By CHRISTOPHER MANION
At this writing, Ralph Northam still serves as the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. But his days might well be numbered, not because his own party considers him a “racist,” but because he had the candor to admit, on a popular radio talk show, that he supports infanticide.
The issue arose when Kathy Tran, a member of Virginia’s House of Delegates from northern Virginia, proposed legislation that allowed abortion until the moment of birth. On the House floor, Todd Gilbert, the Republican House majority leader, asked her if a woman about to give birth could ask the doctor to abort her child
“Where it’s obvious that a woman is about to give birth. She has physical signs that she is about to give birth. Would that still be a point at which she could request an abortion if she was so-certified — she’s dilating,” he said.
Tran responded: “Mr. Chairman, that would be . . . a decision that the doctor, the physician, and the woman would make at that point.”
Gilbert: “I understand that. I’m asking if your bill allows that.”
Tran: “My bill would allow that, yes.”
Major media shied away from this bombshell in the same way they’d ignored New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had just celebrated his signature on similar legislation the week before. Nonetheless, here in Virginia, Tran’s legislation caused a firestorm.
And two days later, Northam walked right into it. A pediatrician by training, the governor calmly upped the ante on WTOP radio: The bill allows infanticide.
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” he said.
In the uproar that followed, the left did the usual: “Divisive Republicans try to attack Northam on women’s rights” catches the tone of most major news media coverage, if there was any at all. But Democrats realized that one of their own had endorsed infanticide, and something had to be done.
Their opportunity arose just two days later, when a conservative website published a picture that had appeared in Northam’s medical school yearbook in the 1980s. The page dedicated to Northam depicts him alongside an unnamed classmate. One of them was dressed in blackface, the other in the regalia of a Ku Klux Klansman. The page did not say which was which.
The night the page went viral, Northam appeared in a news conference and apologized — only to appear again on the following afternoon to deny that he was in the picture at all.
Virginia’s Bishops Weigh
In On Pressing Issues
Within days, Virginia’s two bishops made statements condemning the Tran legislation. Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington was “distraught,” adding that the Tran legislation “reflects a new level of deep-rooted animus against the inherent goodness of every child.” Addressing the comments of Tran and Northam, Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond said both were “equally disheartening and reprehensible.”
Both bishops have been flooded with requests to discipline prominent 100 percent pro-abortion politicians in their dioceses. Cong. Gerry Connolly, my old Senate staff colleague and a former Maryknoll seminarian, resides in the Arlington Diocese, and Hillary Clinton’s 100 percent pro-abortion Catholic running mate Tim Kaine resides in the Richmond Diocese.
We can find no record of either politician ever being publicly criticized by his bishop, although Bishop Burbidge did issue a statement saying that “in Gov. Northam’s medical school yearbook, we see another offense against the dignity of human life — the sin of racism.”
Virginia’s shepherds are keeping their eye on other important issues as well. On January 17, they proudly announced that they had just signed the U.S. Catholic Climate Declaration, which advocates the Paris Accords and higher taxes to pursue “climate goals to reduce emissions worldwide and avoid the most dangerous effects of climate change.”
Catholics For
Infanticide, Unite!
On February 4, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) endorsed a more important piece of legislation. Sponsored by Sen. Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), the bill simply protects the lives of babies who survive abortion. McConnell insisted “that all baby girls and boys who are born alive — all of them — have their right to life respected and receive the medical care they need.”
Sen. Sasse had strongly criticized Northam, referring to him as a “creep” and suggested Northam step down or be recalled. His legislation, as described by McConnell, “builds on the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 — which indeed did pass this body by unanimous consent…how could this question be any clearer?”
McConnell rubbed it in: “Frankly, it is harrowing that this legislation is necessary. It was even more disturbing when, last week, a Democrat governor was unable to clearly and simply state that these newborn babies have human rights that must be respected.”
In introducing his bill, Sasse told the Senate that “in this country, all of us are created equal. If that equality means anything, surely it means that infanticide is wrong. Frankly, this shouldn’t be hard.”
But it was too hard for pro-abortion Catholic Patty Murray, who blocked a vote on the measure. A member of the Senate’s Democrat leadership, Murray lives in the Archdiocese of Seattle. Noting that Spokane Bishop Thomas Daly had barred pro-abortion politicians from Communion in his eastern Washington diocese, The Wanderer asked Archbishop J. Peter Sartain if he had done the same for Seattle. Archbishop Sartain’s press office did not answer by press time.
Democrats: Northam
Must Go — Or Else!
Virginian Republicans are divided, but Democrats are not. And both parties are motivated not by Northam’s racism, but by his calm, blatant advocacy of infanticide. Republicans have taken to calling Northam “Governor Gosnell,” invoking the name of the abortionist mass murderer imprisoned for life in Pennsylvania because he waited until some babies were alive to kill them. The Democrats are now the “Party of Death,” they insist. Some in the GOP want Northam to hang around, weakened and disgraced and ineffective, a poster boy for Democrat infanticide; others, aghast at his homicidal “bedside manner” as a pediatrician, insist that his time is up.
And Democrats? Don’t expect pro-aborts to care about babies. They don’t. But they’re terrified that Northam and Tran have torn back the veil on just how gruesome abortion is. Their demands that Northam resign are designed to scourge him publicly for his racism; his murderous mien must not be mentioned. After all, it’s the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are racists, right?
In fact, that was a major theme in Gov. Northam’s 2017 campaign against Republican “racist” Ed Gillespie. (Curiously, GOP officials tell The Wanderer that Gillespie’s campaign actually had the Northam blackface-KKK pictures but chose not to use them, even after those attacks. “Typical establishment wimp,” one sneered.)
Democrats want the “racist” Northam to resign, not the “baby-killer” Northam. They’re desperate. Infanticide can’t become an issue, anywhere. For them the yearbook pictures are a gift of the gods to help them get rid of him. They need to keep “on message” — only “Republican Racism” will keep their fractious coalitions in line.
For their part, Catholic bishops have unwittingly given the message of Democrat pro-aborts their blessing. At the USCCB’s November 2018 meeting in Baltimore, when their efforts to investigate the McCarrick Machine were shot down by the Vatican, the only meaningful business they were able to conclude was the approval of a pastoral on racism. This new document simply embraced the message of the 1979 version: “Most” whites are racists, and nobody else can be.
In 2020 Democrats will run against their caricature of the Covington Catholic School students writ large: Republicans are white, hypocritical, privileged, rich, arrogant, offensive and hateful people.
And of course they’re racists. Why, didn’t the bishops just say so?
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