The Death of Born-Alive
He was just a first-year pediatric resident when a hospital housekeeper came to him, panicked. “There’s a baby,” she said, “crying on the garbage can of the treatment room.” Wide-eyed, Dr. Rocco Pascucci opened the door and saw him — wrapped in a hospital blanket, wailing.
He was just a first-year pediatric resident when a hospital housekeeper came to him, panicked. “There’s a baby,” she said, “crying on the garbage can of the treatment room.” Wide-eyed, Dr. Rocco Pascucci opened the door and saw him — wrapped in a hospital blanket, wailing. Without a second thought, he reached out for the newborn boy and rushed him to a warmer, starting oxygen and an artery line. Dr. Pascucci never stopped to think why the baby had been left there. He just did what anyone would. Anyone, it turns out, except 41 members of the U.S. Senate.
A full year after one of the most infamous votes in U.S. history, the party of infanticide wants America to know: nothing has changed. If they had been in that New Jersey hospital, watching a perfectly healthy baby struggle for life, their advice to Dr. Pascucci would have been the same as the on-call OB/GYN — to walk away. The little boy, Rocco would find out later from an angry doctor, was a survivor. Thinking back on that OB/GYN yelling at him, Dr. Pascucci has no regrets. “He told me I had just saved an abortion. He got into a huff and walked out.”
It was “standard procedure,” nurses told him, “to leave these babies on the garbage can until they died.” In telling his emotional story to Leslie Palma, Rocco remembers the moment when he found out just how routine it was. “The cleaning lady knew it,” he said. “The nurses knew it.” And now he knew it. Deciding he couldn’t just sit back and let this go on, he went to the head of pediatrics and told him what happened. “After that, these tiny survivors were given the care they needed.” Other newborns, because of the merciless extremists in Congress, won’t be treated in the same civilized fashion. They look at this little infant and call his existence “offensive.” They look at Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), like Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) did, and insist he’s wasting their time.
To a young man, now somewhere in his 30s, it was not a waste. Although Dr. Pascucci never saw the little boy again, he didn’t lose sight of his story. The baby that was hours away from being thrown away was adopted into a loving family and healthy throughout his childhood — all because a doctor and housekeeper cared. “I’m not super-religious or even a big Republican,” Rocco said, trying to deflect from the heroic thing he’d done. “But these are our brothers and sisters, and we’re killing them. If they are born alive, we should try to save them. It’s simple. It’s humanity.”
To everyone but these 41 Democrats, it’s that simple. No, it is not rare – a lie we hear from endless talking heads. And even if it were, who cares? These are human beings. If that one life were your life, wouldn’t it matter? “Some will say that a bill to ensure medical care for babies born after failed abortions is unnecessary because it doesn’t happen that often,” Senator Mike Braun (R-Ind.) argued Monday. “It doesn’t matter how common it is, it matters if it’s right or wrong.”
If only it were rare. At Jill Stanek’s Christ Hospital, a spokesman actually told the Chicago Sun-Times that as many as “10 to 20 percent” of babies who are aborted “survive for short periods outside the womb.” And that’s just one hospital. Multiply that by an entire country, and we’re talking about thousands and thousands of infants crying in rooms no one visits. Saving them isn’t ending abortion in America or “curbing women’s rights.” If you think so, NRO’s Alexandra DeSanctis retorts, “either you haven’t read the bill, you’re lying about what it says, or you sincerely think abortion rights include the right to deny standard medical care to a newborn infant who survived abortion.”
For all but three Senate Democrats, no excuse is good enough. Opposing a bill that saves newborn lives is barbaric. “If there is a persuasive and principled case why America should remain on the radical international fringe on this subject, let us hear it,” McConnell told his colleagues on the Senate floor. “The [people] I speak with cannot comprehend why this would be some hotly-debated proposition. It almost defies belief that an entire political party could find cause to object to this basic protection for babies. And yet today… even something this simple and this morally straightforward is a bridge too far for the Left.”
To read more, check out “Why We Need the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act” in Townhall by FRC’s Patrina Mosley.
Originally published here.
Buttigieg: Tax the Bible-Believers!
Pete Buttigieg has spent 10 months trying to run as a Christian for president. Granted, it’s been a heavy lift for an infanticide supporter with a same-sex husband. But after Monday, it should be downright impossible after the former mayor announced his contempt for something all of America values: religious freedom.
The man who loves to quote Scripture to support his unorthodox views will have a tough time finding one to support his latest target — the First Amendment. But then, Mayor Pete has never let a little thing like biblical integrity get in the way of distorting Christianity. When a woman asked Buttigieg how he would handle the debate over things like faith-based adoption, he replied it was simple. He’d just cut religious groups out of the process. And not just out of the process, but out of government altogether. Religious freedom, he insisted, “ends” where the LGBT agenda begins.
“I believe that federal funding should never be used to discriminate,” he said. “It is a basic principle… I feel this way both as a citizen and as a person of faith. Of course, it is so important to the fabric of this country that people of every religion and of no religion can practice their faith to the best of their conscience. But like any other freedom, that freedom ends [when] you begin to invoke it to harm other people. Just as the freedom of speech, or any other freedom, is constrained by that. We all treasure our freedom of speech. But nobody here has the freedom to yell ‘Fire!’ in this crowded space. It is the same way with religious liberty…”
Moderator Don Lemon seemed a little taken aback. “Just to be clear,” he clarified, “do you believe that other religious and nonprofit institutions like colleges and homeless charities should lose their federal funding if they refuse to hire or serve LGBTQ people?” Buttigieg didn’t even hesitate. “Yes. If they are discriminating, then they should not be doing it with federal dollars.”
