ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The state must stop pretending the unborn are not human beings

Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis became a media star this summer. Mainstream news networks such as ABC, CBS and NBC lauded Ms. Davis as the next governor of Texas. They hyperventilated over her red shoes and her “elegant white suit.”

These networks kept quiet about what had brought Ms. Davis to their attention in the first place: her unequivocal support for abortion after 20 weeks’ gestation, and her willingness to filibuster for 11 hours in defense of it.

Ms. Davis recently admitted, “I don’t know what happened in the Gosnell case” — Kermit Gosnell being the abortionist convicted in May of murdering born babies. Maybe Ms. Davis also doesn’t know what a baby’s life is like at 20 weeks (five months) in the womb: how she can hear and recognize her mother’s voice, how her fingernails and toenails are growing, how she’s starting to kick. Or how she can feel pain, probably more acutely than we do.

Here’s something else Ms. Davis might not know about: After Gosnell was convicted of severing born infants’ spines, a new “House of Horrors” emerged in Texas. The abortionist’s name is Douglas Karpen. He’s not wearing red shoes — at least, not when he begins his workday. According to three whistleblowers among his own staff, though, those shoes are definitely red by the time he clocks out.

Ms. Davis and Dr. Karpen — both hail from Texas, and both ardently support late-term abortion — the dismemberment of fully formed babies in the womb. Ms. Davis gets lauded as a champion of women’s rights, a champion of “choice.” Dr. Karpen is ignored.

Ms. Davis‘ remark “I don’t know what happened in the Gosnell case” is telling, not just for her, but for many pro-choice people in our country. In short, the way they talk about abortion shows a fundamental ignorance that needs to be addressed.

Take the media. Never mind that they had to be shamed into covering Gosnell at all. Worse than that, both The Associated Press and The New York Times have referred to babies born alive as “fetuses” — a critical error, since once a fetus emerges from the womb, he or she is, by definition, an infant, for whom all but the most hard-core abortion advocates (like Planned Parenthood) acknowledge human rights. A writer at The Associated Press declared, preposterously, that “abortions are typically performed in utero,” while MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry described on several occasions how a preborn child “might turn into a human,” and how what determines human life is “not science,” but rather “the feeling of the parents.”

Remember, medical technology has established that the preborn child is a human being. Media members, though, ignore the evidence right in front of their faces.

For some reason, the big opinion-makers in New York and Washington refuse to come to terms with the truth of abortion. Consequently, they avoid covering the issue at all when they can, ensuring that the people who watch their channels remain uninformed. When this is impossible, the language they use to describe the abortion issue is mind-boggling in its complete detachment from reality.

Gosnell forced a reckoning on the American people. His trial seized us all by the cheeks and forced us to really look at the fruits of the abortion fantasy. For more than 40 years, Americans have massaged their psyches at the expense of 50 million innocent lives.

In a recent speech, Phil Robertson, of the hugely popular TV series “Duck Dynasty,” asked, “What in the world happened to us?” He was referring to the unconscionable human-rights abuse of abortion, in which we allow the weak and voiceless among us to be torn apart, limb from limb, in the place where they should be safest.

What in the world happened to us? We Americans need to look down deep and answer that question. With Kermit Gosnell, Wendy Davis and scandal-ridden Planned Parenthood permeating the news, it’s time for us all to have an honest discussion on the reality of abortion; namely, about what this procedure truly does to a unique human person in his or her mother’s womb.

As for the big news distributors: This discussion needs to be well-covered. They have spent enough time skirting and flinching from an honest treatment of abortion.

They say that to be numb to the truth is not to truly live. We can’t afford to be ignorant anymore. For our own lives and for the sake of our children, it’s time to put an end to our abortion blindness — and its deadly impact on American culture and women.

Lila Rose is the president and founder of Live Action.

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