Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf is adamantly against the death penalty -- unless you're a baby with Down Syndrome. Turns out, the Democrat, who's refused to sign execution warrants since he was elected, has no problem using lethal force against an entire population of children. Their crime? Not living up to society's ideas of "perfection."
Tom Wolf's hypocrisy is staggering. Like most Democrats, he's decided that sentencing criminals to death is inhumane -- but barbarically killing babies in the womb is just fine. And in the case of certain disabled kids, encouraged. "Physicians and their patients must be able to make choices about medical procedures based on best practices and standards of care," the governor argued when he vetoed a bill that would've stopped parents from aborting their babies over a Down syndrome diagnosis.
Pennsylvania legislators, who have a conservative majority in both chambers, knew that Wolf was no friend of the unborn -- but eliminating children because they're different? That's eugenics -- not health care. "We have a responsibility," state Rep. Kate Klunk (R) said, "to stand up to say that a baby with Down syndrome has a right to life and should not be discriminated against in the womb." The idea that any American would say it's okay to destroy a life because she isn't "up to society's standards" is a scary snapshot of where we are as a country.
This is about more than Down syndrome; it's about what makes a life valuable and worthy of protection. Moving down this utilitarian road of life, where people are only as valuable as they are useful, there are no stop signs, there are no limits. Today, it's children with Down syndrome -- tomorrow, it's seniors with dementia. Once you lose the moral foundation that says people have meaning because they're created in the image of God, anything's possible. Look at Iceland. Close to 100 percent of the country's women are choosing to end these pregnancies, because of pressure from the government and doctors to "eradicate" Down syndrome births.
Jeremy Samek of the Pennsylvania Family Institute warned that this is exactly the trajectory Democrats like Wolf are putting us on. "[Iceland] talk[s] about it being an eradication of Down syndrome as if they've eradicated a disease," Samek said. "But we would never say that we've eradicated homelessness by eradicating homeless people, and I think that's essentially what they're doing here." And of course, Wolf's extremism isn't exactly a surprise. The former Planned Parenthood volunteer is just making sure the abortion group gets its money's worth -- especially after it dropped a record $1.5 million on his reelection.
So far, no one in the 2020 field has been asked about disability-based abortions -- but you can bet they'd be supportive. The modern Democratic Party never met a form of abortion it didn't want to expand (or force you to pay for), including sex-selection abortion, race-based abortion, birth day abortion, pain-capable abortion, late-term abortion, underage abortion, unsanitary abortion, chemical abortion, and now, disability-based abortion. "Is it okay to abort a pregnancy, Fox News's Tucker Carlson wondered, if you thought your child was going to grow up to be short? Or prematurely bald? Is there any abortion under any circumstances that's ever bad? Or even a little bad? Are they all morally neutral -- no matter what the cause or stage of pregnancy?"
Looking at the Democratic Party's enthusiasm, abortion isn't just morally acceptable anymore. It's morally imperative. A social good. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) is so "fervently committed to abortion," Tucker pointed out, that if he's pledged to create "something called the White House Office of Reproductive Freedom." The only point of that office, he argued, "would be to ensure that we have enough abortions in this country." Apparently, Booker thinks that "abortions are a vital strategic resource like oil or uranium."
And he's not alone. Just listen to the responses from Wednesday's presidential debate. On yesterday's "Washington Watch," we played clip after nauseating clip. (Check out the segment here.) With every soundbite it was clear: Democrats are no longer abortion apologists. They're abortion advocates. And anyone who doesn't agree owes it to themselves to listen to these candidates in their own words. It's important to understand just how far the Democratic party has gone -- and honestly contrast it to the GOP and our current president.
"The Democratic party's new defense of abortion on grounds of morality than necessity," NRO's John Craddock argues, "is eerily reminiscent of the transformation in Southern views on slavery between the late 18th and early 19th centuries... Slavery could flourish only so long as blacks were considered outside the moral community of persons. Abortion rejects the natural right to life in the same way."
"Declaring some members of the human species, by virtue of their age or degree of dependency, unworthy of the equal dignity and rights recognized in the proposition that 'all men are Created equal' goes beyond the original sin of the American founding. It goes beyond 'choice' and arguments about necessary evils. Instead, it follows a path trodden by southern slaveholders who rejected even the principle of equality and natural rights. Like the Civil War Democrats who sought to become second founders by rejecting the American commitment to natural rights for all persons, today's Democrats make vice their principle, and demand that all join in the celebration. History doesn't repeat itself, but it certainly does rhyme."
