The Patriot Post® · Abortion's Status Cuomo
The reality of what New York has just done is starting to settle over the country like an uneasy fog. For Americans, even in states miles away, the horror of it all feels personal. In one dark night, lit only by a pink pointer in the sky, we all had a moment to lament what New York has become and what all of America would look like under the policies of liberals like Governor Andrew Cuomo (D).
In the 72 hours since the womb became New York’s biggest target, there’s no telling if Democrats have had second thoughts. The rest of America certainly has. They’ve felt the prick of conscience from that spire just as sincerely as they’ve felt anything. Maybe that will be the redemptive legacy of this evil — that millions more are determined to fight it. If anything, the cry that’s radiating throughout this country is the truest sign that liberals have not won. What they’ve done is rouse the conscience of a morally slumbering nation.
Across the platforms, the stories are the same. “I am an independent. I am pro-choice… But I draw the line at parading this law around like it’s a circus,” Lisa Fogarty writes for the New York Daily News, “with Cuomo as the ringleader and a national monument lit up like it’s confetti and not the solemn site where 2,753 Americans lost their lives.” Despite what Planned Parenthood believes, legalizing the killing of a perfectly healthy, nine-month baby is not a smiling emoji with sunglasses moment for most of the country. And certainly not the millennials they hope will be the future of their movement. “This is not the passage of abortion rights, but the permission to commit infanticide and call it by another name. An eight-pound baby can survive outside the womb with very little medical aid.” A baby, doctors tell us, who would silently scream at the pain. If this isn’t demonic, the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue said, the word has no meaning.
He’s right. This is the kind of raw inhumanity the United States calls on other governments to stop. These are the crimes against human dignity that our leaders are supposed to stand against. And yet here we are, a Statue of Liberty on the shore, welcoming people into a country where they aren’t welcomed into life. A country where you can’t give a lethal injection to criminals, but you can give it to infants. “One wonders,” Matt Walsh writes soberly, “how high the pile of bodies must reach before these people will throw up their hands and say, ‘Okay, enough.’”
“Here in Florida,” Rush Limbaugh ranted, “one turtle egg hatches, and the little turtle hatchling goes the wrong direction, and we are guilty of a crime if we’ve had our lights on too powerfully. But killing a baby in New York after it survives an abortion is legal and… applauded in a standing ovation.” Unfortunately, that’s the logical progression in a party of violence. Where else did we expect this get-up-in-their-face, tell-them-they’re-not-welcome, we-kick-them liberalism to lead? The Left has spent years dehumanizing and attacking people. Is it really such a stretch that they’ve lost the fundamental respect for life? The Democrats meant what they said in their platform. The only reverence they have now is for abortion, at any stage, for any reason, at cost of everyone.
Fortunately, we have a president that doesn’t know the meaning of standing on the sidelines. Even now, in the aftermath of New York, the Trump administration is spinning into motion, combing through federal law to see where it can hold Governor Cuomo’s feet to the fire. On Friday, administration officials told me they’re looking into places where the state’s extremism is in conflict with federal laws like the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, Partial-Birth Abortion Act, Born-Alive Infants of Protection Act, and more. When it comes to federal dollars, we are encouraging the administration to use whatever legal and financial leverage they have to stop the nightmare in New York.
And while the president can do a lot of things, he can’t get involved for you. He can’t fire the people responsible for these atrocities, and he can’t vote for the pro-lifers to replace them. Only you can help bills over the finish line that would make sure what happened in New York State never comes to yours. Right now, there’s a war raging over Roe v. Wade — and in all likelihood, it’s in your state — or coming. If you want to do something, get engaged. There are a full slate of measures on the docket to replicate what Cuomo did. In the 2019 session alone, we’re targeting these pro-abortion bills: California SB 24 (California Senate), New Mexico HB 51 (New Mexico House of Representatives), Rhode Island HB 5125 (Rhode Island House of Representatives), Vermont HB 57 (Vermont House of Representatives), Virginia SB 1451 (Virginia Senate), and Virginia HB 2491 (Virginia House of Delegates). Your state leaders need to hear from you.
There are also positive bills, ones that would outlaw abortion when babies feel pain. If you’re in these states, your representatives need to hear from you too: Delaware SB 21 (Delaware Senate), Delaware HB 52 (Delaware House), Missouri HB 680 (Missouri House), Missouri HB 339 (Missouri House), Missouri SB 279 (Missouri Senate), New Jersey AB 1686 (N.J. Assembly). It doesn’t matter if you’re in a red state or blue state, call and email your elected representatives. If you want to make a difference, start there.
Originally published here.
Planned Parenthood: Bot and Paid for
How many of you want Planned Parenthood answering all of your kids’ questions about sex? Thanks to the group’s new “chatbot,” stopping them just got a lot tougher.
As part of a new initiative, gender-neutral robot “Roo” was launched Thursday to give teenagers another way of bypassing parents on some of life’s most important topics. “Since so many kids get health information online,” the PR team explains, “the artificial intelligence-powered bot is meant to give fast answers in a judgment-free, anonymous setting in a manner that’s comfortable for the audience…” Users, Planned Parenthood explains, can find information on anything from STDs and pregnancy (read: abortion) to masturbation and more.
And unfortunately, we don’t have to guess what “more” is. More is the video of men groping men and women making out? “More” is indoctrination on gender identity, homosexuality, sex exploration, and other things too graphic to print. If you think the public-school sex ed is bad now, just wait until Planned Parenthood gets its tentacles around teenagers online. This is the group’s work-around for kids who aren’t exposed to their “if-it-feels-good-do-it” message in schools. And they say as much. “Initiatives like this one are meant to help Planned Parenthood give [advice] to hard-to-reach audiences like teenagers who don’t receive sex education or are receiving abstinence-only education.”
“Young people process information in a way that’s changing,” said new Planned Parenthood President Leana Wen. “We wanted to make sure that Roo, for example, is available on mobile because we know that’s how most young people are searching for information.” They don’t want something that “sounds like their parents,” one of the creators explained.
But their parents’ tax dollars are almost certainly paying for it! Thanks to Title X and Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs, Planned Parenthood has a stash of cash to implement immoral ideas like this one. And Americans who object are still unwilling investors. They give their hard-earned money to the government, which turns around and gives a portion to Planned Parenthood to undermine the values we teach at home.
We don’t have to guess what an organization who calls abortion their “core mission” will tell our young people. The bottom line for Planned Parenthood has always been the bottom line. If they can persuade more teens to have sex, then that’s just a down payment on future business. They don’t care about the lives they’re jeopardizing along the way, even in a country whose STD rates are at record highs.
An organization that cheers abortion, harvests baby body parts, and uses materials most adults can’t read without blushing doesn’t deserve our taxpayer dollars. And more importantly, doesn’t need them — as its annual report makes abundantly clear. If Planned Parenthood wants to attack our values, let them do it with their own money! Demand that Congress end the forced partnership between taxpayers and Planned Parenthood.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC Action senior writers.