By FR. SHENAN J. BOQUET
(Editor’s Note: Fr. Shenan Boquet is the president of Human Life International. This commentary first appeared January 28 at HLI.org and is reprinted here with permission. All rights reserved.
(Following Fr. Boquet’s commentary, we also reprint a selection of the reactions to it that pro-lifers posted at hli.org.)
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I can’t imagine a more horrible irony. On Tuesday, January 22, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered that the spire of the One World Trade Center be lit pink. The reason why? To celebrate the passage of a new law that radically liberalizes abortion in New York State — in some cases allowing abortion up until the moment of birth, permitting non-doctors to perform abortions, and removing recognition of preborn babies older than 24 weeks as potential homicide victims.
The new One World Trade Center is built on the same ground where thousands of innocent Americans — including eleven unborn babies — lost their lives on 9/11. The new building is supposed to stand as a symbol of America’s resilience in the face of evil, a memorial to those who lost their lives. Yards away from the building, the 9/11 memorial explicitly honors the “unborn child” of each of those eleven pregnant women who died on that infamous day.
And yet, Gov. Cuomo — who considers himself a Catholic — had the gall to use this self-same building to “celebrate” a profoundly divisive and extreme law that will ensure that far more innocents will lose their lives in the coming years in New York. Bizarrely, this is the same man who announced last fall that — “in solidarity with Pope Francis” — he was going to end the death penalty in New York. Get that? He’s with Pope Francis on not giving lethal injections to convicted murderers — but innocent unborn babies? That’s a different story.
Cuomo hailed the new law — passed on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision — as “a historic victory for New Yorkers and for our progressive values.” He also ordered the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge, the Kosciuszko Bridge, and the Alfred E. Smith Building in Albany to be lit pink in order — as he said — to “celebrate this achievement and shine a bright light forward for the rest of the nation to follow.”
God forbid!
God’s mercy is infinite. Even the most extreme and hardened of sinners must be given the opportunity to repent — and yet I can well understand why some Catholic leaders are raising their voices asking when New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan will formally and publicly excommunicate Gov. Cuomo.
By all means, privately offer Gov. Cuomo every opportunity to recant. But if he is allowed to so publicly flout the absolute most basic of Catholic moral teachings by going so far as to co-opt some of New York’s most visible landmarks to express his boundless enthusiasm for the legalized murder of innocents, without any consequences from Church leaders, what message does this send?
More New York Babies
Aborted Than Born
The new law — the so-called Reproductive Health Act — replaces the 1970 law that made New York the first state in the nation to legalize abortion. Although the 1970 law was more restrictive than the new law, it was more than enough to allow abortion to flourish — if death can be said to “flourish” — in New York.
New York’s abortion rate is already double that of the national average. According to the New York State Department of Health, 285,127 induced abortions were committed in the state between 2012 and 2014. In that same period, there were only 237,499 live births. In other words, there were twenty percent more abortions than live births in those three years.
And yet, at a time when the birthrate in the United States is plummeting, so that we’re no longer even replacing our population, Gov. Cuomo and other pro-abortion politicians think we need to open the door to more abortions?
The previous abortion law had banned abortions after 24 weeks, except in cases where the mother’s life was in danger. The new law significantly expands the exception to include cases where the mother’s “health” is in danger, or the unborn child isn’t deemed viable. But if there is anything that pro-lifers have learned over the last few decades, it’s that any so-called “health” exception can be exploited to cover just about any excuse an abortionist can think up.
The new law will almost certainly permit the indescribable barbarity of late-term abortions to take place with increasing frequency in New York — the painful scalding of babies to death with saline solutions, or the administration of lethal injections and the cruel dismemberment of sometimes-still-living babies.
And then, there’s the bizarre decision to permit nurse practitioners and midwives to perform abortions in some cases. “We’re saying here in New York, women’s lives matter. We’re saying here in New York, women’s decisions matter,” pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said after the law passed. And yet, what does it say about pro-abortion concern for women that New York is opening the door to less-trained health-care workers to perform abortions on vulnerable women?
