When Abortion Becomes Something To Celebrate

They smiled. They applauded. Some appeared to laugh with joy.

The occasion?

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey was signing legislation that removes the state's previous restrictions governing abortion after 24 weeks and replaces them with a standard based on a physician's professional judgment.

But let's put that into language everyone can understand.

The legislation contains no specific gestational-age cutoff. That means its legal framework can extend through the final weeks of pregnancy—right up until birth—subject to the physician's professional judgment.

Forget the clinical terminology for a moment.

Picture a woman eight or nine months pregnant. The baby visibly moves beneath her clothing. The nursery may already be prepared. The car seat installed. Tiny clothes folded in a drawer.

We are talking about a child who could potentially be born and placed into his mother's arms.

And as the legislation was signed, people applauded.

Perhaps that tells us something even more disturbing than the legislation itself.

There was a time when even America's most prominent abortion-rights politicians portrayed abortion as something society should hope to minimize.

Bill Clinton famously said abortion should be "safe, legal and rare."

The word rare mattered.

It implicitly acknowledged that abortion wasn't something to celebrate.

Look at where we are now.

Abortion is called freedom.

It is called empowerment.

It is called healthcare.

Removing restrictions is called progress.

And politicians gather around a desk while cameras roll and supporters applaud.

We haven't simply changed abortion laws.

We have changed our attitude toward abortion itself.

Nearly 2,800 years ago, the prophet Isaiah issued a warning that sounds remarkably relevant:

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness..." — Isaiah 5:20

Isaiah wasn't merely describing people doing evil things. Human beings have always sinned.

He was describing something more dangerous: moral inversion.

Eventually the labels themselves become reversed.

What was once considered tragic becomes liberation.

What was once shameful becomes celebrated.

What once produced sorrow eventually produces applause.

That is why the Massachusetts signing ceremony deserves our attention.

Political debates have a way of hiding reality behind numbers.

Twenty-four weeks. Thirty weeks. Thirty-six weeks. Forty weeks.

For millions of people—particularly men who have never experienced pregnancy—those numbers can sound abstract.

So put them into terms everyone understands.

A typical full-term pregnancy is approximately 40 weeks.

Thirty-six weeks means roughly a month before the due date.

Thirty-eight weeks means birth may be just days away.

At that stage, nobody needs a medical degree to understand what is inside the womb.

There are arms. Legs. Fingers. Toes. A face. A beating heart.

The baby moves and kicks strongly enough that those movements can sometimes be seen through the mother's abdomen.

The hospital bag may already be packed.

Family members may be waiting for the phone call.

Strangers see the expectant mother and ask:

When is the baby due?"

Nobody asks when the fetus is due.

And yet Massachusetts has removed its specific statutory conditions governing abortions after 24 weeks.

That is the reality obscured by clinical phrases such as "abortion access."

We're talking about a legal framework that can extend into the final months, weeks and potentially days before birth.

Now consider the contradiction.

Imagine two rooms in the same hospital.

In one, a premature baby has just been delivered.

Doctors rush into action. Nurses monitor every breath. Parents stand nearby praying their tiny child survives.

Decades of medical advancement are brought to bear for one purpose:

Keep this baby alive.

Now imagine another child at a comparable—or even more advanced—stage of development who remains inside the womb.

What changed?

Not the child's humanity.

Not the child's DNA.

Not the child's value.

Only the child's location.

One may become the object of an extraordinary medical rescue effort.

The other exists under an abortion law containing no specific gestational-age cutoff.

How did a few inches come to make such an enormous difference in the protection afforded human life?

Modern ultrasound has opened a window into the womb.

Parents watch their children move.

They see hands and feet.

They watch babies stretch, kick and turn.

They take ultrasound pictures home, send them to grandparents and post them in pregnancy announcements.

Nobody looks at the ultrasound of a wanted child and says, "Look at our reproductive tissue."

They say:

Look at our baby."

Science has made the humanity of the unborn increasingly difficult to hide behind political terminology.

Yet politically, parts of America continue moving in the opposite direction.

Years from now, perhaps the most revealing part of this story won't be found in the legislative language.

It may be found in the video.

The smiles.

The laughter.

The applause.

Because laws tell us what governments permit.

Celebrations tell us what cultures value.

America didn't arrive here overnight.

Moral boundaries rarely collapse all at once.

First something shocks us.

Then we tolerate it.

Then we normalize it.

Then we defend it.

Then we celebrate it.

And eventually we condemn those who still dare to call it wrong.

That is why Isaiah's warning remains so powerful.

He warned about a world where evil receives a new name.

Where darkness is renamed light.

Where wrong is renamed right.

Where taking innocent life is renamed healthcare.

And where removing abortion restrictions extending into the final weeks before birth becomes an occasion for smiles, laughter and applause.

Massachusetts has changed its abortion law.

But perhaps something much bigger was on display at that signing ceremony.

The law showed us what Massachusetts now permits.

The applause showed us what our culture is becoming.