Liberals Break the Facts Machine
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) just learned what a garbage disposal is, but she says it’s American men who don’t know anything about plumbing!
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) just learned what a garbage disposal is, but she says it’s American men who don’t know anything about plumbing! In a pair of incoherent tweets Tuesday night, the former bartender blasts the new abortion limits in Georgia by arguing that “Most of the men writing these bills don’t know the first thing about a woman’s body.” But maybe the real problem is that some Democrats don’t know the first thing about reading the bills she’s talking about!
What the LIFE Act does and what abortion extremists say it does are two very different things. Like a lot of far-Left radicals, Ocasio-Cortez is running around social media insisting that Georgia’s new law bans abortion before a woman even knows she’s pregnant. “It’s relatively common for a woman to have a late period [and] not be pregnant,” she argues. “So this is a backdoor ban.” But if a woman isn’t pregnant, how is anyone denying her an abortion? Either Ocasio-Cortez is confused, or Democrats are calling this an attack on women who aren’t even expecting!
“I don’t think you understand how these bills work,” Lila Rose politely tweeted back. “They ban abortion after the baby’s heartbeat can be heard by an ultrasound, which is around six weeks.” Of course, in this new House majority, it’s impossible to know whether Democrats are just criticizing bills they didn’t bother to read — or they’re intentionally trying to mislead people. Either way, Lila points out, “A lot of women support these life-saving laws. Myself included. You should join us.” Then, in a subtle jab at Ocasio-Cortez’s earlier comment, she posted, “Glad some of ‘the men’ are on board, too.”
Still, Ocasio-Cortez keeps firing. “There are a TON of ways this law ignores basic biology.” But if biology is where Democrats want to debate this bill, they’re already on shaky ground. Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) party has spent the better part of the last 10 years ignoring “basic biology.” It’s almost comical. Liberals call us anti-science when we’re the ones who believe what research says about gender, conception, the environment, and creation. The Left, meanwhile, is so confused about basic biology that it doesn’t even know which bathroom to use!
And Democrats probably shouldn’t be lecturing anyone about science when CNN is airing interviews with New York leaders who don’t even think babies are human. On “Cuomo Prime Time,” the network actually gave a platform to a woman who told viewers, “When a woman gets pregnant, that is not a human being inside of her.” Oh really? What is it then — a banana nut loaf? According to Christine Quinn, the former speaker of the city’s council, it’s “a part of her body.” Rick Santorum, who was also in on the conversation, couldn’t believe it. “So the baby is their property and they can do whatever they want to it? They can maim the baby or torture the baby?”
Quinn got angry and shot back that Santorum was “spinning fake stories.” “You’re so desperate here,” she said. But I think the award for desperation was already doled out when Christine made it sound like children were a foreign object that just magically turns into a baby at birth. Obviously, none of this is new. Democrats are famous for dehumanizing the unborn. Back in 2012, Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) famously said abortions didn’t kill children. “We’re not dealing with human beings at this point” — a soundbite he probably learned from Planned Parenthood, who built an entire empire on the philosophy that the less women know, the better.
But along came the ultrasound machine — and keeping women in the dark got a lot more difficult for Democrats and their pals in the abortion industry. Now women have a rebuttal to Planned Parenthood who insists, “That’s not a baby.”
Thanks to science, both parents are more aware of how intensely human their children are. Of course, Ocasio-Cortez would probably say it’s sexist to acknowledge that babies even have a father. But like it or not, there are tens of millions of men in this country who aren’t going to be silenced just because Democrats want to shame them with phony gender baiting. The truly courageous ones — like Governor Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) — aren’t protecting the unborn because they’re men. They’re protecting the unborn because it’s the right thing to do. And right and wrong has never cared about people’s chromosomes, no matter what liberals say.
Originally published here.
Free at Last! Asia Bibi Touches down in Canada
It’s one thing to be acquitted and another to be free. No one knows that better than Pakistani Christian Asia Bibi, who may have been released from prison last October but spent months living in fear for her life. For Bibi, who won a historic victory from nine-year-old blasphemy charges in court, the idea of seeing her children and living a somewhat normal life seemed impossible. Until now.
Wednesday morning, after weeks of grim reports on international religious liberty, people around the world finally got the news they’d been waiting for: the brave mom was finally safe on Canadian soil! “It is a big day,” her attorney, Saiful Malook, told reporters. After seven months of living under guard, “Asia Bibi has left Pakistan and reached Canada. She has reunited with her family. Justice has been dispensed.” Malook tipped his hat to the global cooperation that helped them smuggle Bibi out of Pakistan, where riots and protests carried on for days after her charges were overturned. At several points, no one was sure if Bibi would make it out alive on the streets where men held signs saying, “Hang Asia Bibi!”
Leaders around the world deserve credit, Malook insisted, for “st[anding] by Bibi in hard times and work[ing] for her freedom.” Across North America, diplomats are breathing a sigh of relief. If there is a silver lining to the case, which resulted in the assassination of at least two of Bibi’s outspoken defenders, it’s that the world finally understands the danger of apostasy, blasphemy, and anti-conversion laws. Just last week, FRC released a report on the status of apostasy, blasphemy, and anti-conversion laws, which threaten the ability to freely live out, choose, or change one’s faith.
