The Patriot Post® · Wolf Preys on Down Babies
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is adamantly against the death penalty — unless you’re a baby with Down Syndrome. Turns out, the Democrat, who’s refused to sign execution warrants since he was elected, has no problem using lethal force against an entire population of children. Their crime? Not living up to society’s ideas of “perfection.”
Tom Wolf’s hypocrisy is staggering. Like most Democrats, he’s decided that sentencing criminals to death is inhumane — but barbarically killing babies in the womb is just fine. And in the case of certain disabled kids, encouraged. “Physicians and their patients must be able to make choices about medical procedures based on best practices and standards of care,” the governor argued when he vetoed a bill that would’ve stopped parents from aborting their babies over a Down syndrome diagnosis.
Pennsylvania legislators, who have a conservative majority in both chambers, knew that Wolf was no friend of the unborn — but eliminating children because they’re different? That’s eugenics — not health care. “We have a responsibility,” state Rep. Kate Klunk (R) said, “to stand up to say that a baby with Down syndrome has a right to life and should not be discriminated against in the womb.” The idea that any American would say it’s okay to destroy a life because she isn’t “up to society’s standards” is a scary snapshot of where we are as a country.
This is about more than Down syndrome; it’s about what makes a life valuable and worthy of protection. Moving down this utilitarian road of life, where people are only as valuable as they are useful, there are no stop signs, there are no limits. Today, it’s children with Down syndrome — tomorrow, it’s seniors with dementia. Once you lose the moral foundation that says people have meaning because they’re created in the image of God, anything’s possible. Look at Iceland. Close to 100 percent of the country’s women are choosing to end these pregnancies, because of pressure from the government and doctors to “eradicate” Down syndrome births.
Jeremy Samek of the Pennsylvania Family Institute warned that this is exactly the trajectory Democrats like Wolf are putting us on. “[Iceland] talk[s] about it being an eradication of Down syndrome as if they’ve eradicated a disease,” Samek said. “But we would never say that we’ve eradicated homelessness by eradicating homeless people, and I think that’s essentially what they’re doing here.” And of course, Wolf’s extremism isn’t exactly a surprise. The former Planned Parenthood volunteer is just making sure the abortion group gets its money’s worth — especially after it dropped a record $1.5 million on his reelection.
So far, no one in the 2020 field has been asked about disability-based abortions — but you can bet they’d be supportive. The modern Democratic Party never met a form of abortion it didn’t want to expand (or force you to pay for), including sex-selection abortion, race-based abortion, birth day abortion, pain-capable abortion, late-term abortion, underage abortion, unsanitary abortion, chemical abortion, and now, disability-based abortion. “Is it okay to abort a pregnancy, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson wondered, if you thought your child was going to grow up to be short? Or prematurely bald? Is there any abortion under any circumstances that’s ever bad? Or even a little bad? Are they all morally neutral — no matter what the cause or stage of pregnancy?”
Looking at the Democratic Party’s enthusiasm, abortion isn’t just morally acceptable anymore. It’s morally imperative. A social good. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is so “fervently committed to abortion,” Tucker pointed out, that if he’s pledged to create “something called the White House Office of Reproductive Freedom.” The only point of that office, he argued, “would be to ensure that we have enough abortions in this country.” Apparently, Booker thinks that “abortions are a vital strategic resource like oil or uranium.”
And he’s not alone. Just listen to the responses from Wednesday’s presidential debate. On Thursday’s “Washington Watch,” we played clip after nauseating clip. (Check out the segment here.) With every soundbite it was clear: Democrats are no longer abortion apologists. They’re abortion advocates. And anyone who doesn’t agree owes it to themselves to listen to these candidates in their own words. It’s important to understand just how far the Democratic party has gone — and honestly contrast it to the GOP and our current president.
“The Democratic party’s new defense of abortion on grounds of morality than necessity,” NRO’s John Craddock argues, “is eerily reminiscent of the transformation in Southern views on slavery between the late 18th and early 19th centuries… Slavery could flourish only so long as blacks were considered outside the moral community of persons. Abortion rejects the natural right to life in the same way.”
