Missouri politicians fail again on abortion issue
It has been said of America’s two political parties that one is evil and the other is stupid.
At the risk of sounding angry (which I am not), I have to say it is an apt description for the two parties composing the Missouri General Assembly after they first gutted, then tossed a common sense pro-life bill aside like a dead carcass.
The anti-life tyrants who control the state’s Democrat Party got their way. Babies will continue to be killed at taxpayer-funded Planned Parenthood death chambers in Columbia and St. Louis. Wonder how a fetus, an inhuman term frequently used in pro-abortion rhetoric, would vote if given the chance? The thought must terrify most Democrats. The bill would not have totally stopped the barbaric practice, but it would have saved some women from years of depression and despair.
Sen. Joan Bray, the abortion-supporting St. Louis Democrat who, thankfully, will be term limited out of office next year, will best be remembered for the hissy fit she threw on the Senate floor on the eve of the bill’s ill-fated vote, implying the pro-life lawmakers were “pro-life“ with their wives and “pro-choice” with their girlfriends. Said Bray: “I am sick of the disrespect for women who come to the Capitol defending a woman’s right to choose an abortion. I am sick that they’re being treated dismissively and rudely. I’m sick of the ethic around here that men are pro-life for their wives and pro-choice for their girlfriends.”
Bray’s diatribe offended a good many General Assembly members who are faithful spouses raising godly families, including a significant number of Missouri Southern Baptists. Some senators walked out on her. While Bray was ranting, another Senate Democrat, Jolie Justus, who just recently returned from Iowa after “marrying” her lesbian lover, called the bill nothing more than a beefed-up version of the state’s informed consent law passed in 2003. This raised fears – strangely at the last minute – that the new bill would “theoretically” be challenged in court, putting the 2003 law in peril or at least keeping both laws from being enforced while being tied-up for years in litigation.
There is another troubling aspect to this tragedy that Missourians ought to notice. Once again the legislative branch deferred its lawmaking responsibilities to the judicial branch – a dangerous move because it undermines the separation of powers and “checks and balances” needed for our constitutional government to function properly. The legislative branch is supposed to make the laws with the judicial branch enforcing them. This bill failed to pass because someone “theorized” that “potentially” an activist, unelected, imperial judiciary might strike down the new law as well as the one passed in 2003.
The votes were there to pass the bill that would have made it a crime for anyone to coerce a woman into having an abortion. The bill would have expanded the information to be provided and require it to be presented face-to-face, instead of over the phone. It would have also required health care providers to offer women a chance to see an ultrasound of the baby and to hear the baby’s heartbeat 24 hours before an abortion.
The Republican Party, who specializes in pro-life lip service, folded like a cheap lawn chair. They will come calling for the votes of Missouri Christians next year, swearing they are pro-life, but they may find that for too many their actions produce just the opposite. The Republican leadership failed despite having strong majorities in both the Senate and House. Ironically the bill’s death came on a day when a new national poll shows a majority of Americans are pro-life. Now you know what I mean by stupid.
Am I mad? No. Politics as usual. I am disappointed that America cannot seem to get this issue right. We are killing our children, and Christians are complicit because we elect such people to public office and we allow our tax dollars to be spent for such ungodly, barbaric things like abortion. It was both sad and encouraging to see pro-life demonstrators exhibiting the courage to face arrest in order to peaceably protest the honoring of our pro-abortionist president, who was shamefully given an honorary doctorate degree by the Catholic Church-supported University of Notre Dame at that school’s commencement over the weekend. Abortion is evil and it will take persistence and courage to defeat it.
I realize that evil will infect the world until King Jesus returns to eliminate it for all eternity. In the meantime, Christians must obey Him by being “salt and light” to a dark and dying world. I do not hate abortionists or those who support them. I hate abortions. Abortion is sinful humans elevating their pride and desires over what a holy God says is best.
Those in politics like Joan Bray want Christians to shut up and stay out of the public policy arena. We must not do that. We must restrain evil wherever it rears its ugly head. Think of it this way: What kind of world would we have if there were no longer any Christians around? That is essentially what we will have if Christians do not engage on public policy matters. The pagans will run it and what type of government do you think that will produce? Perhaps some day, if Christians continue to protest like they once did against slavery, our public officials will come to see this evil for what it is and eliminate it.
So where do we go from here? We remain faithful to God by making His love known, thus bringing honor and glory to Him. We go back to the General Assembly and we press forward until abortion is no more or our great King Jesus returns in power and glory to wipe it off the face of the Earth.
