Joe Biden's Abortion Flipflop

Joe Biden has put himself squarely in the sights of the Democratic abortion extremists.

Yesterday it Joe Biden bucked the Democratic orthodoxy on abortion by defending the Hyde Amendment, the law which prohibits federal (i.e. taxpayer) funds from paying for abortions. Biden’s confusing stance on the amendment, which was first passed in 1976 and has been renewed annually ever since, opens questions about the candidate’s thought process and puts him at odds with the extreme pro-abortion faction of the Democratic Party. Support for the amendment was historically bipartisan until Hillary Clinton called for its repeal in 2016.

Biden’s campaign expressed support for the Hyde Amendment to NBC News in an article published on June 5. The piece noted that while in the Senate Biden consistently voted against federal funding for abortions, even for victims of rape and incest.

Biden explained his position to a constituent in 1994, writing, “I will continue to abide by the same principle that has guided me throughout my 21 years in the Senate: those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them. As you may know, I have consistently — on no fewer than 50 occasions — voted against federal funding of abortions.”

In 2007, Biden wrote in his book, Promises To Keep, “I’ve stuck to my middle-of-the-road position on abortion for more than 30 years. I still vote against partial birth abortion and federal funding.”

Yet in May of this year, when Biden was confronted by an ACLU activist who asked him if he would repeal the Hyde Amendment, Biden answered, “Right now it has to be… It can’t stay.”

https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1126237661784629248

The Biden campaign subsequently told The Hill that Biden misheard the question and thought that the activist was referring to the Mexico City policy, which prohibits federal funds from going to foreign groups that perform abortions.

The Hill quotes a response from the Biden campaign that said, “He supports the repeal of the Mexico City rule because it prevents critical aid from going to organizations even if abortion is a very small fraction of the work they are doing. He has not at this point changed his position on the Hyde Amendment.”

The reversal is curious because it seems that it would have been difficult to misunderstand the activist, who was very close to the candidate, and the two policies sound nothing alike. It raises the possibility that Biden did not remember what the Hyde Amendment was or his longtime opposition to it.

Interestingly, it would have been politically easier for Biden to let his statement supporting repeal of the policy stand than to walk it back. He seems to be the only Democratic candidate who supports maintaining the amendment. His position will put a target on his back for radical pro-abortion activists who seem to resist any limits on abortion rights.

Support for the Hyde Amendment does not mean that Biden is pro-life, however. He supports Roe v. Wade even though he is a Roman Catholic who claims to be personally opposed to abortion. Jamal Brown, Biden’s press secretary, told NBC that the candidate believed that Roe was wrongly decided when he was first elected to the Senate, but now “firmly believes that Roe v. Wade is the law of the land and should not be overturned.” Brown pointed to Biden’s pro-abortion record that included blocking measures to criminalize abortion and voting against justices such as Bork, Roberts, Alito, and Thomas.

Biden’s mixed record on abortion may turn out to be a blessing. Polling shows that Americans are closely divided on abortion with very few supporting either an outright ban or abortion on demand without restrictions. A Marist poll from earlier this year showed that even a third of Democrats identify as pro-life. Biden’s middle-of-the-road views on abortion may actually be more in line with the majority opinion of most voters than either the radicals to his left or the Republicans to his right.

I’ve long suspected that Biden would secure the Democratic nomination in a manner similar to how Donald Trump won the GOP nomination in 2016. So far, that prediction seems to be holding true. Biden is claiming the moderate niche, which few other Democrats have targeted, while the plethora of candidates to his left fight over fractions of the radical leftist bloc.

Nevertheless, Biden’s response to the ACLU activist and subsequent reversal represent a dangerous gaffe for his campaign. The very public reversal drew attention to his pro-Hyde Amendment position and gave rise to questions about why the candidate would agree to repeal a policy that he has supported for decades.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Women Consider Adoption ‘More Emotionally Painful’ Than Abortion

The Atlantic recently ran a piece on adoption versus abortion. While most conservative outlets and readers focus on the money quote, a subtitle that reads, “Some American women see giving up their babies as more emotionally painful than terminating their pregnancies,” the excerpt doesn’t do the article justice and really doesn’t reflect the tone of the article.

The implication from the blurb is that many women choose abortion over adoption because they are self-centered and would rather inflict pain on an unborn baby than to go through the process of pregnancy and suffer emotional pain themselves as a result. That was my initial reaction, but then I actually read the piece by Olga Khazan, which turned out to be quite interesting.

Preconceptions are shattered almost immediately when Khazan points out that, while rates for both adoption and abortion have fallen in recent decades, births to unmarried children have risen. This suggests that, rather than making a choice to abort over placing their baby up for adoption, many women are choosing to become single parents. As single-parenting has become more socially acceptable, more women have decided to keep their babies rather than allow them to be adopted.

While this does contribute to the welfare state since children of single-parent families are more like to be raised in poverty, it is a better choice than abortion. It also works against the declining birthrate in the United States, which is another longterm problem that needs to be addressed.

Khazan cites the Turnaway Study of women who were denied abortions between 2008 and 2010. Of 956 women interviewed, 161 went on to give birth, but only 15 chose adoption. Khazan doesn’t say, but presumably, the remainder had successful abortions on subsequent attempts.

The study found that when women were denied an abortion, usually for financial reasons or lack of access, they often considered adoption. Fourteen percent of mothers who were denied an abortion considered adoption in the weeks following their abortion attempt, but ultimately, only nine percent decided to adopt. Most of those who carried the baby to term simply decided to raise the child themselves.

On the other hand, none of the mothers who aborted had any interest in adoption. The authors of the study wrote, “Adoption was often ruled out because they felt it was not right for them, because their partner would not be interested, because they had health reasons for not wanting to carry to term, or because they believed there were already enough children in need of homes.”

While the mother’s health might preclude an adoption, the other reasons relate more to the fact that the baby was an inconvenience. For example, having children already has nothing to do with putting a different child up for adoption but does raising children while pregnant is more difficult.

The study did find that mothers who chose adoption were satisfied with the choice but that it was very traumatic initially.

“Uniformly, the birth mothers experience grief after placement,” said Gretchen Sisson, a sociologist at the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health research group of the University of California at San Francisco. “It’s a very hard choice and one that a lot of women are not interested in making. By the time they are delivering the child, women feel bonded to their pregnancies and their children.”

One study participant said, “I had too many feelings for her to give [her] to someone I barely knew.”

These types of comments underscore the truth that unborn babies are living human beings, a fact denied by many in the pro-choice camp. Nevertheless, most mothers inherently understand that the child inside them is just that: a child.

