Just when I think the Left has finally hit bottom in American politics, Maryland’s Democratic majority in the state legislature is moving to legalize the murder-by-neglect of newborn infants as much as 28 days after their birth.
Read that again: The murder-by-neglect of newborn infants up to 28 days after their delivery into our world from their mother’s womb.
I can hardly believe it even as I write these words. Surely this cannot happen, could never happen, in America. But it is, in Maryland Senate Bill 669, the chief sponsor of which is state senator Will Smith.
Under Senate Bill 669, no person can be investigated or charged for “experiencing a miscarriage, perinatal death related to failure to act, or stillbirth.” The perinatal period consists of “the period shortly before and after birth, from the 20th to 29th week of gestation to one to four weeks after birth.”
In other words, it’s anywhere up to four weeks after the birth of the child you and your sexual partner conceived, and you decide you really don’t want the child, hey, no problem, just don’t feed it, don’t get medical care, don’t do a thing. Eventually, the child will die.
If this provision becomes law — and it almost certainly will be passed by the Maryland legislature’s Democratic majority over the veto of Republican Gov. Larry Hogan — every citizen of this state will become, willingly or unwillingly, an accessory to legalized infant genocide.
You think I exaggerate? As World Magazine‘s Erin Hawley explains:
“Understand what this means. The plain text of the bill legalizes the conscious decision to let a child die. Spontaneous abortions after 22 weeks are rare and not easily seen as ‘related to a failure to act.’ Thus, the bill contemplates the legalization of intentional infant death through neglect.
“And the bill goes so far as to preclude any investigations into perinatal infant death and to give a person the right to sue for civil damages if investigated for causing a perinatal death through neglect.”
Maryland, where I live, is one of the nation’s bluest states, and the Republican Party there is all but impotent. As they are elsewhere across the nation, Maryland Democrats are panicking over the prospect that the U.S. Supreme Court may reconsider Roe v. Wade and return the question of abortion to the states.
In their panic, Democrats are moving to enshrine abortion as deeply in the laws of as many states as possible. And in those states like Maryland where Republicans can mount no more than token opposition, the Democrats quickly show themselves to be abortion extremists.
The result is a restoration of the brutality that was commonplace in the Roman Empire and elsewhere in the ancient world. Under Roman law, the father had the right to kill his children, for any reason or no reason. Unwanted children could be thrown off a cliff, left in bitter snow and ice to freeze to death, abandoned in the wilderness, whatever.
Related: As We Await a Ruling on Dobbs, the Pro-Life Movement Has Plenty to Do
Citing O.M. Bakke’s When Children Became People, Hawley reminds readers of a hugely significant historical fact:
“Christianity revolutionized Roman culture and taught the intrinsic value of each child. Christians eventually made it unthinkable for society to abandon and exploit its most vulnerable members. Christianity’s love and respect for children go back to Christ Himself.
“When the disciples tried to drive children away from a gathering, Jesus let them sit at His feet. He upended Roman culture by explaining that children — those the world regarded as valueless — were the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And He gave us a powerful incentive to care for the youngest members of our society, saying, ‘Whoever welcomes [a child] in my name, welcomes me.’”
It’s not far-fetched to think something akin to what is now being pushed by the Left in Maryland and elsewhere will become a priority of the most extreme elements of the national Democratic Party, especially in the House of Representatives. Can you spell T-H-E S-Q-U-A-D?
In the final analysis, the answer to those who would legalize infant genocide is the same today as it was 2,000 years ago. Have you noticed that, just as the early Christians thought Jesus would soon return, there is a quickening in some quarters of the sense among many that we are in the “Last Days”?
That’s why, as much as I love journalism, this is my ultimate priority:
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