Chris Cuomo Gets It Wrong On Abortion

Chris Cuomo

by Bill Donohue: On his CNN show of May 17, Chris Cuomo made several remarks about abortion that deserve a rebuttal. The occasion of his comments was the decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a Mississippi case that bans abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Cuomo is upset that we haven’t impaneled experts to decide what science says about fetal viability. Here is how he phrases it. “When does what is inside a woman become a person with rights under the law?”

Pro-abortion enthusiasts such as Cuomo find that discussing this subject can be a linguistic minefield. They have to proceed in tippy-toe fashion, always being careful not to mention the obvious, namely that the pregnant woman is carrying her baby. They have to resort to talking about “what is inside a [pregnant] woman,” as if it were a mystery.

Contrary to what Cuomo’s secular faith believes, science is not ambiguous about “what is inside a [pregnant woman].” If uninterrupted, what is conceived at conception will develop into a fully formed human being. All the properties that make us a unique individual—the contents of our DNA—do not suddenly manifest themselves at birth. No, they are there from the get-go, which is to say fertilization. In other words, “what is inside a [pregnant] woman” is another human being.

Cuomo needs to follow the science. If he does, he will quickly learn that science validates what the Catholic Church teaches. It is not the Church that is out-of-step with science—it is Cuomo.

Moreover, his injection of ideology into this debate belittles his position: it is not about race or religion. When he uses boogey-man terms like “far-right white fright,” and speaks derisively about pro-life Americans—they are people who “get up in their religion”—he comes across as a philistine.

Cuomo says that “Most Americans want the court to uphold Roe v. Wade.” Not exactly. As reported by CBS last year, a Marist poll found that “65% of Americans are likely to vote for a candidate who believes an abortion should be outlawed after the first three months of a pregnancy; allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother; or not permitted under any circumstance.”

In other words, most Americans expressly reject what Roe v. Wade permits, which is the unfettered right to an abortion for any reason and at any time of gestation.

Cuomo does not want to see Roe v Wade overturned, arguing that we need to respect “stare decisis,” or legal precedent. People like him have no problem telling us how we need to unsettle “settled law” when it comes to reinterpreting the meaning of marriage, or what it means to be a man or a woman.

It all comes down to “what is inside a [pregnant] woman.” If this cannot be answered, then abortion is not a moral issue. If it can—and of course it can—then it is. Indeed, attempts to justify it are patently immoral.
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Bill Donohue is president of Catholic League.

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