Amy Coney Barrett and the Gary Peters' Abortion Story: When Tragedy is Used for Politics!

The battle is on and the Democrats are pulling out all the stops to try to deep-six Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court. What a dilemma! They can hardly use the sex accusation tactics that made the Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh hearings such side shows. 

The race card, their favorite tactic, is pretty much of a stretch as well, since Barrett has two adopted black children among her seven. Of course that didn't keep Boston University professor, Ibram X. Kendi, from trying to pull it off. He called her a white colonizer using her children as props. But these tactics are not likely to succeed. The backlash against Kendi was immediate with many calling for his removal. From early questioning it appears Democrat senators on the committee will go after Barrett for two things: accusations that she will gut the Affordable Care Act and, the bigger accusation, that her confirmation threatens Roe v. Wade, the Democrats' unholy sacrament. 

With that scenario on the horizon, it's no surprise that Senator Gary Peters came out, the very day hearings began, with a heart-breaking story about his ex-wife, Heidi, losing the amniotic fluid four months into the pregnancy with her second child, threatening both the baby's life and her own. Her doctor, he tells us, said the child could not survive and advised the couple to abort. According to Peters, her physician couldn't get permission from the Catholic hospital where he practiced to do the abortion. Peters says his wife's health quickly deteriorated and, according to her doctor, she was in danger of losing her uterus or possibly her life if she didn't abort. He advised them to find another physician at a different hospital to get the abortion as soon as possible. They did.

Pregnancy loss is always traumatic and a tragedy, but did they get good medical advice? Had the Peters decided to fight for their baby, no doubt the Catholic hospital would have admitted her and kept her under close observation. Premature rupture of membranes is certainly a serious condition, and there were fewer options 35 years ago. But was abortion really her only choice? If the baby still had a heartbeat, of course the hospital couldn't approve an abortion! And it's important to realize that women have successfully given birth after premature membrane rupture. In about ten percent of such cases, the amniotic sack reseals itself. In other cases, admittedly a minority, women put on bedrest who consume large amounts of fluids and receive steroid treatment to develop the baby's lungs were able to maintain their pregnancies until viability, give birth, and see their little ones survive.

There is simply not enough information in Peters' story to presume that abortion was medically necessary. Many pro-life OB-GYNs say that abortion is never medically necessary. There were two patients here, the mother and the baby. What would a pro-life doctor have recommended who valued the lives of both? How would he have treated the little one in the womb with a beating heart and the child's mother? Clearly, the baby was still alive when the hospital refused the abortion; otherwise the baby would have been declared dead and a D and C performed. There would have been no controversy at all. Is directly killing a living baby ever really justified?

Peters is clearly telling his story from the point of view of a radically pro-abortion politician. Endorsed by Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Abortion Rights Action League), and the National Organization for Women, he has a long record supporting both the unrestricted right to kill babies in the womb and forcing taxpayers to fund it. Secondly, the timing of his story is very convenient for the Democrats' attack on Barrett, not to mention his own re-election bid.

Dramatic stories presented as exposés are the Democrats' forté and a popular tactic. Remember, it was salacious stories used against Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh in an attempt to "bork" their nominations. Anita Hill was the agent against Thomas and Christine Blasey Ford against Kavanaugh. Both women told lewd stories ripe with disgusting details, including rape, that were never independently confirmed by others. And, in fact, women who worked with both men came forward to defend them against what they said were false allegations.

Now we have another dramatic story targeting Barrett because she is pro-life and threatens the Democrats sacred secular sacrament of abortion! Peters originally shared his story in Elle, and it struck me as the kinder, gentler version of waving the bloody coat hanger. The usual liberal mainstream media picked up the story including the Washington Post, the New York Times, other major city newspapers and the TV networks. Needless to say, they don't question any of the details.

It's also significant that Peters, a first-term senator from Michigan, is in a tight reelection fight against John James who is pro-life. James is a veteran and a patriot who stands for, "Faith and Family, God and Country and is committed to defending the American Dream and expanding access to it." In a recent campaign ad, James said, "The United States is the only country where you can go from slave to senator in four generations and poverty to prosperity in one.'' He's a very appealing candidate and a real threat to Peters.

So Peters has a dual reason to share his story now and make it as dramatic as possible. It's not the first time a politician has used a family tragedy for political purposes. Is that what's happening here?

While I'm sympathetic to any family that loses a child, Democrats like Peters don't really care about the millions of babies in the womb who are "unwanted." In fact, they often celebrate laws that increase the scope of the killing like Andrew Cuomo did when he signed the Reproductive Health Act that expanded abortion through all nine months in the state of New York. Babies in the womb simply don't matter to Democrats. The saddest thing to me about Senator Peters is that the loss of his baby didn't make him value the life of every little one waiting to be born. They deserve protection.