No One Is Innocent

THE NEW Massachusetts law requiring "informed consent" before abortion, now under consideration by the U.S. Court of Appeals, is a silly law and will probably, if it goes into effect, be a destructive one. But what do you expect from any group that calls itself a state legislature? Ask them to tie their shoes--they will muck it up.

The point, though, is that these people should be commended for at least trying to bring some responsibility to the use of abortion. We do not feel it is wrong to say that 40,000 abortions in one year in the state of Massachusetts is too many. We do not feel that it is altogether obvious to all the women having abortions that abortion is emphatically not a method of birth control. Something has to be done, and if the state legislature has been less than dexterous in doing it, it is not the first time.

What the law asks, in effect, is for women having abortions to feel guilty about it--and that is a good thing. However much we approve of the right to an abortion, we must condemn the use of that right, just as we must condemn a soldier, or one who kills in selfdefense. And in condemning abortion we condemn ourselves. We should all feel guilty, after each abortion, for we are all part of the society that, of necessity, allows it. The state legislature has only been mistaken in trying to force this emotion through the code of the law. But as "the letter killeth," so do the abortionists, and which is worse?