Khazan also cites a small study performed by Sisson on mothers who placed their children up for adoption between 1962 and 2009. In the study, she wrote, “Rarely was adoption the preferred course of action; it emerged as a solution when women felt they had no other options.” Most of the women interviewed described their experience with adoption as “predominantly negative.” Khazan notes that this may be because most of the participants were involved in closed adoptions where no contact was allowed between the birth mother and the adopted child.

Finally, Khazan cites a third study which does lend credence to the money quote cited above. A 2008 study found that a quarter of women considering abortion found adoption to be too emotionally distressing. “Respondents said that the thought of one’s child being out in the world without knowing whether it was being taken care of or who was taking care of it was more guilt-inducing than having an abortion,” wrote the authors.

While it seems barbaric and wrongheaded – and more than a little reminiscent of Nazi Germany – to kill an unborn baby because you are concerned about its wellbeing, this statement again cuts against the claim that a fetus is not a human being. If an unborn baby is nothing more than a lump of cells then there is no reason to be concerned about whether it will be taken care of in the future.

If I go that far, I’m attached. I cannot just give my baby away to someone,” said the unmarried, 24-year-old mother of two who was considering abortion over adoption.

Khazan also points out that neither pro-choice nor pro-life counseling centers are doing a good job of selling expectant mothers on adoption. According to the National Council for Adoption, the referral rate to adoption agencies is only about one percent.

While Khazan’s article is not pro-life by any means, she is objective enough to confront some uncomfortable truths. “Rightly or wrongly, very few women who desire abortions actually see adoption as a favorable alternative,” she writes, but adds, “The reason the women don’t choose adoption is not great for the pro-choice side, either. Some of these women report feeling bonded with their fetuses, or at least too attached to give up the resulting baby. That’s an inconvenient point if you feel that a fetus is nothing more than a collection of cells and that what happens to it before viability is basically immaterial.”

If the pro-life movement wants women to see adoption as a viable alternative to abortion, there is a lot of work to be done. Crisis pregnancy centers could do a better job of informing women about adoption and there should be more methods through which the mother can stay involved in the child’s life if she chooses. This may help to reduce the emotional stress of giving a child away. Campaigns should also be undertaken to make the public see adoption as a positive choice and spouses should be encouraged to support women who want to carry their children to term and place them with adoptive parents.

One of the most difficult problems to overcome is the fact that abortions can take place in secret while carrying a baby to term is difficult to conceal. Many women probably choose abortion to keep others from ever knowing that they were pregnant in the first place.

In the end, Khazan’s article contains both good news and bad news for the pro-life movement. Rather than attacking the messenger or ridiculing the women who choose abortion over adoption, we should learn from their experience and tailor the pro-life message to address their concerns.

The only way to resolve the national issues that divide us is to talk to each other and find common ground. Olga Khazan may be a pro-choice advocate, but I applaud her for looking past the rhetoric to find out what mothers on both sides of the issue think.

 Originally published on The Resurgent

Poll: More Democrats Are Pro-Life

One of the few cultural battles on which conservatives have steadily gained ground is abortion. Even though the Supreme Court has yet to overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-life conservatives have been winning the battle of ideas as more Americans favor restrictions on abortion and identify with the pro-life viewpoint. Now a shocking poll shows that pro-lifers have even made significant inroads into the Democratic Party.

The Marist poll conducted in February 2019 shows that respondents are split evenly on the question of whether abortion should be legal, but the most surprising part of the poll is that a third of Democrats, 34 percent, identify as pro-life. Further, 15 percent of Democrats said that abortion should never be allowed under any circumstances and a total of 35 percent said that it should only be allowed in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.

Sixty-one percent of Democrats identified as pro-choice, but a majority favored restrictions on abortion. Only 22 percent said that abortion should be available at any time while 13 percent said it should be legal within the first six months of the pregnancy.

On the Republican side, the numbers were almost exactly reversed. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans identified as pro-life while 29 percent said that they were pro-choice.

There are some cautions about the poll, however. First, the poll showed a 14-point jump in the share of pro-life Democrats in a one-month span. Any sudden large shift in poll numbers should be regarded with skepticism. Additionally, the poll’s sample size of 1,008 adults is too small to make its findings conclusive. Subsequent polling will need to verify the shift in Democratic attitudes before I am convinced.

Nevertheless, the poll’s findings do offer hope that the pro-life segment of the Democratic Party is growing. While the poll doesn’t offer explanations for the sharp increase in Democratic pro-lifers, there are a couple of interesting possibilities.

First, the poll was conducted between Feb. 12 and 17. This was in the middle of the controversy over New York’s law allowing full-term abortion and the debate over a similar law proposed by Democrats in Virginia. It may be that the publicity generated by the lax New York law has persuaded some Democrats that more restrictions on abortion are needed.

Another possibility is that some pro-life voters may be leaving the Republican Party and identifying as Democrats. In particular, younger voters tend to be more pro-life, but the young are also deserting the GOP in droves. In 2018, young voters went Democrat by a 35-point margin compared to about 20 points for the previous two elections.

A shift in moderate voters toward the Democrats would also have implications for the presidential race. If more moderate voters take part in Democratic primaries next year, it will likely temper the chances of radical leftist candidates.

Whatever the reason, if Democrats are becoming more pro-life, it is a good thing. However, since there is still a litmus test on abortion for Democratic officeholders, any shift in views on abortion by the party’s base is unlikely to be felt in policy changes anytime soon. As President Trump alienates more moderate and independent voters, Democrats would be wise to soften their stance on abortion to make it easier for the millions of pro-life voters who are disenchanted with Trump Republicans to cross over.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Is a Democrat Civil War Brewing Over Abortion?

News stories often point to internal squabbling among Republicans and speculate as to whether the GOP is in the midst of a civil war because of the frequent disagreements. Mainstream outlets may be missing a budding civil war among the Democrats, however. Recent comments by several Democrat leaders indicate that the party may be splitting over one of its core issues.

For years, Democrats have marched in virtual lockstep on abortion. If pro-life Democrats were endangered before Barack Obama’s presidency, they were almost nonexistent after the elections of 2010 when Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and a cadre of pro-life congressional Democrats bowed to pressure to vote for Obamacare and lost their seats as a result.

Fast forward to 2017 when Tom Perez, elected chairman to rebuild the Democratic Party in the wake of the disastrous 2016 election, seemed to draw a line in the sand last month on abortion. “Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman’s right to make her own choices about her body and her health,” Perez said in a statement. “That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.”

