The party of life
Yesterday, the state of Missouri—after a failed intervention to the Supreme Court, in which the six right-wing justices refused to issue a stay—executed Marcellus Williams for the 1998 murder of Lisha Gayle, even though her family wanted his life spared.
Missouri has one of the strictest "pro-life", anti-abortion laws in the country. Republican legislators bray about the "sanctity of life". Of course, this extends only to fetuses. Once you're born? Well, this study says something different.
Missouri ranks in the bottom third of all states for children’s health, according to a recent report using data from 2021.
The annual Kids Count Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, released this month, evaluates states on four metrics of child well-being. Those are: health, economic well-being, education and family & community.
...
Only 10 other states had the same or worse rates of child and teen deaths as Missouri, one of the factors included in the health measure.
The rate of child and teen deaths was 39 per 100,000 in Missouri in 2021 — up from 32 per 100,000 just two years earlier. The state’s trend mirrored the national trend, which increased from 25 deaths per 100,000 to 30 deaths per 100,000 from 2019 to 2021
This is the essence of the "pro-life" movement:
"Life" is an abstraction to it. It's not real. It's like "illegals" invading the southern border, or women in blue states engaging in infanticide. "Life" is a cudgel with which to win and maintain political power, in order to enact other priorities. The same political party which wants to ban abortion nationwide will do nothing to provide mothers and family with the assistance and programs they need. This party, quite frankly, wants "life" in order to have a lumpen-proletariat class, uneducated and at its mercy, in order to work the onerous jobs which someone will have to work once they get their desired dream of deporting all undocumented migrants, and slashing legal immigration to zero. And yes, this scheme will affect the white majority which regularly votes for this party.
The Party of Life executes innocent men. The Party of Life looks on disinterestedly as gun massacres occur daily in this country. The Party of Life wants to place people at the mercy of insurance companies which will deny life-saving healthcare. The Party of Life is fine with driving LGBTQ youth to suicide if they don't "conform".
One would be hard-pressed to ascertain just what it is about "life" that this party holds sacred? Because it's quite apparent that the fetus has more rights, in their eyes, than it does when it becomes a living child. It certainly has more rights than its mother.
It's quite easy for the Party of Life to deify the fetus. The fetus can't speak. The fetus doesn't demand social services. The fetus doesn't cry out for education. The fetus doesn't vote against them. The fetus is a perfect tabula rasa upon which the Party of Life can write its version of virtue. The fetus is the ultimate form of virtue signalling. It is mute, and cannot take part in the political discourse, one way or another.
But once the fetus is born, it becomes another disposable person, subject to a dystopian view of the world. It must compete, it must struggle, and it must not ask for anything. The fetus has all the rights; the person has no rights which can't be taken away.
The Party of Life is motivated by spite, by a desire to dominate those around it. And that includes the people who vote for it. They are sociopaths, concerned only with power, not service.
Another innocent life was taken by the Party of Life yesterday. And it will sleep soundly never the less.
Post script
I saw this tweet after I finished writing.
I, too, grew up Catholic. I no longer practice. At its best, the Church honors human life from conception to death. But, to quote the morose Dane, 'tis a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.
Thomas
— Janet Jackson's Soon To Be Fired Manager (@GullahRehabbed) September 24, 2024
Roberts
Alito
Gorsuch
Kavanaugh
Barrett
Were all raised in the Catholic faith I still practice.
All, except Gorsuch, are still members of the Church.
They are stains on the lineage of our faith and a threat to the future of mankind.
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