The word most frequently used in the lecture was “myth.” According to Ponnuru, there is a commonly believed myth concerning the war on abortion. The myth is that Roe v. Wade directly caused abortion to be legalized only during the first trimester, while not making any judgement on its legality during the rest of the pregnancy. Such an assumption is “like saying that World War II pitted Germany against Britain,” said Ponnuru. His argument rested on the fact that the Supreme Court struck down abortion-regulating laws in all 50 states, even though only a small minority of the American public wanted a liberal policy on abortion at the time. As a result, the U.S. now imposes the fewest restrictions on abortion out of all the industrialized nations in the West. According to Ponnuru, Roe v. Wade was only a ruse to justify the Court’s desire to liberalize abortion law.
The evidence he gave during his lecture was only a fragment of that offered in his ominously titled book, “The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life”. Putting the partisan title aside, the data given in Ponnuru’s lecture and book was very credible. One example given of the Court’s overreach on this issue was Justice Harry Blackmun’s verdict in Roe v. Wade, holding that the state may regulate abortion except in cases of “appropriate medical judgment.” The verdict sounds reasonable, until we look at what Blackmun says next concerning Doe v. Bolton, a similar case on abortion laws. According to that decision, such a medical judgment must take into mind “physical, emotional, psychological, familial” factors, as well as “the woman’s age.” Such a broad exception basically allows nearly any woman to have an abortion at nearly any stage of pregnancy. Surely the attending physician, since he or she usually has a financial stake in the decision, will encourage a patient to have an abortion for “medical reasons.”
Ponnuru claimed that the Court’s logic for the decision was based on false precedent, and that the ruling, extended to its rational conclusion, would justify a whole host of reprehensible behaviors. According to Ponnuru, the Supreme Court validated its opinion on Roe v. Wade with the words of several sham historians taken way out of context. Additionally, it failed to recognize certain cases of infanticide as a crime. For example, in the case of Tracy Marciniak, who was nine months pregnant when her baby died after she was beaten by her husband, said that her husband was not tried for the killing of his unborn son based on the Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade. Furthermore, most Americans are unaware of the gruesome surgical process that partial-birth abortions involve, and how fetal disabilities are seen as an ethical reason to conduct an abortion during the latter months of pregnancy. Roe v. Wade legitimizes both practices.
Overall, Ponnuru’s proofs were clear and sobering, even for the most pro-choice student. While his claims were bold, even shocking, he was able to give the proper evidence disproving the legitimacy of Roe v. Wade. Fortunately, Ponnuru left the moral and philosophical aspects of abortion untouched throughout the lecture, choosing not to preach on how abortion constitutes murder. His purpose was to inform his audience on what they needed to know, not to harangue them with the intention to proselytize. This was an admirable quality in Ponnuru’s presentation.
On the whole, Ponnuru’s lecture was interesting, and his call to pro-lifers both Republican and Democrat to work together to defend the unborn, refreshingly nonpartisan. However, a few cruel jokes at the expense of pro-choicers were most undesirable and subtracted from the respectability of Ponnuru’s argument. Despite these flaws, the lecture was informative and very much relevant to the students and administrators of Amherst College, encouraging us to look beyond party boundaries and to provide emotional and health-related support to both women who choose to have their babies and to women who choose to have abortions.