“Declaring some members of the human species, by virtue of their age or degree of dependency, unworthy of the equal dignity and rights recognized in the proposition that ‘all men are Created equal’ goes beyond the original sin of the American founding. It goes beyond ‘choice’ and arguments about necessary evils. Instead, it follows a path trodden by southern slaveholders who rejected even the principle of equality and natural rights. Like the Civil War Democrats who sought to become second founders by rejecting the American commitment to natural rights for all persons, today’s Democrats make vice their principle, and demand that all join in the celebration. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme.”
Originally published here.
Hong Kong Strong
While Americans sometimes take their democracy for granted, turnout shouldn’t be a problem in Hong Kong this Sunday. That’s when the region heads to the polls to choose their local leaders. Normally, foreign affairs reporter Gordon Chang pointed out, the district elections don’t attract very much attention. This time around, things are different. Five months into Hong Kong’s violent protests, the people want to be heard. And not just about their districts. About everything.
Despite political banners in tatters and fears that Sunday’s elections will invite even more clashes with police, the people of Hong Kong plan to show up in force this weekend. “It’s is one of the few avenues we have left to express our voice,” said Lokman Tsui, a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong: “When you are continually and structurally being disenfranchised, you hold onto any right you have left.”
Thousands of miles away, American leaders are doing everything they can to give the locals more leverage. Led by congressmen like Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who’s been trying since 2014 to pass a bill just like it, the Hong Kong Rights and Democracy Act sailed through both chambers and is on its way to the president’s desk. What it does, Chris explained on “Washington Watch,” is lets China know that if they don’t support an autonomous Hong Kong, all of the special benefits and protections they currently enjoy will go away.
“When China got Hong Kong back from the U.K. they made solemn promises that Hong Kong would be autonomous–that human rights, as you and I understand [them]… would be enjoyed. [T]he basic law reads like our own Constitution. It’s just in the Bill of Rights. It is wonderfully written. And now it’s eroding under the current dictator, who wants to take religious oppression to Hong Kong itself.” But America has leverage, Smith explains. “Its economy is based on exports. Without exports, it will implode. We can impact those exports in a very serious way if we say there’s conditionality to having that special status for Hong Kong.”
Unfortunately, Chris pointed out, a lot of these problems started years ago when America gave away its biggest bargaining chip. “Bill Clinton gave away everything [with the permanent most favored nation trade status],” he lamented. “He was weak and vacillating. And in May of 1994, he delinked human rights from trade. And that’s when the Chinese government took the view of the United States that all we care about is profits and that the rule of law… and especially fundamental, universally recognized human rights are all negotiable. So he gave away the store. I believe May 26, 1994 was a day, frankly, we lost China.”
He’s right. Most people truly believed that trade would change China. And unfortunately, trade ended up changing American business more than China. We have sports leagues like the NBA refusing to speak up, because the regime threated to pull their pre-season games. Then there’s Hollywood, who’s embracing censorship as an acceptable price of putting more movies in Chinese theaters. Then there are American businesses, building factories with what can only be described as slave labor.
“People went on thinking if we just trade a little more, somehow China will matriculate from dictatorship to democracy. That has not happened. They’re now a global threat. And a threat to their own people. It’s unconscionable. The Uyghur Muslims, the Christians, the house church movement. [China is] on a tear. And Hong Kong is next.”
Originally published here.
Chick-fil-A Grilled over Giving
In case you missed it, Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, joined us on “Washington Watch” Thursday to talk more about the radical departure of Chick-fil-A and what it means for the broader culture. Check out his commentary above. Also, don’t miss Dr. Mohler’s briefing on the controversy, “The LGBTQ Revolution Takes No Prisoners: Chick-fil-A Will No Longer Donate to Christian Organizations That Affirm Biblical Marriage and Sexuality.”
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.