John Wilson, a guy who I love to talk with, has an op-ed in the New York Post about the abortion rate in New York City.

According to the city Health Department, 2008 saw 89,469 abortions performed in New York City — seven for every 10 live births. Among black women, abortions out number live births by three to two.

Quinn: Speaker won’t discuss city’s tops-in-nation abortion rate.

In other words, the reality in New York is about as far as possible from Bill Clinton’s proposition that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.”

Yet, of the 51 City Council members, only five — Republicans Eric Ulrich and Dan Halloran and Democrats Peter Vallone Jr., James Sanders and Danny Dromm, all of Queens — were willing to call that abortion rate “too high.”

“I don’t think those numbers are meaningful,” said Upper East Side Councilwoman Jessica Lappin. “I don’t tell people whether they should have two kids, four kids or 10 kids.” One council aide even fretted that a lower abortion rate would bankrupt the city.

Speaker Christine Quinn refused to answer at all, offering only the canned response that “we can reduce the number of unintended pregnancies . . . by expanding access to contraceptives and increasing sex education.”
Interestingly, one dissenter from New York’s abortion taboo is former state Sen. Franz Leichter — who sponsored the legalization bill when he was in the Assembly in 1970. The abortion rate “is higher than anyone wanted to see,” he says — and “my support for abortion rights . . . is as strong as anyone’s.”

Why the silence? Perhaps it’s a concern that New York’s pro-choice majority is not as solid as it seems, and that talking candidly about the issue will only make matters worse.

Interesting points, but I don’t think the issue is the support for abortion rights but rather the fiscal support for single pregnant women. The question becomes how do we, as Catholics, support these women not just in the effort to bring their child to term but to actually support them.

The “sad truth” is that most actually don’t care. Most are unwilling to put their own lives on the back burner to take up the cause of injustice and poverty. If we all really cared, we’d all be welcoming these people into our lives and making THEM a priority instead of our own wants.

And I really wonder how many Republicans might be on board with that in addition to their overwhelming support for life? And how many democrats would have enough heart to say that abortion is murder instead of saying that question of when life begins is “above their pay grade” as President Obama said.

Perhaps God is continually calling all of us to open our eyes to see the entire tree in our eye as opposed to the log that is usually there when it comes to this question?

Read more of John’s column here: