Friends have alerted me to the story, which has not received much coverage, of how Jennifer Morbellii, a 29-year-old New Rochelle, New York, teacher, died after a late-term abortion in Montgomery County, Maryland. She was 33 weeks into her pregnancy, a point at which the unborn child might well have been viable. This doctor in question evidently routinely performs late-term abortions.

 

This raises the question of why third-term abortions be allowed. Why is one child’s life ended while in other medical facilities infants  doctors and staff take heroic measures and often succeed in saving the life of another child at the same stage of pregnancy? Journalists are fond of asking candidates who want to prohibit abortion about whether that applies to cases of rape—even though there’s no chance of such legislation passing even if Roe v. Wade were reversed tomorrow. Fair journalists would be at least equally fond of posing similar questions to supporters of legal third-term abortions and opponents of the Born Alive Protection Act, which passed Congress but against an identical version of which Barack Obama voted in the Illinois Senate. As the death of Jennifer Morbelli shows, these are real life and death issues.