If support for unrestricted abortion is “not negotiable” as a litmus test for Democrats, then the donks can plan on writing off about half of the American electorate. Polling has shown that Americans are split almost equally between the pro-life and pro-choice viewpoints. When examined more closely, only small factions support either extreme on the issue. Most Americans say that abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Perez’s comments have set off a battle between Democrats who favor a big tent party and those who believe that ideological purity is more important. The debate is similar to the one that Republicans have had in recent years on issues such as spending, immigration and the details of replacing Obamacare.

Some party leaders rejected Perez’s comments. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on NBC that “of course” pro-life Democrats should be accepted and supported by the party.

“I grew up Nancy D’Alesandro, in Baltimore, Maryland; in Little Italy; in a very devout Catholic family; fiercely patriotic; proud of our town and heritage, and staunchly Democratic,” she told the Washington Post. “Most of those people — my family, extended family — are not pro-choice. You think I’m kicking them out of the Democratic Party?”

Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Senate Minority Leader, agreed on MSNBC. “Look, we're a big tent party as Nancy Pelosi said, but we are, let's make no mistake about it, we are a pro-choice party. We're a strongly pro-choice party,” Schumer said. “We think that's where the American people are, and in fact, if anything, are moving even more in that direction.”

Some members of the Democrat base disagreed with their leaders’ inclusiveness. “It was great to see Perez discover a spine,” Erin Matson, a pro-abortion activist, told The Atlantic, adding that “Schumer and Pelosi’s recent comments are cowardly.”

“It’s about policy, not feelings or labels, and anything less than a bold stance that makes clear that the Democratic Party must be united in protecting a woman’s right to an abortion is a betrayal of a core constituency of the party,” Matson continued. She stopped short of calling big tent Democrats “DINOs.”

Elyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America noted in the Washington Post that last year’s Democratic platform “went further than the Party has ever gone to stand up for the women’s rights. It didn’t just seek to protect abortion access — it sought to expand it,” while failing to note that Democrats lost that election. “If the Democratic Party is going to gain back power, it can’t go backward, it can’t back down and it can’t trade away these principles,” she added.

“I don’t know why we would want to start walking away from folks, like myself, who have a personal conviction on the pro-life issue,” said Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), a pro-life Democrat congressman. “We ought to be able to include everyone, as opposed to saying ‘no, we don’t want these folks, even though they fight with us on jobs, even though they fight with us for economic rights, even though they fight with us on healthcare.’ It just seems to me to be very, very short-sighted.”

Nevertheless, even Bernie Sanders, the sometimes-Democrat with the cult-like following, is not immune to criticism when he deviates from the party line on abortion. Sanders drew fire from fellow progressives for his support of Omaha mayoral candidate Heath Mello. Mello had a pro-life voting record and reputation during his time in the Nebraska state legislature.

Pelosi later claimed to the Washington Post that the abortion is “kind of fading as an issue” for Democrats. That may be wishful thinking.

This week failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton jumped into the fray with a speech to abortion provider Planned Parenthood. “Protecting access to the full range of reproductive health care: it is a health issue, of course, it is a core economic issue,” Clinton said, quoted by The Blaze. “Women in every corner of our country understand that intimately. And anyone who wants to lead should also understand that fundamentally, this is an issue of morality.”

By claiming that opposition to abortion is immoral, Clinton has upped the ante and made it clear that pro-lifers will not be welcomed by a large part of the Democratic Party. Framing the issue in moral terms makes it almost impossible to compromise.

“I believe we can and should respect deeply held beliefs of our friends, our neighbors, our fellow citizens, even if they differ from our own,” Clinton continued. “That’s what should make America, America. But it is possible to do that while holding firm to what we know is the only right approach in our diverse democracy. Oh, yes, let’s respect people’s convictions, but never back down from our commitment to defend the ability of every woman to make these deeply personal decisions for herself.”

In other words, Democrats should respect the immoral opinions of pro-life Democrats as long as those opinions have no impact on the party platform or policies.

The decision on whether to welcome (or tolerate) Democrats who differ from the party dogma on an issue like abortion is an important one. It is very difficult for a political party to win if it is actively seeking to expel many of its members. Even if pro-life Democrats are permitted to stay, it is unlikely that the official Democrat position on abortion will change any time soon.

 Originally published on The Resurgent

Video: Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Do Ultrasounds Unless You Want An Abortion

Lila Rose and Live Action have dumped another load of incriminating videos on Planned Parenthood. Last year, the pro-life group responsible for a series of undercover videos in which Planned Parenthood employees showed a fundamental lack of respect for human life. Now they have released another video calculated to embarrass the giant abortion provider with the words of its own workers.

The new video, “Abortion Corporation,” debunks Planned Parenthood’s claim that the group is about more than abortion. In the three-minute video, undercover women ask Planned Parenthood workers for a prenatal ultrasound. The video shows 14 conversations in 10 states. In every case, the Planned Parenthood workers say that they cannot provide prenatal ultrasounds.

A clinic worker in Corning, N.Y. tells a pregnant mother, “We tell you you’re pregnant and then we offer to do the abortion.”

The mother persists, “So, other than a pregnancy test, I heard you guys had ultrasounds? Would it be possible…”

The clinic worker cuts her off, “No, we only do ultrasounds if you are terminating.”

In St. Louis, a woman asks if she can get an ultrasound to determine if her baby is healthy. “No, nope, not something we offer,” is the curt reply from the Planned Parenthood worker.

A Council Bluffs, Iowa clinic worker says, “No, we don’t do any ultrasounds for prenatal care. We do them when we’re doing abortions, but not for any other reason.”

Several Planned Parenthood workers said that their ultrasounds only provide a confirmation of the pregnancy and how far along the pregnancy is. When a caller asks why, a Fayetteville, N.C. receptionist says, “That would be for our abortion services. That is the only thing that we do at our health centers.”

A Winston-Salem, N.C. worker confirms, “’Cause that [abortion] is the only service that we do. We don’t do any prenatal care or adoption here.”

One worker in Albuquerque, N.M. refers the woman to an OB/GYN who can give a “more detailed” ultrasound because “there is nothing we can do to help you here.”

Some viewers may wonder if the clinics in the video were cherry-picked? Maybe Live Action just included the clinics that refused to help the pregnant women who wanted to keep their babies. Live Action does admit that some clinics did not turn their investigators away. Of 68 clinics approached, three agreed to provide a prenatal ultrasound without an abortion.

Planned Parenthood claims on its website that “three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services” and that “80 percent of our patients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy.” Prenatal care is not listed as one of the group’s missions, but a search of the website does reveal that prenatal care is offered by some Planned Parenthood clinics.

