Better Than Illegal; Abortion Should Be Rendered Unthinkable
Every human being has the basic right to exist. Defending that right matters.
Indeed I tremble for my country when reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever…
— Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1785)
Thomas Jefferson was talking about another human rights abuse — slavery — where one set of human beings abused another set by deeming them non-entities worthy of personhood all for the typical excuses we hear today.
One doesn’t have to scratch hard to discover my core reason for being political. I am a practicing Catholic; I am 100% pro-life from the very earliest moment of biological beginning to natural death.
My reasons for defending the pro-life position are not exclusively based in religious sentiment. Life respects life; every human being deserves the basic right to exist — and if we reject the foundation of moral justice in law, one shouldn’t go searching too hard for social justice in our laws.
Yet lawmaking — I believe — is an inherently moral process. We ask lawmakers to approve of moral laws, reject immoral laws, and discern between the two. So long as faith informs conscience, one should never ask a lawmaker to check their conscience at the courthouse or statehouse door.
Too many people today believe firmly that pleasure is the highest possible good, and that the self is the ultimate end of being. Therefore, the object is to gather in as much pleasure as one can for oneself. Some are willing to run right over anyone who impedes their own pursuit of personal pleasure — license not liberty — and are willing to destroy anything good, beautiful or true that interposes.
Even babies.
Yet one should immediately recognize that there is an entire cottage industry surrounding abortion that pushes young women to do the unthinkable.
Instead, we are treated to a political party and a political religion that stands on a pile of dead babies and dares to scold the rest of us about social justice. Whose blind eye towards the suffering of their victims — women — serves second seat to the profit margins of America’s #1 abortion chain — Planned Parenthood.
The business is as bloody as it is lucrative. Many would be shocked to learn that abortion clinics are under no compulsion to report victims of sexual abuse or human trafficking — even when the victims are underage children.
In Virginia, it was Terry McAuliffe who fought tooth and nail to make sure abortion centers did not even rise to the level of medical hygiene expected of modern dentistry.
Just last election season alone, Planned Parenthood pledged $45 million to unseat pro-lifers in both the Democratic and Republican Parties (they actually spent $42 million between PP and PP Votes). In 2013 alone, Planned Parenthood gave McAuliffe over $490,000 to promote its agenda.
Women who regret their abortion repeat similar stories of abusive boyfriends or husbands, of counsellors and educators — many of whom have had abortions themselves — pushing stories of despair, or even parents who blame the mother and respond in anger rather than love.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen — women are victims of abortion far too often because men refuse to be men.
The abortionist is the criminal here.
The industry that profits off of the pain and suffering of women is the system that needs to be brought down.
If the best response we have for babies in Virginia is the funding of Planned Parenthood, is it any small wonder why pro-lifers must hear the charge of being pro-birth rather than pro-life?
Fund Pregnancy Resource Clinics; Not Abortion Centers
I’ll let you in on a little secret…
Youngkin is leading in the polls. For now. Afghanistan leaves a mark.
That lead is set to evaporate unless Republicans start coming up with a bold answer on the question of what a post-Roe world looks like — not as a policy issue that needs to be tackled like a budget — but on the question of what values are we bringing to the table for the youngest Virginians and how are we building a culture that surrounds a newborn with love rather than fear.
Planned Parenthood has a six-pieces answer for that.
Longtime readers here will remember that I have consistently beat the drum on this question — not just regarding the Texas heartbeat bill but with the Mississippi case that could entirely rewrite Roe v. Wade.
Between this, a looming federal budget scrap, and the New York v. Corlett 2A case before SCOTUS in November — these are the questions that will decide the 2021 gubernatorial race in Virginia.
Remember the first two clauses of my Contract With Virginia?
Commit 3% of all Virginia Lottery proceeds to Virginia’s pregnancy resource centers.
Entirely Defund Planned Parenthood
It is one thing to make abortion illegal. Ever human person has the basic right to exist; on this basic fundamental right we predicate the justice of all of our laws.
But it is something else to create a system that makes abortion absolutely unthinkable. How do we do this?
Perhaps we should start by investing in future taxpayers rather than exterminating them. For one, I refuse to believe that any mother willingly seeks to destroy her baby. If we are about choices in matters of life and death, then perhaps a bit more investment in the future? Maybe an investment in hope rather than fear is in order?
For every mother that needs help, there is a network of pregnancy resource centers ready to help them — not just with diapers and formula, but with rent, job opportunities, daycare, real health care, and even crisis intervention.
There is little government involvement at all — and in many cases, the help is entirely confidential if the mother so chooses. Provide more options and watch what happens as mothers begin to see the tiny hands of her child as more loving and caring than the dirty latex and tender mercies of an abortionist.
Yet no matter where you are on the question at hand, putting formula into the tiniest of hands and diapers on the more explosive end is morally right and just.
Try being the Democrat that says we have to rip the formula out of the hands of babies and turn that into scalpels for the abortionists at Planned Parenthood — and find out whether Virginians still have the spirit of September 11th inside of us after all.
Abortion ought to be an unthinkable option, and we ought to fight for that day. However, the choice is between hope and fear. McAuliffe wants to push fear on young women, Republicans want to offer hope for young mothers. After all — every baby deserves a birthday, Mr. McAuliffe.
Right, Mr. McAuliffe?
We Don’t Need a Poll To Do The Right Thing
As for Youngkin’s position on life? We can all be adults and agree on two things:
Episcopalians probably don’t hold the Catholic position on life.
McAuliffe — nominally a Catholic — definitely doesn’t hold the Catholic position on life.
The Democrats are making no bones about their support for post-birth abortions and abortion by mail should McAuliffe win. Republicans are owed a bit more from our nominee than the status quo — show us that you care about mothers constructively and that’s how you navigate rough seas — with leadership.
3% of Virginia lottery proceeds to PRCs; defund Planned Parenthood.
Making abortion unthinkable is the right thing to do. Make it a choice between hope and fear — hope wins every time.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.