by Mary Hahn Beerworth
After Phil Scott was targeted for defeat by an expensive and misleading advertising campaign paid for by Planned Parenthood, he flip-flopped, threw in with the “loves abortion” crowd, and folded to Planned Parenthood’s extreme abortion-on-demand agenda.
Scott once claimed to be a supporter of notifying parents before a minor daughter has an abortion, and an opponent of the gruesome partial-birth abortion procedure.
Now, whatever Planned Parenthood wants, Planned Parenthood gets.
Phil Scott learned his lesson – political pressure is effective. It comes as no surprise that Governor Phil Scott knows how to use political pressure and doesn’t hesitate to use it even when he doesn’t have all the facts.
Scott signed unlimited abortion into statute (2019) and stepped up to promote an amendment to the Vermont Constitution to “enshrine” unlimited abortion in our state’s founding document (2022).
In 2023, Scott signed a law that empowered the Attorney General to close down pregnancy resource centers that offer free services and help for young girls and women who wish to carry their babies to term.
Just this past year, Scott enacted a law that would eliminate protective measures for women seeking medical abortions by enabling anyone to acquire the deadly drugs – just by filling out an online questionnaire. It is becoming common to hear of men who oppose their partner’s decision to carry a baby to term, obtaining the drugs and then adding them to a pregnant woman’s drink, causing her to lose the baby.
The legislature ignores a woman’s right to choose to carry her baby to term but caves to the abortion lobby’s demands every time.
As Vermont Right to Life predicted would happen, the standards of professionalism have been lowered for abortion providers, and young girls and women are less safe than ever.
Vermont lawmakers have been unwilling to even consider passing a law protecting pregnant women from those who would engage in criminal acts that result in harm or death to a wanted baby – thereby denying a woman her right to choose life. The opportunity to rectify that situation is once again before the legislature in current Senate Bill 116. But it is highly unlikely to be addressed as the only concern is protecting abortion and not a woman’s choice to carry her baby to term.
An unborn baby’s heart is regularly beating just days after conception, but even viable, unborn children have zero legal protection in Vermont.
Capitulating to political pressure has contributed to deaths of over a thousand unborn babies each year in Vermont.
Maybe it is past time for the Governor to take a good, long look in the mirror before casting stones.
Author is Executive Director, Vermont Right to Life.