To be clear, Buttigieg is talking about a lot more than elbowing Catholic Charities out of foster care. He’s suggesting ending the tax-exempt status for churches and religious groups all together — a far more aggressive and hostile approach than most liberals are willing to admit out loud. Beto O'Rourke tried the idea back in October, and it practically sunk his candidacy. “There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us,” the Texan had argued. Ironically, Mayor Pete pushed back then — still trying to paint himself as the moderate we all know now he’s not. “That means not only going to war with churches, but also with mosques and a lot of organizations that may not have the same view of various religious principles that I do," he countered.
Now, just five months later, going to war with churches and organizations seems to be exactly what Pete has in mind. And while the mayor feigned outrage last fall, the reality is: this isn’t exactly new territory for liberals. President Obama’s solicitor general told Justice Samuel Alito in 2015 that Christian institutions could lose their tax-exempt status for holding biblical views in a post-Obergefell world. "It’s certainly going to be an issue,” Donald Verrilli admitted. “I don’t deny that. I don’t deny that, Justice Alito. It is — it is going to be an issue.” And a campaign one at that.
Pete is only giving voice to a deeply-held view in the Democratic Party — which is that tolerance is a one-way street. And the only way to maintain it is if Christians, conservatives, and orthodox faiths are forced to put their beliefs in park. There’s just one problem: it’s the very definition of unconstitutional. “To even try to compare sincere and widely-accepted religious beliefs to socially disruptive behavior like yelling ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater is not only misinformed,” FRC’s Travis Weber argued, “but insulting to the millions of Americans who hold these beliefs, and just want to be left alone to live them out in peace.”
Despite the smear campaign underway by the liberal media and candidates, faith-based groups aren’t harming anyone. On the contrary, they’re the reason hundreds of thousands of people in this country have food in their stomachs and roofs over their heads. They serve the needy regardless of who they are with everything from free counseling and health care to legal aid. The fact that they try to find the most stable homes for adoptive kids — which, research tells us, is with a married mom and dad — shouldn’t be insulting. It’s encouraging that they care enough about these children to put them in the best possible position for success. They aren’t telling other organizations how to run their adoption agencies — or taking away options for same-sex couples. They’re just saying they shouldn’t have to surrender their biblical beliefs to provide a social service to their neighbor. And for that, this Democrat thinks they should be treated like pariahs in the public square.
Fortunately for everyone, Pete’s word won’t be the last one. The Supreme Court is making sure of that, announcing Monday that the justices will hear Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a hugely important faith-based adoption case. And thanks to Donald Trump, two men who understand the constitutional importance of religious liberty — Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — will be on the bench when they do. No city can tie a government partnership to the “surrender of constitutional rights.” And no presidential candidate, for that matter, should either.
Originally published here.
February 27: Trans Reading Day and All That Jazz
It started as just one rogue Wisconsin school, showing their LGBT pride. Now, five years later, it’s a national public-school movement — and most parents have no idea it’s happening.
Do you want your child to be psychologically manipulated at school on Thursday? Most moms and dads would say no. But this week, February 27, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and their pals at the powerful National Education Association are teaming up to promote “Jazz and Friends National Day of School & Community Readings.” “We want the listeners to know,” FRC’s Meg Kilgannon told me on “Washington Watch," "this could be happening in your school. Your children could be hearing a book on Thursday… [that] can be very disturbing to young children.
The book I Am Jazz is a favorite of transgender activists. It’s based on the real-life story of "Jazz,” a boy who was convinced that he was born in the wrong body. “As a child he was injected with hormones to block his normal sexual development, and recently, he had radical surgery to complete his ‘transition’ to another sex. Which, of course, is impossible.” Now, LGBT groups are pushing schools to make the reading of the book an annual event. The day will be used, Cathy goes on, “to promote gender deviance and LGBT politics to vulnerable children. Not all schools are doing it. Yet. But some are.”
In one Arlington, Virginia school, administrators enlisted “mystery readers” to come read to the children. “The school has not revealed to parents who they are and what they will read,” Cathy warns. And based on what we know about the drag queen story hour movement, that could mean anyone. To counterpunch, the Arlington Parents Coalition is urging parents to keep their kids home.
“We want all children to be treated with respect and dignity as children of God,” Meg agreed. “That’s a basic tenet of the Christian faith of many faiths that everyone should be should have dignity. [But] that doesn’t mean that we need to reinforce these controversial ideas… that are untrue, biologically, and impossible. A boy cannot become a girl. A girl cannot become a boy.” But unfortunately, she warned, this kind of activity isn’t necessarily going to make it on the school calendar. “It’s just something that’s going to happen — and then, once it’s over, it’s too late.”
Meg and Cathy urge everyone to call their child’s school principal and ask, “Are you planning to have this reading in your school?” If they say, “yes,” it’s a great opportunity to turn in the universal opt-out letter that’s available on FRC’s website. “It’s up to you what kind of a statement you want to make,” Meg emphasized. But if your school is participating, make sure they know where you stand!
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