In Asia Bibi’s case, the only reason she was ever in prison is because fellow farm workers accused her of insulting Islam’s Mohammed — grounds in Pakistan and other places for death. Ultimately, the court couldn’t prove the charges and threw them out. But, as FRC’s Travis Weber points out, “This sad saga reminds us of the clear threat posed to religious freedom by the abuse of blasphemy laws. These laws — which infringe on a proper conception of religious freedom — would be bad enough on their face. Yet quite often, they aren’t even used for their ostensible purpose, but become vehicles to settle personal disagreements and even political scores.”
For now, though, we celebrate this great day for religious liberty — and pray for Asia as she settles into her new life. Her flight to freedom is great to see, Travis agreed. “But we must not forget the many others suffering under blasphemy laws around the world — laws that are still in place in many countries.”
Originally published here.
The Democrats’ Moral Minority
Some of them had waited their entire careers for that moment. State Senator Renee Unterman (R) couldn’t help the emotions that welled up inside, watching new Governor Brian Kemp (R) sign a bill she personally pushed through the Georgia chamber. Knowing that her state would take such a big step to stop abortion was the “culmination,” she said, of everything she’d been working for her whole life.
And the former nurse wasn’t the only one who was beside herself at what Georgia just accomplished. Governor Kemp, who fought hard for the right to sign the LIFE Act, was the proudest of them all, telling a jam-packed room that he would never back down. “We protect the innocent. We champion the vulnerable. We stand up and speak for those who are unable to speak for themselves.” This law, he said, “is very simple but also very powerful — a declaration that all life has value, that all life matters, and that all life is worthy of protection.” Some people may not agree with that, he admitted. “I realize that some may challenge it in the court of law. But our job is to do what is right, not what is easy. We are called to be strong and courageous, and we will not back down. We will always continue to fight for life.”
FRC’s Dean Nelson was there too, telling us how proud he was to stand with Governor Kemp. “The years of hard work from pastors, community leaders, and pro-life doctors has been critical to help legislators get this kind of bill into law,” he said. “It was great to see such a diverse coalition of faith-based leaders join Senator Unterman, Rep. Ed Setzler, and Governor Kemp. I was particularly happy to stand with Dr. Alveda King, minister and civil rights leader who supported the effort.”
While the rest of the country watched, Georgia became one of a wave of states committed to limiting abortion to the first trimester. Under this law, a baby couldn’t be aborted once doctors detect a heartbeat. And while Democrats in Washington drone on obliviously about the unpopularity of pro-life bills, the states aren’t exactly proving their point. Even state Democratic leaders are making it tough on the party to keep their people in line.
As the Washington Times points out, there’s a lot more division on the issue than the DNC would like to admit — especially in the party’s minority wing. When North Carolina voted to override liberal Governor Roy Cooper’s veto of the born-alive legislation, Republicans needed Democrats’ help. They got it — in the form of African-American leaders. “The six Democratic legislators who broke ranks last month to join the GOP in passing an infanticide bill all had something in common,” Valerie Richardson wrote, “none was white.”
The same thing, she explains, has happened all across the country in states where the abortion debate is raging. “In New Mexico, for example, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham was rocked by a tough defeat in March after eight Senate Democrats voted against a bill to expand abortion access. Six of the senators were Hispanic.”
“In Nevada, the pro-choice Trust Nevada Women Act was approved last week by the state Senate on a 12-9 vote, despite two Democratic defections. One came from state Sen. Moises Denis, a pro-life Democrat whose parents immigrated from Cuba… The other ‘no’ vote was cast by Democratic state Sen. Marcia Washington, who is black, and had no qualms defying her fellow Democrats on the bill, aimed at ‘decriminalizing’ abortion by removing, for example, a requirement for doctors to perform the procedures.”
“‘I voted that way because I don’t believe in any form of abortion!’ said Ms. Washington in an email.”
Richardson paints a pretty compelling story about the problem Democrats have on their hands — especially as Hill liberals keep hammering home their brutal birth day abortion agenda. Of course, she writes, “non-white Democrats are still more likely to support such bills than oppose them.” But this does expose some important vulnerabilities for Pelosi’s party heading into elections where 82 percent of Americans will still be horrified at her stance on infanticide.
Elsewhere, pro-life bills like Georgia’s keep gaining steam — in part because of this Democratic undercurrent. In my home state of Louisiana, a pro-life constitutional amendment made its way out of a Senate committee to the full chamber for a vote. At the same time, Michigan’s ban on ripping babies apart in the womb, otherwise known as dismemberment abortion, passed out of the Judiciary Committee for a full House vote next week. On a busy Tuesday, Texas and Wisconsin also held hearings on bills that would stop doctors from killing babies born-alive.
If you want to show Nancy Pelosi just how out of touch her Hill liberals are, send her a newborn baby hat! Join the tens of thousands of pro-lifers across the country who want Congress’s extremists to know — they don’t speak for us!
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
