There's no reason why anyone should need an abortion minutes before giving birth, when all states have infant safe haven laws.

The false promise of “safe, legal, and rare” made living with the evil of abortion seem tolerable to so many Americans. Cut to thunderous applause (minute 1:18) in New York over legislation making it common and profitable, all the way up until the moment of birth.

As noted by The New York Times: “if liberal social policies really led inexorably to fewer unplanned pregnancies and thus fewer abortions, you would expect ‘blue’ regions of the country to have lower teen pregnancy rates and fewer abortions per capita than demographically similar ‘red’ regions…But that isn’t what the data show…liberal policies don’t always seem to deliver the ‘rare’ part.”

I have much gratitude for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s slip of the tongue, which revealed the moral truth of the matter. He said: “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

The grand jury report in the Dr. Kermit Gosnell case explained the dilemma facing the late-term abortion doctor: “Babies that big are hard to get out. Gosnell’s approach, whenever possible, was to force full labor and delivery of premature infants on ill-informed women…When you perform late-term ‘abortions’ by inducing labor, you get babies. Live, breathing, squirming babies. By 24 weeks, most babies born prematurely will survive if they receive appropriate medical care…Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them. He didn’t call it that. He called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’”

“Ensuring fetal demise,” is exactly what Northam described. In a world that made sense, a governor channeling Gosnell’s morality would be a source of shame and revulsion to the party that put him in power. Implausibly, one couldn’t find a Democrat who would admit to even hearing his shocking admission. Not until this governor committed a much greater sin: he appears to have posed in a racially insensitive costume in the 1980s.

An ex-classmate released the photo to trigger the outrage that the liberal public should have felt over his abortion remarks. Among the intelligentsia, no leftist dare express individual outrage at even the most outrageous abortion practice. The sheep-white-clad congresswomen attending the State of the Union address, for example, displayed the real reason for this silence, as they furtively looked to each other for cues on whether to sit in outrage or stand in applause. None would react until she felt the safety of the herd. You know, like leaders do.

A thousand miracles must cascade just right to organize specks of organic matter into the noble human form. Between 20 percent and 51 percent of the time, something goes wrong and a pregnancy ends in miscarriage. A trillion miles of cold merciless death and vacuum in every direction surround our sanctuary where flawed humans are sometimes blessed to exercise the gift of participating in a creation process that nobody fully comprehends.

For many, the sight of a baby stokes unfulfilled longing, the missed opportunity of fleeting youth to bring a soul down from heaven to walk among us. Infertile couples, gay couples, single wannabe parents are all powerless to claim their heart’s desire from wanton destruction of for-profit abortion mills.

What to do with an unwanted baby? There’s no such thing. In every state in the union, a new mother can take her new baby to a hospital or police station and just walk away from whatever shame and regret she might attach to the newborn, no questions asked. They’re called infant safe haven laws, and they work as intended, encouraging mothers to leave their children with people who can find better outcomes for those children instead of abusing or abandoning their babies.

In eight states — Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Vermont — it is legal to abort at any time until the baby draws her first breath. What benefit is it to the outcome of the mother to abort the baby moments before delivery when, seconds later, she can hand off the baby, never to be responsible for it again?

While some marriages end in murder, murder is never the right solution to expel the unwanted. The gruesome abortionist Kermit Gosnell silenced hundreds of babies born alive with his scissor snips to the spine. He argued at his trial that the character of what he did to babies born alive is no different that the sanctioned abortions of identical babies still inside their mothers.

In Pennsylvania, where Gosnell killed these babies, the mother had a full 28 days to give the baby to any hospital in Pennsylvania––no questions and no consequences if she just let the baby live. Just find a doctor or medical professional who isn’t performing an abortion, and the baby’s life can be spared without burdening a reluctant mother.

Is it about money? About profit? Let potential parents bounty any abortion doctors who guide mothers to end their shame with a priceless gift instead of a dark act. Imagine a world where an abortion doctor received a fee for connecting adoptive parents to a baby who needs parents. Laws would have to change, but the social benefit would be incalculable. When that day comes, I’ll write the first ransom check.