Seasons of Grace
In 1990, cultural analyst George Barna penned a book titled The Frog in the Kettle. It was a parable about churches and how they have capitulated to the culture; but the title metaphor is about how to boil a frog. If you drop a live frog into a kettle of boiling water, Barna explains, he’ll quickly hop out. Instead, you drop him into a pot of cold water, where he’ll be perfectly comfortable. When you light a fire under the pot, the water will gradually warm; and the little frog will enjoy the balmy soak, swimming around like he’s in a frog Jacuzzi. By the time the water’s boiling, it’s too late—the frog’s strength will have been sapped, leaving him powerless to escape.
And that’s how you boil a frog.
You can’t help but notice how traditional American values, like the hapless frog, have been gradually weakened by insidious relativism. Behaviors (such as premarital sex, homosexual couplings, genetic engineering, abortion) which were commonly believed to be immoral just a generation ago have been gradually accepted in contemporary society, then celebrated, and finally, have become commonplace.
The “boiling point” in the abortion dialogue, the practice that has even abortion advocates catching their breath, has become what leftist social scientists have dubbed “after-birth abortion”—the practice of killing newborn children. Philosophers Alberto Giubilini, with Monash University in Melbourne, and Francesca Minerva at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne, writing in the Journal of Medical Ethics, proposed:
[W]hen circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible. … [W]e propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide,’ to emphasize that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus … rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk.
If that sounds like the stuff of nightmares, don’t imagine that these researchers are the only two to embrace the concept of newborn-killing for convenience. Forty years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, abortion advocates are desensitized to the pain of a child in the womb, the injustice of killing a defenseless human being, the “rights” of the child.
And now this:
Alisa LaPolt Snow, a lobbyist for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified at a committee hearing on Wednesday, March 27, regarding the Florida House of Representatives’ HB 759, the “Infants Born Alive” bill.
You may already have seen the video clip, which has been trending on the Internet since its release. On the clip, Florida State Senator Jim Boyd queries Snow about Planned Parenthood’s objection to the bill. “So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question,” said Rep. Boyd, “because I’m almost in disbelief. If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”
Snow answers unequivocally: “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.”
Wait, wait—What about current laws which outlaw infanticide?
State Representative Daniel Davis seemed to be thinking about that, as he asked Snow: “What happens in a situation where a baby is alive, breathing on a table, moving? What do your physicians do at that point for that child that’s struggling for life?”
Lobbyist Snow, seeming a little less confident than she had at first, responded, “I do not have that information. I am not a physician, I am not an abortion provider. So I do not have that information.”
Representative Jose Oliva needed clarification. “You stated,” he began, “that a baby born alive on a table as a result of a botched abortion—that that decision should be left to the doctor and the family. Is that what you’re saying?”
“That decision,” Snow repeated, “should be between the patient and the health care provider.”
And here, Representative Oliva delivers what I think is the best line in the hearing. He says, “I think at that point, the ‘patient’ would be the child struggling on the table. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Watch the clip to see for yourself. At under six minutes, it’s riveting evidence that the culture of death has permeated society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uax-FrhOioY&feature=youtu.be
There’s one other point that lobbyist Alisa LaPolt Snow wants to make in this hearing. She explains to the committee that Planned Parenthood’s concerns with HB 759 is with the “surrender” and “transport to a hospital” wording in the bill. “What about those situations…where it’s in a rural healthcare setting where the hospital is 45 minutes to an hour away? There are just some logistical issues that we’ve got concerns about.”
One of the representatives asks her, “What objection can you possibly have to obligate a doctor to transport a child alive to a hospital?” But Snow is unshaken in her support for her client, Planned Parenthood.
Geez, I’d hate to be a lobbyist, beholden—not to Truth—but to a client, regardless of said client’s lack of moral compass.
By the way, Florida parents, I thought I’d point out just a few of the other clients with whom Ms. Snow—an advocate for child-killing—has contracted. Besides encouraging death to newborns whose parents don’t want them, Snow is, according to government census reports, a lobbyist for the following supposedly pro-child, pro-family organizations:
- Brightstart Pediatrics
- Caring Hearts
- Children’s Care Campus, Inc.
- Children’s Hospital Extended Care Center
- Cradling Hands PPEC Care
- Fletcher’s Tender Care
- Florida Nurses Association
- Pediatria HealthCare for Kids
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