Blog — Whitney Westerfield

Viewing entries tagged
pro-life

Pro-Life Legislation

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Pro-Life Legislation

Kentucky has done good work to limit abortion, but we haven’t done enough to make child bearing and life easier for moms and babies (unborn and born), or to make the decision to choose life rather than abortion the easier, preferable choice. We need to fix that deficit.

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Amendment 2

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Amendment 2

A vote of yes on Constitutional Amendment 2 is not a debate of whether or not you morally believe in abortion; again, the amendment would not ban abortion at all. A vote of yes on this amendment is a statement you do not want abortion issues to be determined by the courts. Instead, you believe the members of the General Assembly, duly elected by the majority of you, to respond to your will in the legislature, your representative policy body.

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Two Lives

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Two Lives

The political world was rocked earlier this week when a draft majority opinion, the authenticity of which was subsequently confirmed by the Chief Justice, was leaked to the press.  For those of us in the legal community, any leak from SCOTUS would have been stunning, but a leak on this case, which may upend 49 years of court precedent set by Roe v Wade, was earth shattering.

The pro-life and pro-abortion camps responded swiftly, with either immense joy or apoplectic rage.  I am firmly in the pro-life camp.  I learned of the leaked opinion Monday night at the Alpha Pregnancy Care Center annual fundraising banquet, one of many crisis pregnancy centers across Kentucky.  Moments from the banquet’s conclusion I saw the news break and handed my phone to our keynote speaker; he promptly walked back on stage and in words broken by tears of joy, read the headline to the crowd which responded with a standing ovation.  That moment is one I won’t soon forget.

A room of several hundred people from various faiths stood in united in celebration of the news that a court-made doctrine resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children may finally be overturned.  Apart from the incalculable human tragedy it brought forth, Roe was poorly decided and wrongly established the “history and tradition” of abortion in our nation prior to 1973.  Even one of the greatest defenders of abortion rights, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, once described Roe as “breathtaking.”

In short, Justice Alito’s draft opinion argues the decision to permit, limit, or prohibit abortion is one that should be left to the elected representatives of the people, not the Courts.  Justice Alito is right.

Quick to criticize Kentucky’s Republican legislature about their position on abortion, the media has adopted popular references to “anti” abortion legislation and abandoning the “pro-life” label we know is the truth.  We vote to limit abortion, and some of us want it banned outright, because we believe there are two lives that must be considered. It is grotesque to perform horrific procedures on a human being that cannot speak for or defend itself. That precious life did not choose under what circumstances it was created, and it should not be murdered by another.  The post-abortive women I’ve spoken to also share their feelings of guilt, shame and emotional trauma they endure having made the decision to end their own child’s life.  Abortion kills one life, and permanently scars another.

Neither the degree of development, nor one’s dependence upon another, has a bearing on one’s right to live. Many argue Republicans only care for lives in the womb, but once they’re born, we lose interest; this theory is as false as it is lazy.  Kentucky Republicans have enhanced our child welfare, foster care and adoption systems, led the nation in restoring dignity for expectant mothers in prison, prioritized mothers in substance use treatment centers, and improved mental health supports and made time for children to start the day with a healthy breakfast in schools,

We can and should do more.  Women and families facing crisis pregnancies, particularly those with low income, need more help, including prenatal and postnatal care.  Adoption should be exceedingly cheap and simple. Biological fathers should also be held more accountable. Kentucky has nearly 9,000 children in foster care today that need loving, permanent homes. Beyond government, each of us should show love and grace to women facing unplanned pregnancies, and those who have already made that life-altering decision. Many women seeking abortions are doing so because they fear the judgment or abuse from their loved ones, school, community, and sadly, even their church.

While we work to make life easier for expecting moms and dads with funding, education and job opportunities, we should always protect the precious lives who cannot speak for themselves.  Protecting those lives is challenging, and for some mothers, carrying the child may be emotionally and physically challenging.  That demands more from us as neighbors, loved ones, and as government leaders, to lighten the burden an unplanned pregnancy creates.  We should never resort to killing an innocent life to do so.  

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Until the War is Over

Back in May (2014), I made a trip to Frankfort to catch up with a school group that was taking a daylong field trip around the historic sites of the Capitol City.  The Heritage Christian Academy Warriors (4th graders) have made a trip up to the Capitol both years I've been in office, and like any other school group visiting during the interim (when I'm not already up there for session) if I can I make the trek to Frankfort too meet them.  I hate missing a chance to visit with school kids about the job I'm blessed to have — one of these kids from the district is going to have this job one day in the future!

I caught up with the group and took them to the Senate chamber and had a chance to talk to them for nearly 45 minutes.  They asked all kinds of questions and I gave all kinds of answers!  Since we had the room to ourselves and plenty of time, I explained a lot about the kind of things we do, good and bad.  One of the students asked if I had ever been scared doing my job.  Interesting question.  Easy answer.  Yes.

I've been nervous before, about speaking or carrying a bill on the floor, but those are just nerves about sounding stupid or saying something inaccurate or embarrassing.  Fear, on the hand, hasn't been felt nearly as often.  In fact, I can only think of one occasion.  Carrying Senate Bill 8, the "ultrasound bill," in the House Health & Welfare Committee.  The bill, just like others over the years before now, had come out of the Senate and died at the hands of a pro-choice Committee Chairman and pro-choice House leaders — some publicly and unabashedly, and others under cover of anonymity and secret, if not outright deceit.  This year, the bill had sat without a hearing in the House Health & Welfare Committee for over two months when a discharge petition was filed in the house.  A discharge petition, if passed by a simple majority (51 of 100), would remove the unheard bill from the Committee and bring it before the full House for a vote on the floor.  This year, despite 61 co-sponsors of a house bill that contained SB8 language, 49 democrats and a couple of republicans (many of whom brag on themselves for co-sponsoring the same kind of bill) either walked out on the discharge petition vote or simply failed to show up for it at all.  The petition failed to pass.  Naturally, the next move of House leadership was to hear the bill in Committee - it's an election year so they can't ignore the bill altogether.  That's where I come in.

The House Health & Welfare Committee is perceived, fairly or unfairly, as unfriendly territory for conservatives.  Liberals control the membership head count, and the tension between committee members of opposite ideologies is palpable and sometimes expressly shown.  Even the committee members themselves refer to the committee by its common nickname "Hell & Warfare."  This was the lions' den, and I was ordered to march in knowing legislative defeat was certain.

I approached my testimony with great fright, believing I would be attacked or my words twisted by the committee members or the media or both.  But I carried on. I presented the bill calmly and directly, explaining the bill didn't actually do anything to expressly restrict abortion at all (no matter how much I wish would).

My testimony fell on more deaf ears than not. Those who wish to protect abortion rights made half-true claims about the bill, and particularly galling was the act by two of the most fiercely prochoice members of the committee to make the initial motion and second for the bill to be voted on — they knew they had numbers.

I explained the situation as it unfolded (edited for time and content, of course)  to these school kids. I told them how scared I was of that meeting and the battle that would come my way.  It was at that moment when a young man raised his hand to ask this profound question:

So you fight until the war is over?

Yep.

A reporter politely asked me once why we (conservatives) keep fighting for prolife legislation when we know it will continue to be defeated.  We keep fighting because those lives should be protected, and we can't give up until they are.  I trust God's plan, regardless of the outcome.  He can *seal* the mouths of the lions!

 

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Irony

I was reading some of the statewide news articles today in the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Courier Journal, when an op-ed headline from the Leader caught my attention:

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