 Texas Governor, Gregg Abbott |  |
By Michael Lewis, MA
After more than a month of coronavirus shutdowns that have killed thousands, driven unemployment to levels not seen in generations, and sent oil futures into negative territory, the debate over America’s economic recovery has begun.
However, the crisis has devolved into yet another war between the culture of life and the culture of death. While most states have been enforcing social distancing measures, some Democratic governors have used the crisis to issue draconian edicts. To wit, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has halted low-contact construction and landscaping businesses, prohibited the sale of garden seeds, all while declaring elective abortion “life-sustaining.”
Not to be outdone, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, warned of criminal penalties for holding church services, while going out of his way to notify the public that they can still get an elective abortion. Northam’s executive order suspending all elective surgeries on March 25 specifically exempted “the full suite of family planning services.” According to Northam, your knee replacement can wait; your abortion, vasectomy, or IUD implant cannot. Talk about priorities. In a pandemic, forget the First Amendment; only unenumerated rights hidden in the “emanations and penumbras” of the 14th amendment are protected.
As if exempting abortion from lockdown orders wasn’t enough, Governor Northam signed into law the most horrific, pro-abortion law in a generation on Good Friday, and proclaimed, “the Virginia Reproductive Health Protection Act will make women and families safer, and I am proud to sign it into law.” On a day on which the Christian world commemorates the death of Christ, Northam was “proud” to repeal 20 years of common sense pro-life protection laws including: informed consent and ultrasound requirements; parental consent for minors; provision of information about fetal development and abortion alternatives (such as adoption); and health and safety regulations for abortion clinics, including regulations requiring abortion clinics to meet the same building codes as hospitals.
While Northam and his fellow travelers are using a pandemic to expand the slaughter of innocents, other states have halted abortions along with other elective procedures. Like clockwork, Planned Parenthood teamed up with the ACLU to file suit against Arkansas, Ohio and Texas after governors Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Gregg Abbott (R-TX) deemed elective abortions well, elective, and subjected them to the same cessation order as other medical procedures. After a series of reversals by federal courts, the Texas ban on medication abortions was allowed to stand, and it is expected that the Supreme Court will take up the question, after refusing a request to do so a few weeks ago.
If the use of the pandemic to expand abortion wasn’t enough, private charities responding to the crisis have faced criticism from LGBTQ activists. Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian charity that partnered with Mount Sinai hospital in New York to operate a field hospital in Central Park, faced protests and charges of “anti-gay bigotry” while treating COVID-19 patients, simply because Samaritan’s Purse holds a biblical definition of marriage. It is worth noting that Mount Sinai affirmed that Samaritan’s Purse is abiding by the hospital’s non-discrimination policy.
Ironically, while the LGBTQ lobby was protesting Samaritan’s Purse for non-existent discrimination at their New York City field hospital, Disability Rights Pennsylvania was filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights after Pennsylvania’s Department of Health released eugenic guidelines that deprioritized individuals with disabilities for ventilators and other scarce medical resources during COVID-19. OCR recently announced that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health revised the guidelines to comply with federal disability law.
Look around at what is outright celebrated in modern society. God and religion are mocked as all manner of idolatry and perversion is celebrated. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) lit up the Empire State building and the Tappan Zee Bridge last year in celebration of a new law repealing all restrictions on abortion, and recently declared that the number of COVID-19 cases in New York had declined, adding, “God did not do that. Faith did not do that.” As tens of thousands die from COVID-19, the culture of death ensures even more death by dismissing the power and sovereignty of God.
The Bible is full of instances in which God purposefully corrects His children for their waywardness, idolatry, and blatant disobedience. In Africa, locust swarms have been documented in recent days, and every nation is facing a disease of apocryphal proportion. Our time, our society is not immune from the wrath of God. God is merciful yes, but God is also Just, and He will not be mocked. Use this time of pestilence to prepare your soul, to repent, to turn back to our loving Father. “Watch, therefore, for you know not the hour nor the day when the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 25:13).
