Progressives have gotten cocky in recent months and are letting it all hang out, not so much of the good but a lot of the bad and the ugly. Want proof? The states of New York and Virginia recently cast a bright light on their obscene views on life that progressives there have.
New York managed to enact the country’s first “Birth Day Abortion” bill and Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam got a little too graphic about his take on efforts in his state to legalize extreme third-trimester abortions.
Northam riled the country and the mainstream members of his Democratic Party when he graphically described what many interpreted as the proposed legalization of infanticide in new abortion legislation. The bill, which has been tabled in the Virginia House of Delegates, would allow abortions to take place right up until the natural birth of a fetus.
A broad-based backlash ensued when Northam described for reporters how a “born alive” abortion might proceed. “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
The Democratic Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, meanwhile, defiantly basked in that state’s socialist limelight as he signed a new law ironically labeled the Reproductive Health Act. This ill-conceived decree is not about health; it’s about death.
Cuomo, who calls himself a Catholic, incurred the wrath of Timothy Cardinal Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, who described the law as a “ghoulish radical abortion-expansion law.”
Dolan called the new law an insult, pointing out that it “allows for an abortion right up to the moment of birth; drops all charges against an abortionist who allows an aborted baby, who somehow survives the scissors, scalpel, saline and dismemberment, to die before his eyes; mandates that, to make an abortion more convenient and easy, a physician need not perform it; and might even be used to suppress the conscience rights of health care professionals not to assist in the grisly procedures.”
The insanity of it all is alarming. The new generations, the Millennials and the younger Generation Z, as they are called, seem to choose extreme positions on social issues, including abortion. And, they applaud such laws that help them thumb their noses at mainstream Americans.
Are these youngsters, who were lucky enough not to have been aborted before or at birth, adopting a cavalier view of life, in general? Will they be in the forefront of a movement to allow what is called Organ Donor Euthanasia [ODE]?
Wesley J. Smith is an author and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. He recently published an article in the National Review about the notion of legalized killing for the purpose of collecting organs to meet a demand for transplants.
Lest you think ODE is the stuff of science fiction, Smith notes that: “The world’s most respected bioethicists have published serious articles in influential medical journals urging that doctors be allowed to harvest cognitively disabled patients while they are alive.”
Smith concluded his report with the chilling hope that “the public never be ready to accept doctors’ taking a living patient — who may not even be physically ill — into a surgical suite, anesthetizing him, and then harvesting his beating heart.”
If newborn babies can be murdered at birth, what chance will old folks have in their twilight years? None of the developments I’ve described bode well for future senior citizens.
But, perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that our lawmakers can come to their senses, at least some of them. Senator Ben Sasse [R-NE], for example, tried to introduce a bill to protect babies born alive after an abortion attempt. Despite the fact that the measure was co-sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democrats managed to block it.
But, the message came through loud and clear: pro-abortionists face a ferocious opposition among lawmakers and voters. Especially if they engage in efforts to lift all restrictions on procedures to kill fetuses and live babies.
Meanwhile, the right to life movement appears to be getting a boost in spite of progressive attempts to make murder legal. In fact, we are encouraged by the hundreds of thousands of pro-life young men and women who participated in this year’s Right to Life March in Washington. And, we were proud to sponsor attendance by the University of Idaho branch of Students for Life, a national organization that that boasts 1,200 branches at colleges and universities across the nation.
These members of the new generations and the perseverance of lawmakers like Ben Sasse give us hope for the future.