Evidenced by the huge rallies in Washington D.C., this is a pivotal time in history for liberally based advocates of women’s rights and proponents of the energized right-to-life movement championed by President Trump.

Abortion - specifically late-term abortions - is now a front-burner issue in the upcoming Senate hearings to fill the vacancy to the Supreme Court and then leading up to the presidential election in November. The Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which federally legalized abortion in 1973, has been called the most divisive issue in America since slavery led to Civil War.

Donald Trump, the most vocal and activist pro-life president in history, is on record as being opposed to state laws that expand access to late-term abortions. Using graphic language in his 2019 State of the Union address, he attacked Democratic legislation that expanded access to late-term abortions.

Calling state-level proposals on abortion “chilling,” he lashed out at lawmakers who “cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth.”

Another vocal pro-life advocate, Catholic Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan, wrote in an Op-Ed that those who once told us that abortion had to “remain safe, legal and rare now have made it dangerous, imposed and frequent.”

The archbishop called New York’s Reproductive Health Act, which was signed into law by New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, “ghoulish,” stating that it “allows for an abortion right up to the moment of birth; drops all charges against an abortionist who allows an aborted baby, who somehow survives the scissors, scalpel, saline and dismemberment, to die before his eyes; mandates that, to make an abortion more convenient and easy, a physician need not perform it; and might even be used to suppress the conscience rights of health care professionals not to assist in the grisly procedures.”

Instead of admitting that abortion is always a tragic choice, Dolan said the governor and other progressives cheered the Reproductive Health Act, even allowing the lights of the Freedom Tower to sparkle “with delight” at Cuomo’s command.

During a pre-recorded address to the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington last week, President Trump stated that there is a fundamental belief in the joy of family, the blessing of freedom and the dignity of work, and the eternal truth that every child, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of God.

In urging a national culture that cherishes innocent life, Trump promised to sign an executive order that would require health care providers to provide medical care to all babies born alive. The president said the “Born Alive” executive order would assure that all babies born alive, no matter their circumstances, would receive the medical care that they deserve.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that infant deaths related to being born alive after abortions later in pregnancy are rare, with 143 infant deaths related to being born alive after abortions between 2003 and 2014.

Organizations representing obstetricians and gynecologists say the law already provides protections to newborns, whether born during a failed abortion or under other circumstances. But when anomalies are so severe that a newborn would die soon after birth, a family may choose what’s known as palliative care or comfort care. This might involve allowing the baby to die naturally without medical intervention.

Abortion rights advocates have endorsed abortion as something that should be offered to women as a safe, last resort to unwanted pregnancy or medical emergencies threatening the mother’s life.

A popular phrase used by both liberals and conservatives to argue their case in today’s culture is to “follow the science.” In his speech two years ago at the Evangelicals for Life Conference hosted by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Nebraska Republican Sen. Ben Sasse shed new light on the abortion argument.

“We believe in babies and moms, and we believe in science,” Sasse said. “We sit at a technological moment where people are seeing what happens inside a mom’s tummy as a baby grows and develops. You cannot deny that’s a baby when you look at a picture.”

President Trump’s appointment of a new, pro-life Supreme Court justice will alter the landscape of federally legal abortion in our country.

Science has seen tremendous advances since the Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nearly a half century ago. With today’s understanding of human development, Democrats can no longer argue that an unborn child is not a child.

Cathy Donohoe, president of the Board of Directors of The Bridge to Life, a pregnancy care center in Flushing, New York, said it was a sad state of affairs that a president must take the extraordinary step of issuing an executive order to ensure something so basic as health care for newborns.

She said that should be automatic.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com