Planned Parenthood receives more than $360 million annually from federal and state governments. Federal law prohibits federal funds from being used to provide abortions except in cases of rape, incest or where the mother’s life is in danger.

Republicans made several attempts to cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood under President Obama. Some states have made similar attempts as well. During the campaign, President Trump’s message on Planned Parenthood was mixed, but he ultimately favored defunding the group as well.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Planned Parenthood President’s Shocking Reason For Aborting Her Baby

I remember the days when Bill Clinton talked about abortion. President Clinton’s mantra was nobody wanted to get an abortion. He said that it should be “safe, legal and rare.” Likewise, when the pro-choice crowd challenges legal restrictions on abortion, much of the time it is because the laws allegedly don’t contain strong enough provisions for hardship cases such pregnancies that result from rape, incest or that threaten the life of the mother.

There is some logic to these arguments. Americans can argue in good faith about if it is ever moral to kill an unborn baby. While I believe that abortion is murder and morally repugnant, I can concede that there are gray areas where there are no good choices. With deep moral and logical arguments to be made on both sides, it is all the more shocking to hear Planned Parenthood’s president Cecile Richards justify her own abortion.

In an interview with Katie Couric in 2015, Richards described her decision to take the life of an unborn baby. “It was a decision my husband and I made. It was a personal decision. And we have three children that we adore and that are the center of my life. And we decided that was as big as our family needed to be,” said Richards. “It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that. But I can’t imagine a woman being in that circumstance — with an unintended pregnancy and not being able to make her own decision about that pregnancy.”

“It wasn’t anything more dramatic than that.”

Cecile Richards is the daughter of former Texas governor, Anne Richards (who notably coined the nickname “Shrub” for George W. Bush). She comes from an affluent family. Lifenews estimates the salary of the younger Ms. Richards at “around $600,000.” She is a one-percenter in her own right. Yet she chose to end the life of her baby, the sibling of her other three children, because “we decided that was as big as our family needed to be.”

This is no hardship case. This is not a gray area. This is a case of a wealthy woman who apparently was not on birth control or using contraceptives deciding that she didn’t want another child.

The Cecile Richards abortion is an example of the dishonesty of the abortion movement. The vast majority of abortions are for convenience or quality of life reasons, not for medical emergencies or due to sexual assaults. According to the Guttmacher Institute, rape and incest cases make up less than one percent of abortions. Abortions due to the health of the mother account for only 12 percent of abortions. Concerns about the health of the baby lead to 13 percent.

The most common reason cited for having an abortion? “Having a baby would dramatically change my life.” Cecile Richards’ excuse, “have completed my childbearing,” was given by 38 percent of women who had abortions.

The pro-choice movement is fundamentally a selfish one. At its core, it is all about “me.” The slogan “my body, my choice” puts all other considerations below the mother’s preference. The fact that a human being is killed, the desires of the father, even the possibility of problems with the mental and physical health of the mother are pushed aside.  

Abortion is not a necessary medical procedure to protect the life of the mother in most cases. Abortion is a tool with which people can escape the consequences of their actions.

Ironically, the extremist position of abortion for any reason may be hurting the pro-choice cause. Since the 1990s, the percentage of pro-choice Americans has plummeted while the pro-life position has increased. The country is equally split between the two viewpoints according to Gallup. On closer examination, the majority is neither pro- nor anti-abortion. A majority, 50 percent, of Americans believes in the middle ground that there should be legal abortion with restrictions. Most of these (37 percent) believe that abortion should be legal in only a few circumstances, presumably the traditional exceptions of rape, incest and when the mother’s life is in danger.

The change in attitudes about abortion helps to explain another shocking statistic. American abortions are their lowest level since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973. The pro-life viewpoint is winning. Perhaps this is why abortion activists are sounding increasingly shrill and extreme.

(Hat tip to at Amanda Prestigiacomo at the Daily Wire for finding the 2015 interview.)

Originally published on The Resurgent

Evan McMullin on the issues

EvanMcMullin.com

This is the second of a two-part series in which we present Evan McMullin's platform in his own words, drawn from a series of interviews. The interview sources are linked in part one, which we published yesterday. Today we present Evan McMullin on the issues and focus on domestic policy.

On the Second Amendment: On Now This, McMullin said, “I am a supporter of the Second Amendment. I think it is important to our freedoms and liberties here in the United States. I am a gun owner. I believe in responsible gun ownership. I think to own a weapon is to assume some very serious responsibilities I believe that we have to have a better, more constructive dialogue on this issue. I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment. I would like to decrease gun violence. I think there are many ways to do that while we still protect our rights.”

On judicial appointments: Louise Mensch of Heat Street asked whether McMullin would appoint Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court. “I’m not making any commitments about who I would or would not appoint,” McMullin replied, “but I will tell you that I will appoint originalists. In the question that involves what I think about Roe v. Wade, I will appoint pro-life justices.

On entitlements: “Entitlements are pushing us further and further into debt,” he said on Bloomberg. “Our debts are larger and larger. Our deficits are larger and larger. We have to do something to get them on a sustainable path. We have to keep our commitments to our elderly, our seniors today, but we have to phase in some reforms for future retirees.”

On religious freedom: “I believe in libertarian ideas in a sense that individuals need to be more empowered in our country. The power needs to be shifted back closer to the people. Those are consistent with libertarian ideas, but part of that is religious liberty. Our country was founded in part on that and we can’t have a president who doesn’t understand that, especially in this time when we really need to, I think, ensure that religious liberties are protected.”

When asked about his stance against religious persecution, McMullin said, “This is a driving principle for me. We’re a nation of 330 million people and geographically we are also very large. A lot of people have different ideas, they come from different countries, themselves or past generations. We are a diverse, pluralistic country and you must have tolerance as a result of that. E pluribus Unum. This was our original, unofficial motto until, I think, the ‘50s, that conveyed the idea that there are many of us with many differences among us, [but] that we are together still as one country. We need to go back to that and realize that we are not going to agree on everything, all of us on the right and left and center, but we need to respect everybody’s ability to live the way they want to live and to be one, united, in defense of those freedoms.”

On why people should vote for him: “I’ve spent my life avoiding the limelight and seeking opportunities to serve. Donald Trump has spent his life avoiding opportunities to serve and seeking the limelight.”

New poll shows social conservatives in decline

Polling released over the past few weeks has revealed what may be seismic shifts in American morality. On virtually every issue, American public opinion has shifted to the left. The most recent polling, released today by Gallup, show that the country has moved left on abortion and approval of out-of-wedlock births.

