The Party of Death

Restaurants and bars have closed; major sporting events have been canceled, with parts of the playing season called off.  Small businesses have been locked down, threatening their solvency along with the material support of the families that depend on these businesses.

In this adamant conviction about the saving of human lives, there has not been a flicker of doubt even among the talking heads of the liberal media. They don’t seem to doubt that the overriding purpose is to save lives, of the young and healthy, as well of people who are older and at the edge of their lives.

Danse Macabre by Michael Wolgemut, 1493 [Duchess Anna Amalia Library, Weimar, Germany]

The commentators are apparently willing to save the lives of people they don’t know, and so they cannot know that all of these people are equally deserving of their concern.  The mandate to protect human life is evidently cast over everyone, even people the media find repugnant, and the only rationale can be that these are the lives of human beings. 

By now many of my readers know where this has been heading:  If the overriding commitment is to protect human life, in all conditions and all ages, how could the same liberal commentators show not the least concern for the killing of around 860,000 small, innocent human beings every year in this country in abortions?

There, they stand back not merely with indifference, but with rapturous celebration of the “right” to kill in that way for one’s own self-interest.

That the contradiction has not broken in on them is a reflection of something that has gone deeply dysfunctional in what used to be thought a staple of liberal education: some elementary practice in reasoning about matters of moral consequence in a principled way.

Aristotle well understood that this kind of exercise might have little appeal to people who are more interested in doing rather than knowing. But as he recognized in the Ethics, “the defect is not due to lack of years but to living the kind of life which is a succession of unrelated emotional experiences.”

Our "Catholic" Senator gets a shout-out...

In my last column, I recalled the matter of the Born-Alive Survivors of Abortion Act, making its way finally to the floor of the Senate.  In opposing that bill, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois offered an impassioned concern for the higher rate of “infant mortality” among black newborns.  And yet he surely had to know that in cities like Chicago and New York the abortions of black children have often exceeded the live births.

Durbin reflected the same obtuseness I’ve been noting here for the liberal political class in the crisis over the virus.

What Horrible Peoople Govern Us

Washington D.C., Jan 29, 2018 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- A procedural vote on a Senate bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks failed on the evening of Jan. 29, after more than three hours of debate. The cloture motion, which would have prevented a filibuster on the bill, required 60 votes to pass, and failed by a vote of 51-46.

The bill could continue to be considered in the Senate, even with the prospect of a filibuster, though this is not widely expected. The bill is likely to be a topic of debate in 2018 Senate elections.
The  U.S. is one of seven countries in the world that allow abortions after 5 months of pregnancy.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act proposes that abortion be made illegal after 20 weeks of gestation, on the basis that fetal neural development enables the unborn to experience pain at that point. The bill includes exceptions for an abortion in the case of rape or incest, as well in the circumstances in which the pregnancy threatened the life or the mother.

“After 20 weeks, the unborn child reacts to stimuli that would be recognized as painful if applied to an adult human, for example, by recoiling,” according to the text of the Pain-Capable Act.
Because of an unborn child’s sensitivity to pain at this stage, anesthesia is regularly administered during in-utero surgery after 20 weeks. An ultrasound can reveal the gender of an unborn child, who can be viewed sucking their thumb, yawning, or stretching by 20 weeks of pregnancy. The nervous system begins functioning in the fourth month of pregnancy.
The bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives in Oct. 2017, is opposed by most Senate Democrats. To prevent a filibuster, Republicans needed Democratic support, in addition to the votes of the 51 Republican Senators.
Democratic Senators Bob Casey (Catholic), Joe Manchin (Catholic), and Joe Donnelly  (Catholic) supported the motion. Republican Senators Susan Collins (Catholic) and Lisa Murkowski (Catholic)voted against it.

And of course, Noted Illinois Catholic Dick Durbin voted NO.

 
The Babylon Bee reports:
 
WASHINGTON, DC—Voting down a measure that would have banned most abortions after 20 weeks gestation, Senate Democrats on Monday refused to grant legal status to millions of unborn children dreaming of one day being born.

House Republicans passed a bill last week that would guarantee citizens’ rights for U.S. children over 20 weeks gestation, the age at which all unborn babies have been scientifically proven to hear voices and feel pain. Senate Democrats killed the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act on Monday, keeping the United States one of only seven nations on earth that allows unrestricted abortion at any time during pregnancy.
“Frankly, I’m tired of the Republicans’ sob stories about these so-called ‘dreamers’ who are deliberately hiding inside a womb, hoping for government protection without going through the proper channels,” a DNC spokesperson told reporters. “Maybe it’s not their fault their parents brought them into this world, but that does not give them the same Constitutional right to life that hardworking, natural-born Americans have earned.”
Sources confirm Democrats may consider an abortion ban after 24 weeks, since the unborn child would be three-fifths of the way through a typical 40-week pregnancy by that point. “I really admire the idea of a 3/5 compromise,” said one Democrat senator. “America has used the 3/5 compromise before, when we were forced to admit that people who are property are still partially human. It worked really well.”

Time for Catholic/Democrats to Choose One or the Other

I guess this means all those Catholic Democrats who claim to be personally against abortion will have to change parties, right Dick Durban, Andrew Cuomo, and noted theologian Nancy Pelosi?

Washington D.C., Apr 26, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- When the leader of the Democratic party pulled an about-face this week, claiming that support for abortion was a non-negotiable part of the platform, pro-life Democrats were utterly dismayed.  

“It was just stunning to see,” Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, told CNA.

Day was referring to DNC chair Tom Perez supporting a Democratic mayoral candidate in Nebraska who had in the past embraced pro-life positions – and then the next day saying there was no room in the Democratic party for pro-life politicians.

“Pro-life Democrats are deeply concerned about this extreme position that the Democratic Party has taken and this non-negotiable position,” she said.