By Matt Rooney
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Consider this, Save Jerseyans: at the moment, “elective medical procedures” are currently illegal in the state of New Jersey. No one is going to die for having to forgo that next botox treatment. What about a organ transplant? Abortions are nevertheless considered 100% essential. Such is the Democrat Party’s devotion to a ghoulish definition of human life that’s also incredibly arbitrary…
“If it’s not wanted? At least by someone who we need voting for us? It’s not life. Not really.”
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We have a ‘right to die’ law now, too, one which puts medically and mentally fragile residents at risk of being offed by their relatives. No, saving lives was never high on the Democrats’ priority list.
Curiously, a global pandemic has muddied the waters at least superficially.
The new Democrat mantra is all over your television and news feed:
“Do you wany to make money? Or save lives?“
You and I know that (1) having a functioning economy and (2) responsibly tackling this virus need not be mutually exclusive goals. Democrats disagree, of course, and many a weak-kneed Republican have accepted their premise, but that’s a discussion for another post.
Here’s the question at hand:
Should Democrats be allowed to continue getting away with this notion that the value of life is contingent upon the burden it places on other human lives?
We’ve been repeatedly lectured for decades that an 18-year-old high school senior has an absolute right to seek an abortion PRIMARILY because she has a right to control her own destiny. Forcing a young woman to birth a baby she conceived but doesn’t want would – to borrow a classic Barack Obama formulation – “punish” her.
The “patriarchy” forced women to have babies to control them: socially, professionally, economically, politically, etc. and so on. That’s what every abortion discussion I’ve EVER had boils down to once you get past the emanating penumbras and pseudoscience.
There’s plenty of punishment going around these days for both genders (and plenty of made up ones, too). Millions of Americans are newly unemployed thanks to COVID-19 lockdown orders including a million in our own state of New Jersey. Thousands of businesses are destroyed or on life support. Many of our shuttered storefronts will never open their doors again. Suicide hotlines are ominously much busier than they were several weeks ago. High school seniors won’t get to go to prom. Families are missing births, deaths, milestone celebrations and other key life events doomed to be experienced alone. Everyone’s struggle is different, to be sure, but all of the aforementioned human beings are, in a manner of speaking, being “punished” to preserve lives which are largely not their own.
Anyone with the gall to suggest social-distancing orders have gone a bit too far is promptly scolded for selfishness.
Unlike the vast majority of abortion-seekers? They didn’t make a choice that necessitated a difficult decision.
The present U.S. coronavirus death toll projecton is 100,000+, a number largely comprised of the elderly and nursing home residents. Compare that grim tally to the 862,000 American abortions in 2017.
I hope you can appreciate the irony underlying all of this.
What exactly is the NEW Democrat position on when life should be preserved? And when it’s too burdensome to protect?
When it makes Donald Trump look bad? I guess?
The Left will happily support the summary execution of 862,000 babies in the name of purportedly permitting young women to continue their careers/college courses/general lives unobstructed and unimpeded, but they’ll also voluntarily torpedo our entire economy – and destroy countless futures – to save 100,000 older Americans?
How many lives justifies preventing a Great Depression?
How many jobs/careers/businesses justifies lives saved?
No mask… my body, my choice?
Don’t worry if you’re a bit confused by it all. I am, too. I don’t even think most Democrats are trying to make sense of the contradictions. They’re just going with it at the moment. They’re on autopilot.
Before you start hyperventilating, here’s your reminder that this post isn’t intended as a direct comparison between abortion and coronavirus. It also isn’t an endorsement of any one particular “reopening” strategy. If you focus on either of those points then you’re missing the far larger one. Again, I don’t accept the premise that the choice between having an economy and keeping people alive is a zero sum again. I categorically reject it.
This post IS an invitation to consider how COVID-19 is revealing yet another glaring logical incongruity at the center of the Democrat Party’s worldview. Today’s Democrats aren’t defined by what they’re for so much as who/what they’re against. Whether we’re talking about the “sanctity of life” or “privacy rights” or sexual assault allegations, everything… depends. Upon what? Upon the political realities and imperatives of the moment.
That’s a distressingly problematic rubric for evaluating life: when a human being’s life and a human’s being property are 100% reliant upon the circumstances of the day? And the shifting tolerances of others? Hyper-partisan political posturing? Things can get weird, ugly, and yes, very scary and very quickly. You can justify anything and impose a whole lot more in the name of the “common good.” Whether it’s good for you or anyone else is… well, you get the picture. Look out your window. You can see what’s happening out there.
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Save Jersey’s Founder and Blogger-in-Chief, MATT ROONEY is a nationally-noted and respected New Jersey political commentator. When he’s not on-line, radio or television advocating for conservative reform and challenging N.J. power-brokers, Matt is a practicing attorney at the law firm of DeMichele & DeMichele in Haddon Heights (Camden County).
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