Today, a poll on attitudes about abortion showed that half of Americans consider themselves pro-choice for the first time since 2012. The Gallup poll showed that the percentage of Americans who identify as pro-life has declined to 44 percent, its lowest point since 2008. 2009 was the first year in which pro-life polled higher than pro-choice. Attitudes on abortion are still much more divided than they were in the 1990s.

The poll does not define pro-choice and pro-life, but 29 percent of respondents indicated that abortion should be legal in all circumstances. The plurality, 36 percent, said that abortion, should be legal in only a few circumstances.

Another Gallup poll released today revealed increasingly divergent attitudes on out-of-wedlock births. Sixty-one percent now believe that it is morally acceptable to have a baby outside of marriage. Only 35 percent call out-of-wedlock births immoral. Opinions on extramarital births have diverged widely since 2002, the last year that a majority called them immoral.

The shift has come as the percentage of out-of-wedlock births has increased dramatically. In 2014, the Washington Post reported that Census figures show that less than 60 percent of first-time births are to married couples. The Census report noted that “women with a nonmarital [sic] first birth are both less likely to ever marry and less likely to remain married if they do marry” and also links unmarried births to higher risks of poverty, lower educational attainment and family instability.

Today’s polling comes on the heels of increased support for doctor-assisted suicide, also from Gallup. Sixty-eight percent of respondents now support a right to die when a person has an incurable disease and is in severe pain. Only 28 percent are opposed. After remaining close for years, opinion on doctor-assisted euthanasia has diverged since 2013.

The biggest shift in public opinion is related to homosexuality and gay marriage. Gallup reports that a record high of 60 percent now supports gay marriage. Only 37 percent disagree. As recently as 1999, the numbers were almost completely reversed with 62 percent opposed and 35 percent in favor of redefining marriage.

Likewise, by 51 – 30 percent, most Americans now believe that homosexuals are born gay, not created by upbringing or environment. On this issue, Gallup’s numbers have also reversed since the 1990s. In reality, scientific proof that homosexuality is inherited genetically has been hard to find. It is even harder to find a genetic explanation for bisexuals, which make up approximately half of the gay and lesbian community.

On a similar issue, Gallup found that respondents greatly overestimated the number of gays in the US. Only 3.8 percent self-identify as gay or lesbian, but poll respondents believed that 23 percent of Americans were gay.

In general, the recent Gallup polling shows that social liberals are now equal in number with social conservatives in the United States. Since 1999, the percentage of social conservatives has declined while social liberals have increased. Both factions now stand equal at 31 percent.

The polling shows that the sample trended more liberal on virtually every issue since 2001. The largest shifts occurred on gay and lesbian relations (considered moral by 23 percent more in 2015 than in 2001), extramarital births (16 percent more), extramarital sex (15 percent more), divorce (12 percent more) and stem cell research using human embryos (12 percent more). Other issues with a large shift included polygamy (nine percent increase) and cloning humans (eight percent).

Some issues are considered less moral today than 14 years ago. Support for the death penalty declined by three percent, but a majority (60 percent) still approve. Support for medical testing on animals declined by nine percent to 56 percent approval.

Some of the shift in public opinion may be explained by the sample. The poll was conducted from May 6-10, 2015 with 1,024 adults, aged 18 or older, living in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Since all of the findings stem from the same poll, if there is an error in providing an accurate sample or weighting the responses, the findings could have been skewed to the left. Nevertheless, these findings do support other polling that shows social attitudes moving to the left on several issues. 

Read the full article on Examiner.com

The good, the bad and the ugly: A balanced look at Chris Christie

 

When Examiner published an article last week detailing how Chris Christie was the current Republican frontrunner for the 2016 elections as well as the only Republican who currently beats the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, it set off a firestorm of indignation among some conservatives. Many deride Christie as a “RINO” who would be almost as bad as Clinton. Others go further and claim that Christie is a Democrat in disguise. A number of angry conservatives say that Christie is dead to them.

A good place to start when trying to determine whether a Republican is a RINO is the American Conservative Union. The ACU rates members of Congress and state legislatures by their votes and determines whether they are “true conservatives” or not. In a previous article, Examiner found that most Republicans who are commonly labeled RINOs easily pass Ronald Reagan’s 80 percent rule. The ACU does not rate governors, however, so one must examine Gov. Christie’s record in New Jersey.

The Good

There are many aspects of Christie’s career that conservatives can cheer. The governor seems to be an authentic fiscal conservative. John Nichols of The Nation, a liberal site, says that Christie is in the mold of Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Nichols cites a long list of complaints that include raising the retirement age for state employees and increasing their required contribution for insurance and retirement plans, opposing tax increases on the wealthy, vetoing minimum wage hikes and pay equity bills, and trimming state budgets. Christie has taken on New Jersey’s public employee unions and won. One teacher’s union leader even publicly wished him dead in a tasteless joke in 2009.

Christie has not raised taxes during his time as governor. Politifact does note that he cut several tax credits such as the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Homestead Benefit, which provides a credit on property insurance. The EITC is a refundable credit that can be paid out to individual filers even if they have no tax liability. Politifact also confirmed that Christie balanced New Jersey’s budget as its constitution requires. Christie has also taken steps to fix New Jersey’s underfunded pension program according to the Trentonian. New Jersey’s pension problems are not resolved, but underfunded pensions are a national crisis that many states and cities have not even begun to address according to CNBC.

Christie is pro-life. In 2011, New Jersey News described Christie’s remarks before a pro-life rally at the statehouse in which he said that “every life is precious and a gift from God” and noted that he had cut funding for Planned Parenthood. Christie urged the activists “to speak calmly and clearly and forthrightly for the idea that this is an issue whose time has come.” Salon describes Christie’s conversion from a “non-thinking pro-choice person, kind of the default position” when he heard his unborn daughter’s heartbeat as seemingly much more genuine than Mitt Romney’s.

Christie’s appeal to minorities is also a very good thing for conservatives. As reported by Examiner after his re-election victory, exit polls from New Jersey show that Gov. Christie made deep inroads into Barack Obama’s core constituencies. Christie won female voters by 15 percent even though the Democratic candidate, Barbara Buono, was a woman. He also won Hispanic voters outright with 51 percent (compared to Buono’s 45 percent). Although Christie did not win the black vote, at 21 percent his percentage of the black vote was three times greater than Romney’s. A successful Republican presidential candidate will have to appeal to minority voters.

