Subject: Abortion Part 3: The “Progressive” Values of Today’s Democratic Party
Jeremiah 6:15 “Are they ashamed at their detestable conduct? They have no shame. They don’t even know how to blush.”
In preparing for the 2016 Presidential election, the Democratic National Convention focused on one issue above all others. The highlighted topic was abortion. The obsession over abortion was so strong that even liberal political analyst Cokie Roberts criticized the party on ABC’s ‘This Week’: “I think this Democratic Convention was really over-the-top in terms of abortion. Every single speaker talked about abortion. At some point, you start to alienate people. 30% of Democrats are pro-life.”
In ‘The Weekly Standard’, John McCormack explained: “When talking about abortion, Democratic politicians and activists prefer to speak about the dismemberment or lethal poisoning of a baby who hasn’t been born yet as ‘reproductive health care’ or ‘a woman’s choice.’ But there’s been a growing push on the left to not only defend abortion as a necessary evil … but to celebrate it as a positive good… Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, took the stage at the DNC and told the story of the time she aborted her first child because it was an inconvenient time to become a parent: ‘To succeed in life, all we need are the tools, the trust, and the chance to chart our own path. I was fortunate enough to have these things when I found out I was pregnant years ago. I wanted a family, but it was the wrong time. I made the decision that was best for me—to have an abortion…’ Applause and cheers could be heard in the crowd.”
Three months later, in the October 2016 Presidential Debate between Trump and Hillary Clinton, then candidate Trump predicted what the future of abortion would be if Clinton became president: “If you go with what Hillary is saying, you can take the baby and rip the baby out of the womb of the mother just prior to the birth of the baby. You can say that that is OK and Hillary can say that that is OK, but it’s not OK with me. Based on what she is saying and based on where she’s going and where she’s been, you can take baby and rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, on the final day. That’s not acceptable.” How did Clinton respond?: “Using that kind of scare rhetoric is just terribly unfortunate.”
Nearly two and a half years later, on January 22, 2019, New York Democratic Governor Cuomo signed the “Reproductive Health Act” into law, allowing babies to be aborted up to their due date. Now, New Yorkers have their taxes used to pay for abortions at any time throughout pregnancy. And if a baby is born alive after a botched abortion, that child outside the womb can be murdered. But the Democrats weren’t done.
Last week, Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam said that if a woman wanted an abortion as she’s going into labor, the baby would be “resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue” between doctors and the mother. In other words, as the baby is being delivered from the mother’s body, abortion can be performed. When President Trump was asked about this, he referenced back to his 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton: “Do you remember when I said Hillary Clinton was willing to rip the baby out of the womb? That’s what it is, that’s what they’re doing, it’s terrible.”
This past Monday, Republican Senator Ben Sasse introduced a bill called the “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” onto the floor at Capitol Hill, saying this should be easy to get bipartisan support. This legislation would require that “any health care practitioner present” at the time of a birth “exercise the same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence to preserve the life and health of the child as a reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive at the same gestational age.” The bill would require practitioners to “ensure that the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.” Violators could be charged with first-degree murder.
Senate Democrats blocked Sasse’s bill. He told the Senators that “In this country, all of us are created equal… if that equality means anything, surely it means that infanticide is wrong. Just a few years ago the abortion lobby was really clear in its talk in hoping that abortion would be ‘safe, and legal, but rare,’ Now we’re talking about keeping the baby comfortable while the doctor have a debate about infanticide.”
Our verse this week is a perfect descriptor for today’s Democratic Party. The past two and a half years have seen them move from cheering abortion to cheering infanticide. As the prophet Jeremiah spoke out against Israel, so Christians must speak out against the Democratic position on abortion. Have we really become, as Jeremiah says, so depraved that we no longer blush over the evil of promoting infanticide?
Ed Croteau is a resident of Lee’s Summit and hosts a weekly study in Lees Summit called “Faith: Substance and Evidence.” He can be reached with your questions through the Lee’s Summit Tribune at Editor@lstribune.net.
