Not everyone is into political issues, or keeps up with them, and my husband has a limited attention span for news articles on issues that have promised “nothing new” for the last few decades. For that reason, and although he is strongly pro-life, articles touching on the issue rarely get his attention: there’s a lot of yelling on all sides, but few if any saying anything new.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is helping to change that, by saying something new, extreme, and rather shocking, and by trying to codify his new words into law. Deacon Greg Kandra sums it up in a particularly good homily:
. . .In New York City today, 40% of all pregnancies, nearly half, end in abortion.
Among minorities, it’s as high as 60%. In some neighborhoods, it’s 67%. And that’s just the beginning. To some, it seems, that’s not enough.
In Albany two weeks ago, the governor of this state proposed an abortion bill that threatens to make New York the bloodiest state in the union.
It would permit unlimited late term abortion on demand – right up to the ninth month.
It would allow people who are not doctors to perform abortions.
It would declare that the “state shall not discriminate” against the right to abortion, a declaration that could threaten the very existence of Catholic hospitals. Long Island alone is home to six hospitals that could be crippled by having Medicare funds withheld if they refuse to comply.
If enacted into law, this bill would declare that abortion is a fundamental right that cannot be denied. No parental notification for minors, no limits on taxpayer funding of abortion, no limits on late-term abortions.
As I was reading this to my husband, he put his own newspaper down and listened, really listened. At this point, he stopped me, asking, “this is so extreme, so unreasonable; why is Cuomo doing this?”
I pointed out that even if Cuomo doesn’t get all of what he wants, by “settling” for even half of it, he has moved the line of scrimmage further along the interests of the pro-abortion lobby, and “he wants to be president. He is pandering to Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List because there is gold in them thar purses.”
My husband was appalled to ponder it: “a lot more than 30 pieces of silver,” he said, and it’s not going to get him to heaven.”
“Yeah, well, he’s not seeking heaven, just now,” I shrugged. “He’s seeking the White House, and power.”
Still fired up, my husband argued that Cuomo’s positions were so extreme, they should be repellent to the voters. “Who wants a president willing to kill full-term babies, or to force hospitals to act against their creed and their conscience? No one would elect a president like that!”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that America already has. Twice. And that he’s about to put his hand on not one but two bibles, swearing by God to uphold the constitution, even as his Health and Human Services Department assaults religious conscience and the free exercise of religion, in America.
What are we to do? Well, let’s take Deacon Greg’s advice and start by reading Cuomo’s whole bill, and then sign up to participate in the 9 Days of Prayer being promulgated — starting TODAY — by the USCCB.
Be subversive: Sign up! It’s just prayer. It costs you nothing; it requires no travel of you, and it is the most uncontrollably insurrectionist act you can perpetrate against a mindset that is — when you think about it — as reprehensible as a slave-trader’s: A slave trader says, “give me money, I will give you a human being to exploit, for whatever reason you want.”
A pro-abortion politician says “give me money and votes; I will let you kill as many human beings as you choose to, for whatever reason you want.”