With respect to global warming and climate change, the Huffington Post noted that when Christie ran for governor in 2009, he had “an impressive green agenda” on his website according to the New Jersey Environmental Federation, but that it has remained only on the website. Since then, he told a town hall meeting in 2010 that he was “a little skeptical” that humans are responsible for climate change. The Post story goes on to say that Christie withdrew New Jersey from the Northeast’s regional cap-and-trade plan, weakened the state’s renewable energy standard and used $210 million from the state’s clean energy fund to balance the budget. On the other hand, Christie opposed oil drilling and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities off the New Jersey coast.

The Bad

The news about Christie isn’t all good for conservatives, however. For example, Christie accepted the Medicaid expansion of the Affordable Care Act. He justified approving the expansion by noting that New Jersey’s Medicaid program was already so large that the potential expansion of the program under Obamacare was minimal, a claim confirmed by Politifact. Christie did veto a bill making the expansion permanent, telling N.J. Spotlight that if the terms of the expansion change “because of adverse actions by the Obama administration, I will end it as quickly as it started.” Republican governors John Kasich of Ohio and Mike Pence of Indiana also accepted the Obamacare Medicaid money according to the N.Y. Times.

Many conservatives also do not like Christie’s position on gun control. In 2009, Christie told Sean Hannity that he supported “common sense laws that will allow people to protect themselves” but also favored some gun control measures that would protect police. He noted that the state’s Democratic legislature would not allow easing restrictions on guns.

In the aftermath of the Newtown massacre, Christie established a task force to “responsibly expand New Jersey’s strict gun control measures” according to the Washington Times’ Emily Miller. Christie signed 10 gun control bills into law, including a measure that required the state to submit mental health records to the FBI for instant background checks, but vetoed three others, including a ban a .50 caliber rifles. The NRA hailed the vetoes even though the group rated Christie as a “C.”

On same sex marriage, Christie is also at odds with many conservatives. In October 2013, he dropped the state’s appeal of a court decision striking down New Jersey’s marriage law in spite of the fact that he had previously vetoed a bill that would have allowed same sex marriages. The decision can likely be explained by the fact that previous court decisions made it very unlikely that Christie would have prevailed in court. Additionally, it is clear that the people of New Jersey supported the redefinition of marriage. A Rutgers Eagleton poll at the time showed that 61 percent of New Jersey voters favored marriage for same-sex couples compared to only 27 percent who were opposed. Sixty-seven percent opposed continuing the appeal. Even the state’s Republicans were almost evenly split on the court decision and whether to appeal although slight majorities of Republicans opposed both. Coming right before the election, pursuing the unpopular appeal could have sunk Christie’s campaign.

Christie’s decision to sign a bipartisan bill banning gay reparative therapy is harder to justify. Politico reported that Christie’s note accompanying the bill said that he believed that people were born gay and denied that homosexuality is a sin, a position inconsistent with his Catholic faith. A similar ban in California was challenged on First Amendment grounds and upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in August 2013. At least two lawsuits have been filed against New Jersey’s ban according to NJ.com.

Christie’s appointment of Sohail Mohammed to the New Jersey Superior Court was also controversial. Mohammed is a native of India who immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager. As an attorney, he specialized in immigration law and represented dozens of immigrants who were detained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Mohammed’s career is profiled on Superlawyers.com.

The criticism of Mohammed seems to stem mostly from the fact that he is a Muslim and the fear that he might help to institute sharia law in New Jersey. Some critics also point to his ties with the American Muslim Union which some believe is tied to Islamic terrorists. Of the controversy, Christie said in the Wall St. Journal, “It's just crazy, and I'm tired of dealing with the crazies.”

Speaking of immigration, Republican hardliners won’t like the governor’s history on illegal immigration. In 2008 when he was a federal prosecutor, Christie told a gathering of Latinos that illegal immigration was a civil, not criminal, matter and that, technically speaking, illegal immigrants are not committing a crime by being in the country illegally according to NJ.com. Although he is correct, “illegal [unlawful] presence” is a civil violation, not a misdemeanor or felony, Christie drew criticism from conservatives for the remark. New York Magazine noted that Christie only prosecuted 13 illegal immigration cases between 2002 and 2007, a very low number considering New Jersey’s status as a port of entry the state’s large immigrant population. In December 2013, Politico reported that Christie had announced that he planned to sign New Jersey’s DREAM Act.

The Ugly

One of the hardest things for conservatives to get past may be Christie’s “bro-mance” with President Obama. When Hurricane Sandy struck New Jersey and New York a week before the 2012 election, the two executives toured storm damaged areas and traded compliments. A famous photo shows the two men shaking hands, Obama resting his hand on Christie’s shoulder, in Atlantic City on Oct. 31, 2012. Many conservatives, such as pollster and pundit Dick Morris, blame Christie for making Obama look like a bipartisan leader, an appraisal that had eluded him for the previous four years.

An Examiner analysis of 2012 exit polls found that 64 percent of voters said that the president’s response to the hurricane was a factor in their vote and 62 percent of these voters chose Obama. Both Rasmussen and Gallup polling showed an uptick in Obama’s approval ratings in the days after Hurricane Sandy struck New York.

There are several theories as to why Christie, who actively supported Mitt Romney, became a cheerleader for Barack Obama less than a week before a very close election. The most likely answer is that Christie was doing what he thought was best for his state. It probably did not hurt that the move was also good for Chris Christie. The governor’s approval rating jumped to 70 percent after the storm according to Philly.com.

In the end, Chris Christie can’t be accurately termed a RINO, but neither is he a hardcore conservative. If he were, he would be unelectable in a state as blue as New Jersey. In reality, Christie seems to be a fiscal conservative who is moderate on most social issues. Christie’s views might play well with moderate voters in a general election, but the recent shift towards libertarianism by many in the Republican Party makes it unlikely that he will get past the primary unless other candidates split the votes of social conservatives and Tea Partiers.

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The Good - The Bad - The Ugly

Adoption should be easier than abortion

God save America

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This Fourth of July it might be time to amend the traditional patriotic song and sentiment of “God bless America.” In recent years, America has become so divorced from godly values that it now seems mocking and irreverent to seek his blessing. It might be more appropriate to prostrate ourselves and seek his forgiveness.

The most recent rejection of God is the wave of gay marriage laws sweeping the nation. Twenty years ago, gay marriage was unheard of. Denmark passed a gay partnership law in 1989, but same-sex marriage did not exist legally until 2000 when the Netherlands first passed a gay marriage law. In what would become a familiar theme, gay marriage was legalized in Canada the next year after two gay couples sued. In the U.S., Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage in 2004, again after a lawsuit. In 2007, Iowa followed suit, again after the state’s marriage law was struck down by courts. Gay marriage did not pass through the legislative process until 2009 when Vermont’s legislature approved the redefinition of marriage. At this point, gay marriage is legal in twelve states, but recent Supreme Court decisions indicate that the Court will probably strike down state definition of marriage laws in the near future.

