PUBLISHER'S NOTEBOOK: Whatever you think of Eastman, he has the tenacity of a martyr

A little more than a week after the State House censured District 10 Representative David Eastman, he has introduced House Bill 250. The proposed legislation would identify personhood at conception, legally calling an unborn child a ‘preborn child’ thus establishing personhood and giving the fetus constitutional rights. That’s the first part of his bill that would make abortion illegal.

No matter your thoughts on David Eastman and his previous comments that got him censured, you have to admire his tenacity. He didn’t go sit in a corner feeling sorry for himself for being misunderstood in the court of public opinion or by his peers for that matter. Abortion is his cause. As I stated in a previous column, I don’t believe Eastman is a racist, a sexist or any kind of ‘ist’. He is a Christian zealot and he is a martyr for the anti-abortion movement.

He is striking at the right time as states are beginning to make abortions harder to obtain. The Washington Post identified fourteen states that has made getting an abortion more difficult in 2016. The anti-abortion momentum across the country is growing stronger. Although one has to believe that in a Democratic controlled house, HB250 will be soundly defeated. The 24-page bill seems to have left no stone unturned. Like him or dislike him, he’s put the abortion debate in Alaska front and center. It’s a debate that needs to be heard, especially the crux of the issue which is, “when does life begin?”

My wife and I have raised three children. All are healthy and happy and establishing their own version of happiness. There was a fourth child, though unfortunately we lost the baby early on in our pregnancy. The memories of that day are still vivid. We were both very distraught and sure felt like we were mourning a child that we would never meet. If life doesn’t begin at conception or on the day as parents we hear those words, “You’re pregnant”. Then why did losing someone we never met hurt so much? Why do we still stop and think about him or her some 25 years later? Until we establish as a society when personhood starts we can never really solve the abortion issue.

The problem with House Bill 250 is that it then labels abortion of a preborn child as murder. And those involved including the mother are then committing murder and then charged with murder. It delves deep into different scenarios of criminal activity involving abortion. As a society, this sets us back to the days of back room abortions, which put the lives of an untold number of women at risk. I’m not ready to go there. I’m certainly not willing to ruin a person’s life because they decided to have an abortion. But I can’t support the act of abortion, either. If I can’t reconcile the debate within my own conscience then how as a society will we ever settle this issue? I don’t think we can or ever will.

David Eastman and his supporters are clear in their convictions. They will hold the Bible up and say it is written on these pages — it’s cut and dry. But our human compassion, no matter which side of the issue we fall on, will always keep the debate alive.

HB250 will almost certainly never make it out of the House. The debate, however, will live on.

Dennis Anderson is the publisher of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman. He can be reached at publisher@frontiersman.com