argued that women must have the right to control their own bodies. The fact is, they do have that right. They become pregnant (except in rare instances of rape), when they do not control their own bodies. Getting an abortion is the unfortunate attempt to undo the consequences of the mother’s lack of self-control.
The Supreme Court contrived this fundamental “right” in Roe v. Wade. It never existed before in the Constitution–nor in the minds of those who framed it. Neither was there any precedent upon which such an outrageous notion could be based. If the fetus is a human life, then that child’s life must take precedence over the capricious whims of a woman without natural affection. Yet such was not the decision of the court.
Having determined that the fetus is a human life, the Justices then paradoxically decided to allow abortion to occur up through 20 weeks of development. They further added that no state could pass a law enabling the mother to be charged with murder. How curious! Here is an innocent human life, but if the mother kills it, it is not murder. Who can believe it? In essence, this decision says: “There are some human lives that are not valuable enough to protect.”
Might not such reasoning lead, say, high school boys, to likewise decide that, even though their fellow students are human beings, their lives can be taken from them because they were annoying and a source of consternation to them? If the sanctity of human life does not take precedence over all else, and if those who take innocent human lives are not punished (and swiftly), then society can only expect violence and murder to continue.
Another contradiction lies in the fact that some states have laws to protect expectant mothers; it may even be a felony for someone else to initiate any action that would result in the mother losing the child. How ironic! A total stranger could be convicted of murder when, if the mother did the same thing, it would not be a crime at all.
In the midst of this confusion, however, there was some encouragement for the pro-life cause. This fictional court ruled that all women seeking abortion would have to wait 72 hours and undergo counseling about the facts concerning their “fetuses.” If such were actually law, the number of abortions would greatly diminish. It is no secret that many abortion clinics deny that information to young women; it would be bad for business. The fewer abortions, the less money for the providers of this “service.” They are not in the business because they are kindhearted people. They will not permit this economic loss.
One final issue involves all of the “unwanted children” that nobody cares about. In this story they kept referring to all of the unloved children in the world that there already are and how irresponsible it would be to bring more of them into the world to be abused and shuffled into foster care. They did not present this issue correctly.
Couples must currently wait one or two years to adopt a baby. For proof, one need only ask anyone who has gone through the process. There are waiting lists.
“Then why are there so many children’s homes?” some thoughtful person might ask. For a number of years now, most of the homes which churches of Christ support have not been receiving infants. In most cases, the children are not even orphans; they have been abandoned by parents who could have aborted them (since it is legal) but did not. Many of these youngsters are the product of a divorce or abuse.
Theoretically, abortion is supposed to eliminate the problem of child abuse since all of the unwanted (and therefore unloved) children will have been dispatched, but in reality child abuse has only increased during the 26 years of legalized abortion. Whoever wrote the script for Swing Vote neglected to do adequate research on this issue. Perhaps the brutality of abortion has contributed to child abuse instead of alleviating it.
Besides, what kind of logic is it to say, “This person may not have much of a chance in life; let’s kill him now so he won’t have to suffer later”? Are we not playing God when we decide who may live or die?” It would make more sense for courts to remove children from abusive situations, but they frequently do not act in the best interests of the child.
Last August’s Reader’s Digest told of the woman who suffocated all of her children and attributed their deaths to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome; in fact, she became the poster girl. Her fifth child was carefully monitored, but eventually the mother insisted on taking him home. An astute nurse told her supervisor that the child would be dead by morning. She did not prove to be a false prophet (204). Yet still nothing was done.
On a rerun of Law and Order a foster daughter was missing for 30 hours before the woman in charge of her realized it. Later, testimony was given in which it was stated that this unsupervised girl had received better care than most foster children, which is frightening.
There are mothers living out of wedlock with their boyfriends, doing drugs, and neglecting the care of their children yet nobody does anything about it–least of all the courts, who apply racketeering laws to pro-life demonstrators. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Swing Vote ended with seven of the Justices in final agreement. Only the staunch pro-life and the adamant pro-choice Justices failed to agree with the decision. The movie closed with a fade-out of the pro-life Justice droning on and on with the minority opinion (as if what he had to say was unimportant and irrelevant). The program was interesting, but scarcely decisive. It is unlikely that either side will accept the compromise.