One of the few truly scientific studies that has been done on the radical changes to the structure of society’s most basic unit, the family, is the New Family Structures Study of 2012. The study reported that gay families are much less stable than comparable heterosexual families. The instability leads to many negative effects in children including being “more apt to report being unemployed, less healthy, more depressed, more likely to have cheated on a spouse or partner, smoke more pot, had trouble with the law, and report… more sexual victimization.”

In the New Testament, particularly Romans 1, homosexuality is described, not as an unpardonable sin, but as a consequence of judgment. Paul wrote that homosexuality is one of the consequences of a society that rejects God. Homosexuality is not the only result of judgment, however. Paul’s roll call of depravities reads like a list of twenty-first century special interest groups:

“…filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.”
The issue of abortion has also seen setbacks in recent years. President Obama’s signature piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, was billed by Life News as “the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade.” The ACA, “Obamacare,” mandates that all insurance policies cover abortifacient drugs without copayments. The ACA also ignores the Hyde Amendment that once prohibited federal tax money from being used for abortion. Together with federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, Obamacare means that the United States government is in the business of funding and encouraging abortions.

Abortion was at the forefront in the trial of Kermit Gosnell. Although the trial of the Philadelphia abortionist was largely ignored by the media, the news of how Gosnell and his staff allowed babies to be born only to murder them in cold blood spread around the country via social networks. Gosnell was found guilty of three counts of first degree murder as well as a number of other charges. An estimated 50 million Americans have been aborted since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973.

Also in 2013, Colorado became the first state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The use of the drug is being normalized in spite of the fact that there are clear links between marijuana use and schizophrenia and aggression. Writing in the Wall St. Journal, Samuel Wilkinson of the Yale School of Psychiatry points out that heavy users of marijuana who start at a young age have a 200 percent increased risk for schizophrenia, which affects more than three million Americans. About one third of homeless Americans are schizophrenics.

The expansion of abortion and homosexuality corresponds to attacks on religion in spite of the First Amendment. Christian teaching on these issues is being called “offensive” by liberal activists. Members of the Obama Administration talk of “freedom of worship” rather than “freedom of religion.” What this means in practice is that religion, specifically the Christian religion, is being driven underground. Advocates of traditional marriage or pro-life causes can have their jobs threatened or be forced to attend sensitivity training. Christian businesses are sued if they refuse to supply their services to gay weddings, even in states where gay marriage is not legal. In New Jersey, a Methodist church has already been sued – and lost – for refusing to rent their facility to a lesbian couple for their same-sex union.

The fundamental problems with America today are rooted in the decline of Christianity and the corresponding rise of government. The beginning of the decline of American marriage in the 1960s is clearly visible on a Heritage Foundation graph. A separate graph shows the simultaneous rise of out-of-wedlock children at the same time. Both correspond to the “Great Society” programs of President Johnson in which the federal government began to take responsibility for caring for the poor and children away from families, churches, and charities. Unsurprisingly, the federal debt began a meteoric rise at the same time.

At the same time, American church attendance fell sharply. Gallup reports that in 1955 U.S. church attendance over the past week was at 75 percent. Now, even though 78 percent of Americans identify as Christian, only 43 percent attend church regularly. Consequently, many American Christians are ignorant about the doctrines of their professed faith, leaving them open to pseudo-Biblical arguments for liberal policies.

These social trends mean that out-of-wedlock births now account for almost half of U.S. births. The average age of a woman at her first marriage is 26.5 years while the average age at her first childbirth is 25.7 according to CBS News. This is causing a rise in single-parent families that poses dire consequences for the United States because these families are much more likely to live in poverty and require government financial assistance than traditional families. There are also negative effects on the children of single-parent families, such as being more likely to be abused and more likely to become involved in violent crime, drug abuse, and premarital sex according to the National Fatherhood Initiative. The cycle repeats as children of broken homes grow up to have their own children, often in single-parent homes as a result of premarital sex or divorce, and the dependency on government entitlement programs becomes more pronounced.

It may already be too late to reverse America’s decline. Jonathan Cahn, author of “the Harbinger,” believes that recent history, from the Sept. 11 attacks to the economic crash, are warnings from God and that America is running out of time for repentance. Cahn pointed out to Examiner that the “macro pictures of end-time prophecy” do not include America. The current series of “harbinger” warnings “fill in the gap with specific detail” as to how America will “lose its crown as the head of nations” although Cahn is careful not to commit to a specific timeline.

Last year, no less a man of God than Billy Graham published a letter to America in which he wrote, “My heart aches for America and its deceived people…. The farther we get from God, the more the world spirals out of control.” Graham related how his wife Ruth had exclaimed, “If God doesn’t punish America, he’ll have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.” Nevertheless, Graham also points out, “The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance.”

Later in the year, Graham ran ads that urged Americans “to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God.” For his involvement in politics, Graham’s ministries were targeted by the Internal Revenue Service.

America is at a crossroads. Either our country will continue to reject God and continue to decline or we will seek his forgiveness and begin the process of repentance. The process of turning America around begins with individuals. Even if the country faces the ultimate judgment, individuals can be saved. As Jonathan Cahn said in his interview with Examiner, “We all live in the face of judgment.  And the time to repent, to be saved, and to get right with God . . . is now.”
Originally published on Examiner.com:

Kermit Gosnell and America’s Holocaust

Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell was recently found guilty of a laundry list of crimes including three counts of first degree murder for the killings of several babies that were born alive at his abortion clinic. Gosnell was accused of cutting the necks of the babies in violation of Pennsylvania law and basic human decency.

Gosnell has received virtually no support or sympathy from the pro-choice crowd. The head of NARAL Pro-Choice America said that Gosnell will “get what he deserves” in a statement. Before his arrest, her view of Gosnell would likely have been different. Many abortion clinics in surrounding states referred late term patients to Gosnell for abortions because it was common knowledge in the abortion industry that he was an abortionist who had little regard for state laws limiting abortion to 24 weeks according to the grand jury report.

It is also interesting to note that the same pro-choice activists who now throw Gosnell under the bus still fight for the right to perform abortions. If the babies that Gosnell murdered had still been in the womb, pro-choice activists would have rallied around him as a martyr. In the past, pro-choice groups have opposed any meaningful restrictions on abortion, even fighting against a ban on brutal partial birth abortions in which a baby is delivered except for the head. The abortionist then punctures the baby’s skull, still inside the woman’s body, and inserts a catheter to suck out the brain. Partial birth abortions were performed on babies much older than the 24 weeks mandated by Pennsylvania. Pro-choice groups have also opposed parental notification laws, clinic inspections (Gosnell’s clinic was appallingly unsanitary), and limits on when abortions can be performed.

