Over the past year, there have been many arguments against Maryland’s Ballot Question 1 which is being voted on this year as an amendment to the Maryland State Constitution.
The question is cleverly named by Progressives as the “Right to Reproductive Freedom” implying that without the amendment, men and women across the state would be denied the right to decide when they want or don’t want to reproduce. Here is how the text would be written in the Maryland Constitution:
| That every person, as a central component of an individual’s rights to liberty and equality, has the fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including but not limited to the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end one’s own pregnancy. The state may not, directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.[7] |
Of course, no one in Maryland is now or ever would be denied the right to PREVENT a pregnancy. There are many fool proof options offered. Now, before the progressives in the audience start to scream “no method is 100% effective” let us say that we know that. And, since abortion is legal in Maryland and has been since 1991, that “option” will be available to Maryland citizens whether this amendment passes or not.
In 1991, the Maryland State Legislature passed Senate Bill 162, which said “the state may not interfere with the decision of a woman to terminate a pregnancy “before fetal viability.” That last phrase is critical.
The main reason ballot question 1 is a terrible idea is because it does something that NO U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights does. It codifies the RIGHT of a person to kill another innocent person. The key word here is “innocent.” An unborn child has done nothing wrong and threatens no one. Many want to split hairs about, when, after fertilization a fetus becomes an unborn child. Even if some disagree about what that phrase means, most accept that abortion should only be done “before fetal viability.”
Abortion rights activists will jump in here and state that sometimes a pregnancy or delivery of a baby could cost the mother her life, inferring that the unborn child DOES threaten the mother. This is a specious argument since the fact remains that an unborn child can’t have intent to harm or kill. And, those women who may be threatened by pregnancy often have pre-existing conditions that put the pregnancy at risk from the beginning. According to the Wanda Barfield M.D., M.P.H., director of the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, “The majority of pregnancy-related deaths were preventable, highlighting the need for quality improvement initiatives in states, hospitals, and communities that ensure all people (women) who are pregnant or postpartum get the right care at the right time.” This care could be preventive for cardiac and coronary conditions, mental health conditions, thrombotic embolisms, Cardiomyopathy, Hypertension, and hemorrhaging. Thus, deaths in pregnancy could be prevented.
In most states, abortion laws allow abortion as an intervention to save a mother’s life. In Maryland abortion is legal after viability if the woman’s life or health is endangered or there is a fetal anomaly.[3]
Still, neither the U.S. nor the Maryland Constitution calls abortion, the killing of an innocent child for convenience (or the killing of any other innocent person), a “right.”
There are other groups who have taken the Ballot Question passage to what might be considered its “most logical conclusion.” In their minds, the adoption of this Constitutional Amendment would open the door to denying parental rights:
These arguments are worthy of consideration.
Many ask what the harm is in passing this amendment. After all, the law is already in place so nothing would really change after November 5th. In a letter to the Maryland Legislature, Dr. Frank Arlinghaus points out a problem with putting abortion into the Maryland Constitution:
“[A]mending the Maryland Constitution is an unusual and extreme measure, and this bill would take an extreme position on abortion, restricting the legislature’s opportunities to pass reasonable restrictions on abortion in late pregnancy or to restrict it as other healthcare.”
Once abortion becomes part of the State’s Constitution, no one will be able to deny a woman an abortion at any point of the pregnancy regardless of her reasons.
Other problems are that as a right in the State’s Constitution, no doctor will be able to refuse to do abortions even if they have a religious or moral objection.
Maryland law currently states parents must be notified before a minor child obtains an abortion, but parental consent is not necessary. How long before this State Constitutional Amendment allows them without parental notification because abortion is now a right in the State?
Let’s not forget how an amendment like this can be twisted later on down the road, making many things that could be morphed into reproductive rights even though they won’t be. It’s a history lesson we should all learn.
And no one in the State Legislature will be able to prevent any of that via a vote if Ballot Question #1 passes.
Vote NO on Ballot Question 1. It’s unnecessary and it will be extremely harmful.
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