After more than a month of coronavirus shutdowns that have killed thousands, driven unemployment to levels not seen in generations, and sent oil futures into negative territory, the debate over America’s economic recovery has begun.
However, the crisis has devolved into yet another war between the culture of life and the culture of death. While most states have been enforcing social distancing measures, some Democratic governors have used the crisis to issue draconian edicts. To wit, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has halted low-contact construction and landscaping businesses, prohibited the sale of garden seeds, all while declaring elective abortion “life-sustaining.”
Not to be outdone, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, warned of criminal penalties for holding church services, while going out of his way to notify the public that they can still get an elective abortion. Northam’s executive order suspending all elective surgeries on March 25 specifically exempted “the full suite of family planning services.” According to Northam, your knee replacement can wait; your abortion, vasectomy, or IUD implant cannot. Talk about priorities. In a pandemic, forget the First Amendment; only unenumerated rights hidden in the “emanations and penumbras” of the 14th amendment are protected.
As if exempting abortion from lockdown orders wasn’t enough, Governor Northam signed into law the most horrific, pro-abortion law in a generation on Good Friday, and proclaimed, “the Virginia Reproductive Health Protection Act will make women and families safer, and I am proud to sign it into law.” On a day on which the Christian world commemorates the death of Christ, Northam was “proud” to repeal 20 years of common sense pro-life protection laws including: informed consent and ultrasound requirements; parental consent for minors; provision of information about fetal development and abortion alternatives (such as adoption); and health and safety regulations for abortion clinics, including regulations requiring abortion clinics to meet the same building codes as hospitals.
While Northam and his fellow travelers are using a pandemic to expand the slaughter of innocents, other states have halted abortions along with other elective procedures. Like clockwork, Planned Parenthood teamed up with the ACLU to file suit against Arkansas, Ohio and Texas after governors Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Gregg Abbott (R-TX) deemed elective abortions well, elective, and subjected them to the same cessation order as other medical procedures. After a series of reversals by federal courts, the Texas ban on medication abortions was allowed to stand, and it is expected that the Supreme Court will take up the question, after refusing a request to do so a few weeks ago.
If the use of the pandemic to expand abortion wasn’t enough, private charities responding to the crisis have faced criticism from LGBTQ activists. Samaritan’s Purse, a Christian charity that partnered with Mount Sinai hospital in New York to operate a field hospital in Central Park, faced protests and charges of “anti-gay bigotry” while treating COVID-19 patients, simply because Samaritan’s Purse holds a biblical definition of marriage. It is worth noting that Mount Sinai affirmed that Samaritan’s Purse is abiding by the hospital’s non-discrimination policy.
Ironically, while the LGBTQ lobby was protesting Samaritan’s Purse for non-existent discrimination at their New York City field hospital, Disability Rights Pennsylvania was filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights after Pennsylvania’s Department of Health released eugenic guidelines that deprioritized individuals with disabilities for ventilators and other scarce medical resources during COVID-19. OCR recently announced that Pennsylvania’s Department of Health revised the guidelines to comply with federal disability law.
Look around at what is outright celebrated in modern society. God and religion are mocked as all manner of idolatry and perversion is celebrated. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) lit up the Empire State building and the Tappan Zee Bridge last year in celebration of a new law repealing all restrictions on abortion, and recently declared that the number of COVID-19 cases in New York had declined, adding, “God did not do that. Faith did not do that.” As tens of thousands die from COVID-19, the culture of death ensures even more death by dismissing the power and sovereignty of God.
The Bible is full of instances in which God purposefully corrects His children for their waywardness, idolatry, and blatant disobedience. In Africa, locust swarms have been documented in recent days, and every nation is facing a disease of apocryphal proportion. Our time, our society is not immune from the wrath of God. God is merciful yes, but God is also Just, and He will not be mocked. Use this time of pestilence to prepare your soul, to repent, to turn back to our loving Father. “Watch, therefore, for you know not the hour nor the day when the Son of Man will come” (Matthew 25:13).
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Michael Lewis has a master's in political theory and lives in Virginia with his wife and three children. He is a member of the Hosea Initiative Advisory Board
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