Godwin’s Law dictates that the longer an internet discussion goes on, the more likely it is that someone will make an analogy about Nazis. Consequently, comparisons to Nazis or the use of “Nazi” or “fascist” as an epithet are so overdone that they have lost much of their effectiveness. Nevertheless, from time to time, a situation arises where a valid comparison to Nazis can be made. The case of Kermit Gosnell is one of these situations.

Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society was every bit as much a murder factory as the German concentration camps. The babies, the majority of the victims of Gosnell’s crimes, were dehumanized in the eyes of their murderers, just as the Jews and other victims of the camps were dehumanized in the eyes of their Nazi captors.

This dehumanization began with what is standard practice for pro-choice activists: the refusal to call an unborn baby a “baby.” When a baby becomes a “fetus” it is easier to think of it in less than human terms, an “inanimate lump of cells” in the words and minds of some pro-abortion advocates. This is directly analogous to the way in which Nazis dehumanized Jews, Slavs and others as “untermenschen,” sub-humans.

When someone is viewed as sub-human, they are easier to kill. At some point during the nearly 40 years of his practice, Gosnell and his staff members graduated from killing unborn “fetuses” to killing living, breathing babies who had “precipitated,” the office euphemism for birth.

Like the Nazi executioners, the staff of the Women’s Medical Society became so desensitized that they even joked about the babies they were killing or played with them before they cut their spinal cords according to grand jury testimony. Gosnell was said to commonly joke after killing big, late term babies that they could have “walked me to the bus stop.”

Testimony of the Holocaust includes tales of kindness from Germans at one moment followed by cold-blooded, businesslike killing the next. The book “Hitler’s Willing Executioners” details the account of German soldiers who found a group of hidden Jewish orphans. Feeling pity for the untermenschen children, they put them at the head of the line for extermination so that they would not suffer.

Undercover videos by the pro-life documentary group Live Action reveal that the practice of dehumanizing unborn babies is common. In most cases, the abortionists never utter the words “baby,” “kill,” or “die.” Instead, a “pregnancy” is “terminated” or “fetal demise” is ensured. In violation of state and federal law, as well as human decency, the undercover activists are repeatedly assured that if the baby survives the abortion, the clinic workers will not help it live.

For other abortion clinics, the dehumanization also extends beyond killing the baby in the womb. One abortionist in the Bronx, where a baby is as likely to be aborted as born, tells the undercover filmmaker to “flush it” if she delivers her baby away from the clinic. LeRoy Carhart, known for performing late term abortions, is unusually direct and blunt, telling patients that they will have a dead baby inside them for three days that will be softening up like “meat in a crock pot.” More typical is the Bronx abortionist who says, “We don’t use the word ‘kill.’” Likewise, the Nazis also used a number of euphemisms for their killing, including several that are the same or very similar to terms used by abortionists.

Like the Nazi camps, abortion clinics, Gosnell’s in particular, are assembly lines of death. The grand jury report notes that Gosnell’s clinic was subject to a constant stream of patients, some coming for abortions, others for illegal drugs. Gosnell’s untrained and uncertified staff would promptly sedate the women coming for abortions because Gosnell didn’t like it when women screamed or moaned in pain. The women were also given drugs to induce labor, often in Gosnell’s absence. Because Gosnell often came in late, babies were often born alive; one or two each night according to the testimony, often entering the world into the toilet in Gosnell’s clinic. Gosnell allegedly preferred it when babies were born alive because it made his job easier. An abortion procedure could take up to half an hour. It was much quicker to kill a living baby and just suck out the placenta.

Also like the Nazis, Gosnell and other abortionists profit handsomely from their killings. According to the grand jury report, Gosnell’s take from his clinic was estimated at $1.8 million per year, most of it in cash. Police found $240,000 and a gun hidden in his 12-year-old daughter’s closet when they raided his house.

Abortion is profitable for other clinics as well. The American Center for Law and Justice points out that 51 percent of Planned Parenthood’s income comes from abortions. Planned Parenthood, a for-profit business that also receives taxpayer funds, receives more than $164 million per year from abortions. The sale of body parts from aborted babies for medical and pharmaceutical research is rumored to be a multimillion dollar underground industry (Nazis experimented on their victims as well). In spite of the lucrative nature of the abortion business, as noted earlier on Examiner, abortion clinics are often unsanitary and ill equipped. Infections, complications and even deaths of women resulting from the substandard conditions in abortion clinics are not uncommon.

Nazi death camps and abortion clinics also share common roots in the racist scientific theories of the early 20^th century. Hitler’s ideas were rooted in eugenics, a pseudoscience popularized in California, which held that humanity could be improved by controlling the genetic makeup of society. According to PBS, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was also a proponent of eugenics.

Hitler took eugenics one step further by totally eliminating - killing - those he deemed unfit. From the 1920s until after World War II, the mentally handicapped were sometimes the subject of forced sterilizations due to American eugenics laws. In 1918, a U.S. Army doctor, Paul Popenoe, had suggested executing “defective” people to “keep up the standard of the race” according to George Mason University. Hitler seized these ideas, which had been funded by Americans like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, and began sterilizing German undesirables almost as soon as the Nazis came to power. In 1940, two years before the Final Solution for the Jews was formalized, the Germans began euthanizing – killing – the mentally retarded, the physically handicapped, and the mentally ill. Even today, the possibility of birth defects remains a main rationalization for abortion, a legacy of eugenics.

The Holocaust stands as one of the great tragedies of human history. Not only Jews, but other untermenschen and undesirables such as Slavs, gypsies, political prisoners and others were killed by the Nazis. The BBC estimates that the total number of civilians murdered by the Nazis was about 15 million over the 12 years of the “thousand year Reich’s” existence. Politifact estimates that there have been 50 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.

Perhaps the most positive thing that can be said about the Gosnell trial is that most Americans are shocked by the revelations about the U.S. abortion industry. When people are shocked by Gosnell’s behavior, they are not yet desensitized to the slaughter of innocents among us. When abortionists must cover their deeds with euphemisms, lies and a media blackout there is hope that the American public will become aware and angry enough to act.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, said it best in a statement on the group’s website: “The few inches that separate a child in the womb from a child outside the womb should never determine whether its intentional ‘demise’ is permitted by law or whether a ‘right’ to kill it no longer exists.”

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