February 5, 2018

Moral Cowardice in the Senate

“Until birth, you guys. Until BIRTH. Where’s the ‘science’ supporting that??” That’s how one young commentator responded to an NBC news “health” piece highlighting the tweets of an abortion provider at the University of California San Francisco.

“Until birth, you guys. Until BIRTH. Where’s the ‘science’ supporting that??”

That’s how one young commentator responded to an NBC news “health” piece highlighting the tweets of an abortion provider at the University of California San Francisco. “Research has shown a fetus does not yet have the capacity to experience pain until at least the third trimester, and unlikely until birth,” the doctor and professor had tweeted at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

The Senate’s failure to pass the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, legislation that would have prohibited abortions after 20 weeks — abortions that, as David Brooks recently pointed out in his New York Times column, most people oppose — should be a line in the sand. In opposing the ban, Democrats — including many Catholics, who should know better — are defending the indefensible. Atlantic reporter Emma Green should get an award for her recent piece on the science of abortion. “New technology makes it easier to apprehend the humanity of a growing child and imagine a fetus as a creature with moral status,” she explained.

That’s a far cry from the clinical “science” of the doctor pestering Mitch McConnell on social media. But to realize that, one must step aside from political rhetoric and really reflect upon life, in all its mystery, confusion and beautiful hope. It means seeing the human soul as more than an illusion created by a bundle of nerves and chemical processes.

New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan strongly condemned the Senate’s failure on behalf of the U.S. Catholic bishops: “The … failure to adopt the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act … is appalling. Abortions performed in the second half of pregnancy usually involve brutally dismembering a defenseless unborn child, while also posing serious dangers to his or her mother.”

In short: You don’t have to describe yourself as pro-life or a Catholic bishop to see what’s true! We don’t have to be stuck in the misery of our abortion politics. We can find common ground and cause in helping women and families instead of strangling ourselves in euphemisms and voluntary ignorance for the sake of ideological loyalties.

A friend who has been writing about abortion and our need for a better way — and an end to the grave manipulation of language that has dire consequences — expressed with some exasperation: “When you look at this whole situation, it’s just unbelievable. It’s surreal that we as a culture are pretending that the unborn child is not a child, that it doesn’t feel pain, or that it doesn’t matter. And supposedly they’re all about science!”

It was all the way back in 2004 when National Review’s founder, William F. Buckley Jr., wrote about the sometimes brutally nonsensical partial-birth-abortion debate at the time: “A political event is needed to affirm that a democratic society is free to react against uncivilized practices.” It’s long past time we seize on such an event.

It doesn’t matter what you think of President Donald Trump or any particular politician at this point in human history. We ought to insist on a rising above this abysmal impasse.

Again, it was 2004 when Shannen W. Coffin — who, as deputy assistant attorney general for the civil division of the Justice Department, coordinated litigation in trials defending a partial-birth-abortion ban that had passed Congress and was signed by President George W. Bush — explained how “the abortion-rights lobby perverts the law, co-opts the medical profession, and debases the very language we speak. By controlling and distorting the debate in these ways, abortion advocates hope to prevent the American public from learning the stark truth about abortion practices.”

See why words like “miserable” and “appalling” should convince us to face the truth, start pushing for more humane legislation and live wiser, more compassionate lives. Only then can we stop the rhetoric and start making sense.

COPYRIGHT 2018 United Feature Syndicate

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.