Gosnell's little shop of horrors was a terrible place to be killed. And what a dreadful way to go, dying in the act of having your own offspring killed. By using the anniversary date of Gosnell's conviction, the connection to poor outcomes for women and children in abortion has been deliberately drawn by the House.
Of course, at some point, the allegations will be thrown about that the House vote simply served political purposes. In other words, those accusing the House Leadership of engaging in political theater will be accusing the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader of an unseemly and cynical act. In that view, Boehner & Co. held the vote simply as preparation for 2016 Congressional elections. For the cynics, the vote simply presented an the opportunity to spear those Representatives – predictably Democrats – that would vote against even such a late term abortion restriction offered on such a humanitarian ground as that of the capacity of the fetus to feel the pain of her own demise.
And perhaps there are such machinations afoot; perhaps Republicans in the House are flushing out those elected Representatives so firmly committed to legalized abortion that no restriction – not as to the method of abortion, not as to the lateness of term in pregnancy at which the restriction would take effect – none whatever can be permissibly imposed on the right.
The leadership of the Democratic Party does nothing to avoid the perception that, for Democrats, there's no such thing as a permissible restriction on abortion. Just recently, Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, had the opportunity to identify a point in pregnancy, late in pregnancy, or a size of fetus, such as one weighing 7 pounds, at which point Democrats would support legislative restrictions on abortion. Wasserman Schultz, a good storm trooper for the abortion industry, responded:
"I can't tell you a specific date and time past which we on all – in all cases are certain that that choice shouldn't be made because that decision is very unique and individual to the woman, and should be in consultation with her conscience and her god and her doctor, that is a decision left to her."Given the role played by the President, as leader of his party, in selecting the Chair of the Democratic National Committee, either the President shares Wasserman Schultz's extremism on abortion, believing that no restrictions may be permissibly imposed on abortion, or the President should take Ms. Wasserman Schultz to the woodshed for failing, in such an evident and public way, to state a defensible and articulate point in time, acceptable to Americans, when abortions can permissibly be proscribed.
We all know, or should know, however, that Wasserman Schultz will not be taken to the woodshed by Obama. Obama is the best friend the abortion industry has in American government. Going back to his time in the Illinois Senate, when he voted "present" on a panoply of initiatives, proposals, and ideas in the form of bills and resolutions, one instance in which the future President would be reliably voting his heart was on consideration of abortion-related legislation.
His forte, it turns out, was to resist Illinois bills that would impose on doctors a duty to provide care to children born alive after an abortion. Notice that these were not bills that would have prohibited abortion. Nor were these bills that would have required abortion businesses to be subject to the same health and safety standards as other medical clinics. No, these were just rules that would, if adopted, tell the Dr. Gosnells of Illinois that if, following an abortion, a child was born alive, the doctor would be obliged to provide medical care to preserve the child's life. Not once, not twice, but three times, Obama took the lonely vigil stand against the imposition of such a duty by law.
