Isabel Vaughan-Spruce: "The damage abortion inflicts on women alone should be enough to make us pro-life".Sisters of LifeThe pregnant woman who does not want to be a mother is already a mother".Amy Sinclair is the president of the Iowa Senate, in United States. For years, he has been fighting to defend life at all stages. He believes that it is essential to legislate against abortion, but that it is also necessary for society to change its mentality about respect for life and the intrinsic dignity of every human being.
Sinclair firmly insists that to be pro-life is to be pro-women, since more than half of the babies who die in the womb are girls. She also believes that the abortion is a practical reality that requires taking care of all aspects of society: education, health, economy, etc.
In this conversation with Omnes, Amy Sinclair discusses the relationship between morality and law, abortion and its consequences in our society, and her career in American politics.
It can be difficult to talk about abortion, because it is very easy to fall into the realm of ideas and forget practical everyday details, such as money. How can we approach the abortion debate without forgetting reality, but also respecting ideas and values?
- For me, abortion is just a practical reality. We're talking about taking the life of an unborn child. And yes, that has an impact on the woman carrying the child, sure, and it has economic impact, economic impact, and all those things. I don't think we should stop having those debates, but the underlying reality is that the unborn is also a human being with dignity. It's a human being that deserves defense and respect.
So when we talk about laws that are put in place to talk about this procedure that ends a life, I think we have to be very practical in talking about it. In Iowa we have been very practical in dealing with abortion issues. If, in fact, we are going to say, as a state, that we are pro-life and that we want laws that defend life, we also have to be very practical in saying that we are pro-woman and that we want to defend those women who find themselves with an unplanned or unwanted pregnancy.
We have passed laws that expand health care in rural areas. We have passed the "mother's law," which includes funding for support services for mothers before and after pregnancy, so that they have a support network to help them through an unplanned pregnancy.
The crisis pregnancy support center will stand with that woman and support her through the process. We have worked very hard to have a fiscal economy in our state that supports families, that helps families become more self-sufficient. And, in addition, we're working to find ways to expand access to childcare.
And it's not that any one of those things alone should be the reason a woman has an abortion. We want to remove those barriers that prevent mothers from being a productive citizen while having a child, and so those are all ways to support a woman while protecting and defending life.
Do you believe that religion is necessary to protect life and be pro-life?
- I don't think so, even though the United States has been a historically Christian nation, and Iowa is a traditionally Christian state. But I don't think that's necessary to identify the humanity of the unborn.
In every law I consider, in every bill I draft, there are usually moral implications for everything. We have laws against murder, against kidnapping, against theft. They are laws about morality.
So when we talk about abortion and restricting access to abortion, it is also a law with moral implications. But those moral implications are not necessarily linked to a faith. Abortion is not about a faith, it's about identifying the humanity of an unborn human being. It is about offering the same protection to the unborn that we would offer to a woman or a child who has already been born.
As a society, it is important that we do not single out one segment of humanity, as opposed to another, just because of its size or location. And I do not believe that it is necessary to be closely tied to a religion to intellectually understand that this is a human being worthy of protection by the community and society into which he or she has been incorporated.
What are your hopes and dreams, related to the protection of life, for Iowa in the future?
- We talk a lot about changing the laws, and to me that's an important part of this conversation, but I think we need to talk a lot about changing society. We have to make sure that, as a society, we understand the value of every single human individual. We have to understand that humanity is interconnected and that standing up for those unborn human beings should be a natural part of who we are as human beings.
So yes, I want laws that protect all people. That would be my wish and my additional wish would be that society as a whole would recognize the fact that even these unborn children are really human beings worthy of their place in society.
Do you consider that your career has been more difficult because you are pro-life?
- No, not really. My career depends on the fact that I have strong convictions, and those strong convictions are philosophically rooted in the value of the individual. I think I find it easier to get up and do the right thing every day because it is sincere beliefs that I have. Faith or no faith, I believe that a human being has dignity.
If I didn't believe it, I wouldn't bother doing what I do. It takes too much effort, too much time, too much energy to do something if you don't believe deeply in what you do. And I believe wholeheartedly in the value of each individual and all the work I've done in the Iowa Senate has been based on that belief.
What laws do we need to protect life in all its stages?
- I recently received an email asking me how I was going to protect a certain segment of society. My answer is the same for all segments of life and society. We must have laws that protect the individual human being. Whether it is providing a sound education, making sure that our state is economically vital, whether it is reducing government interference so that families can make decisions for themselves....
My answer is the same across the board. I want Iowa to be a state that fosters independence and economic vitality, as well as a well-rounded education.
Do you ever lose motivation?
- It's easy to get discouraged. Especially in the world we live in today, we are becoming politically polarized and having a two-party system in the United States probably increases awareness of the divide.
So yes, when I open an email with a death threat, it can be a little discouraging. But I come back to the idea that I do what I do for a purpose, and that purpose is valuable.
The heartbeat ands very important in your life, can you tell us about it?
- In Iowa we passed "heartbeat laws" for an easily understandable purpose. Personally, I would say that a human being begins when that unique individual is created at the moment of conception, that is my personal belief. Not everybody agrees with that, so we have to find common ground that will take us further down the path of protecting the individual. And in Iowa it was this heartbeat law.
There are two heartbeats that really had an impact on my life. The first was my father's heartbeat. My father died when he was in his early forties, so I was quite young when it happened. He had pancreatic cancer, he was in the hospital and his heart stopped. The doctors tried to resuscitate him, but they were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead. They did not pronounce him dead before his heart stopped, it was only after his heart stopped beating, when they could no longer hear that sound, that indication of life, that they said he was not alive. As human beings, we identify that the beating of the heart indicates life, and the end of life.
The other heartbeat that was really important to me was my son. I am that woman that so many women say "you should have an abortion". I was a teenage mother. I was 19 when my oldest son was born. It definitely wasn't planned. It probably wasn't what I would have chosen at 19. It wasn't what I wanted to do with my life.
I went to the first prenatal appointment and they brought out the fetal heart monitor, put it on my belly and I could hear that rhythm, the beating of his heart. That was not me, it was easy to identify by the sound of that unborn child's heartbeat that it was a separate and distinct human being. It existed, though dependent on me, separate from me. It was easy to identify that life based on its heartbeat.
So if at the end of life, in the death of my father, we identify his death based on the fact that his heart no longer beats, how can we not also identify, as a civilized society, that the sound of a heartbeat beginning is an indication of life.
It was not my body and my choice. It was his body. It was my choice, but it was her body. The reality is that abortion is taking the life of another human being.
Do you think this fight will come to an end and the pro-life movement will win?
- I think ultimately history will judge us by the last 50 years. We are barbaric in our treatment of the unborn, and it's spilled over into our treatment of the elderly. And it has clouded our treatment of the young, in general.
In America we face a crisis of mental health, resilience, substance abuse and violent crime. And I think all of that can be related to the fact that we said you only matter if your mother loves you. We made human life dependent on the approval of another human being. We took away that intrinsic value when we said "we can kill you if it makes us happier."
As societies, we are seeing the results of that in substance abuse, in depression, in violent crime. I think these young people, perhaps not consciously, find it difficult to value themselves if society has not valued them before.
