Congresswomen without scruples

Richard A. Sokerka

What a contrast in emotions!

In President Trump’s State of the Union address last week, he honored the important role women play in society, pointing to the fact that there are more women serving in Congress now than at any time in the nation’s history.

Seated all together in the chamber, clad as one body in all white suits, were women from the Democratic party. No sooner had the President’s words of praise for women left his lips than these congresswomen leapt to their feet, applauding his words loudly, jumping up and down and giving each other high fives, chanting “USA, USA.”

A few minutes later, the President uttered these words: “There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments from birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world.

“To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.

“Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.”

As most of those in the chamber rose to their feet with hearty applause, the women in white, who had been high fiving each other moments earlier, sat in stony silence with horrified looks on their faces, many shaking their heads “no” to the President’s call to protect the voiceless in the womb.

Where are their moral scruples? Did they have to check them at the door when they joined their party of choice?

Most of these congresswomen are mothers, some grandmothers. How can they blindly toe their party’s line that a women’s right to “health care” (a.k.a: abortion) trumps any law to protect babies in utero? To that point, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a “Catholic,” brought the president of Planned Parenthood as her special guest to the State of the Union. Did she not realize that Planned Parenthood performed more than 332,000 abortions last year?

She and every single one of the white-clad congresswomen need to listen to the words of Pope Francis, who in speaking about the unborn last week said, “They are children of the entire community, and their being killed in large numbers with the backing of the state constitutes a grave problem that undermines the foundations of the building up of justice, compromising the correct solution for every other human and social problem.”

Then the Holy Father took the opportunity to offer “An appeal to all politicians, regardless of faith belief, to treat the defense of the lives of those who are about to be born and enter into society as the cornerstone of the common good.”

The sickening silence of these congresswomen to the President’s appeal to protect life in the womb, begs the question: Do they not understand that the civil rights of those in the womb are, as former Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey once remarked, not about “right versus left, but right versus wrong”?

At this stage in their political careers, these congresswomen are most certainly not committed to the promise made in the Declaration of Independence “to protect life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” They need to recognize that without life, there is no liberty. Without liberty, there is no freedom for the individual pursuit of happiness.

Only by defending life at all stages is this true.