Opinion

OPINION: Infanticide Should Be A Bridge Too Far For All Americans

Timothy Head Timothy Head is executive director of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a member organization of the Coalition for Public Safety.
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America was horrified at the story of Philadelphia’s Dr. Kermit Gosnell, whose abortion clinic was raided in 2010 and it was discovered that Gosnell for nearly 30 years “routinely delivered babies alive and then cut their necks with scissors.” The most twisted Hollywood horror genre screenwriter could not have written a more gruesome script than what occurred inside this Philadelphia abortion clinic.

Many women died because of medical practices that included unsanitary conditions and unqualified health-care professionals on staff. Gosnell went as far as to eat lunch in same rooms where these horrific procedures were taking place, and he kept actual “trophies” of baby body parts in his office.

All of this sounds horrifying — except to infanticidal legislators, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.  They believe that Gosnell’s practice of aborting children up to and including the ninth month of pregnancy should be legal and even celebrated.

Unfortunately, Democrats have decided that allowing for unborn babies to be aborted up the 24th week of pregnancy and in some instances outside the womb is their official public policy position on the issue of life.

At the 2016 Democratic National Convention, Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the world; Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List, the political action committee to elect pro-choice Democratic women; and Ilyse Hogue, the leader of NARAL Pro-Choice America, all delivered speeches in prime time to let the nation know that abortion-on-demand is the Democrats position. The die was officially cast shortly in early 2017 when Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois stated that all Democratic must support abortion rights or they are not welcome in the party.

On the 46th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the most powerful Democrat in the United States stated, “the House will fight to protect and build upon the promise of Roe v. Wade.” One year earlier on the same anniversary, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the second most important Democrat, added, “Today, I am celebrating the FREEDOM of women to make their own health care decisions, as established by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade.”

Throughout the first two years of the Trump presidency, congressional Democrats have sided with their pro-abortion allied groups to thwart every attempt at even modest restrictions on abortion. Senate Democrats defeated the Republican effort to block funding of Planned Parenthood, and Senate Democrats voted almost unanimously to defeat the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act to ban abortion after the 20-week mark of pregnancy when medical science has proven that children can feel pain.

The extremism of elected Democrats is pronounced but is muted by the even more radical pro-infanticide outside groups such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL. In 2015, as congressional Republicans attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, activists created the “ShoutYourAbortion” social media campaign to share abortion stories and celebrate the taking of innocent human life.

The pinnacle achievement of the infanticide movement occurred in New York, where Cuomo signed the “Reproductive Health Act” into law and expanded the legality of elective abortion up to birth and the third trimester. The New York law moves any abortion-related cases from criminal law and moves the practice to health care law, allows non-physicians, similar to how the Gosnell clinic operated, to perform abortion procedures, and allows for any licensed health care provider to perform an abortion within 24 weeks or later of the pregnancy based on “reasonable and good faith professional judgment.”

The Democrats momentum from the victory in New York inspired similar legislation in Virginia just last week as Democrat Delegate Kathy Tran with support from Governor Ralph Northam attempted to expand the legal definition of elective abortion even further than New York. According to The New Yorker, abortion advocates said that they “wished the law went further.” Cuomo decided that enacting this draconian new infanticide law wasn’t enough and ordered state landmarks, including the top of the One World Trade Center, to be lit up in pink to “shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.”

At a time when according to public polling data an overwhelming majority of Americans believe that legal abortion should be limited to the first three months of pregnancy, Democrats across the country are basking in a moment of celebration as New York will now allow, and Democrats in Virginia want to enable, infants in their third trimester of life to be taken from the womb and killed.

Polling conducted earlier this month by Marist on behalf of the Knights of Columbus showed that 75 percent of all Americans believe that legal abortion should be limited to within the first three months of pregnancy, and 61 percent of people who identify themselves as pro-choice also think that so-called “partial-birth abortion” should be illegal.

The systemic legality of abortions occurring after medical science proves that a baby is viable and can feel pain is the official policy position of Democrats in New York, Virginia, and across America. The fact that this procedure is not a bridge too far for one of America’s two major political parties is frightening. The official position of Democrats in America is to now rejoice in the killing of both born and unborn human beings.

Timothy Head is executive director of the Faith & Freedom Coalition, a nonprofit group committed to education, equipping and mobilizing people of faith.


The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.