NEWFANE — The first article of Vermont's fine constitution begins: “That all persons are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”
The Legislature will soon consider a proposal to amend the constitution to include a constitutional right to abortion. Proposal 5's proposed language is as follows: “That an individual's right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one's own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”
What about the rights of the individual about to be killed through abortion? What about being born free and having inherent rights? How are the rights of the unborn Vermonter protected from being denied or infringed?
What is the compelling state interest in killing unborn children?
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Science is finding out more about life and human consciousness all the time, and there are new findings on both ends of the continuum.
In 2021, a 21-week old baby was born prematurely and survived, thanks to the life-saving medical care he received. Now, 24-week-old preemies routinely survive, thanks to advances in medical care and to the compassion of medical professionals who work so that the children grow and thrive.
Unborn children in the womb are able to sense and hear their surroundings. In-vitro fertilization has shown that embryos contain the spark of life.
In December, researchers showed that 20 to 25 percent of people who were comatose and thought to be unconscious were actually fully conscious and able to hear and understand everything going on around them but simply unable to communicate until new scientific approaches to deep brain scans allowed them to do so.
Just as religious people, scientists, and doctors believe that human life is precious, which is why they try to understand it and protect it.
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Having a child absolutely impacts “one's ability to determine one's own life course,” as any parent will attest. It means putting the needs of a defenseless being ahead of your own. It's expensive to raise a child and getting more so every day. Child care is scarce and costly, and leaving the workforce puts mothers at a professional disadvantage. Adding a child into the mix when you're struggling financially is really hard.
The answer, though, isn't to kill those children before they are born. Vermont should do more to make it easier to raise children, not to kill them.
Perhaps all the time, effort, and funding spent by lobbyists to campaign for Prop 5 could instead be used to work to get better programs for child care and parental leave.
Vermont is sometimes compared to Scandinavian countries in terms of our progressiveness. Some parental leave programs in Scandinavian countries include 14 weeks of paid maternal leave and 48 weeks of additional leave that can be split between the parents. Many countries (not just Scandinavian ones) offer free universal day care.
We could do even more! We pay people to move here. What if we paid mothers a stable income to stay home and raise their kids until the children are ready to enter kindergarten? And for those mothers who would prefer to work, we could institute a program to recruit and train early-childhood educators and offer universal free child care. And for those mothers who really don't want their children, we could support them through adoption rather than abortion, because there are lots of childless people who would love to raise them.
Vermont is a state that cares about the vulnerable. We haven't had an execution since 1954. (Putting a prohibition on capital punishment would be a grand constitutional amendment.)
We care about saving the lives of people who are overdosing on drugs - that's why Narcan is available so widely. We care about the rights of prisoners and housing homeless people. We are concerned about the aging population and not having enough young families in the state.
So rather than support killing children, let's get behind making it easier for children to be born and grow up in comfortable, supportive, loving homes - whether that is with their birth parents or adoptive parents.
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There will always be ways for mothers to have abortions. It used to be that abortion supporters just wanted the procedure to be safe but as rare as possible.
However, the current proposal seeks to make it as available as possible, without any consideration of saving the life of the unborn child. Enshrining abortion as a constitutional right is antithetical to the very constitution the Prop 5 supporters seek to amend.
If you believe that life is precious, and if you believe that the vulnerable need extra protection, please contact your legislator and tell them to kill Prop 5 - not unborn babies.