And if by any “accident” any such late-term babies should survive the abortion process — as happens far more often than the abortion industry would like us to know — the new law ensures that news of any such slip-up almost certainly won’t see the light of day by revoking the requirement that a second physician be present during late-term abortions.
As the New York State Right to Life Committee lamented, this provision effectively has the effect of “authorizing infanticide.”
And again, the law now ensures that if an unborn child over 24-weeks gestation — even if the baby is wanted! — is killed during a violent crime, that the perpetrator cannot be charged for the baby’s murder.
And this is the “light” that Gov. Cuomo hopes will spread from New York across the country!
The Mystery Of Evil
Moments after the new law passed the New York Senate, pro-abortion legislators and observers burst into raucous cheers. “Until a few minutes ago,” wrote pro-life Professor Robert George after watching the video, “I had never felt physically ill as a result of watching something on television. But the video footage of New York legislators applauding and cheering the monstrous late-term abortion bill they passed . . .on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade literally nauseated me.”
“What kind of people are we?” he asked. “How can so many be utterly blind to such gross and manifest evil? These people were cheering. They were cheering. Where did this fanatical commitment to ensuring that the lives of children in the womb count for nothing — indeed less than nothing — come from? How did this contempt for human life insinuate itself into people’s hearts?”
I don’t know the answer to that question. The mystery of evil is precisely that — a mystery. We must pray for every one of those pro-abortion legislators, that they will experience conversion of heart, and that God will forgive them the grave crime they perpetrated last week. And we must work and pray to overturn this despicable, unjust law.
“Words are insufficient to describe the profound sadness we feel at the contemplated passage of New York State’s new proposed abortion policy,” wrote New York’s Catholic bishops in a statement shortly before the law passed. “We mourn the unborn infants who will lose their lives, and the many mothers and fathers who will suffer remorse and heartbreak as a result.”
“Our Governor and legislative leaders hail this new abortion law as progress. This is not progress. Progress will be achieved when our laws and our culture once again value and respect each unrepeatable gift of human life, from the first moment of creation to natural death. Would that not make us truly the most enlightened and progressive state in the nation?”
Reactions To
Fr. Boquet’s Commentary
Florence Sundberg says:
This is not on Gov. Cuomo nor on the politicians involved. This is on Cardinal Dolan — he is pals with Cuomo, shown in many photos laughing and back-clapping Cuomo. Cdl. Dolan should [publicly] ban Cuomo from receiving the Eucharist. I know that Cuomo does not seem to go to Holy Communion but that’s not the point. Cdl. Dolan is buddies with too many politicians and seems to need their approval — well the only “approval” we need is Christ’s and it’s time Cdl. Dolan stood up like a man and loudly and publicly denounced Cuomo and his evil ways — if he does not than he has failed as a Shepherd and should step down.
Catholics need strong leaders who stand up for the faith, for the teachings of Christ and His Church or they will be led astray and — evil begets evil and the sheep will fall in with the evildoers because their Shepherds have betrayed them in order to gain the applause and the approval of the world — especially of politicians from who they curry favor.
If Cdl. Dolan and others fear losing money that shows they have no trust in Divine Providence. Better to lose political funding than to lose your soul and to cause your flock to lose faith. Be a man of God Cdl. Dolan and publicly and strongly denounce Gov. Cuomo and the evil he stands for. And if you lose funding — so be it! God will provide!
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Mary Regan says:
The time has long passed for we faithful Catholics who have worked in pro-life for forty-eight years to be listened to by our bishops. We have watched the Ted Kennedys, Pelosi, Biden, and Cuomo proudly proclaim to be Catholic and support abortion, same-sex marriage and much more contradictory to our Faith. Excommunication is not an evil but a good thing in order to save their souls and the souls of so many who have been led astray by these people and the silence or even support of our bishops. It takes courage and I pray to God for us all.
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Cordelia Casso Flores says:
The Church must not permit the faithful to be misled by its failure to publicly censure Gov. Cuomo with a public declaration of excommunication. His public gloating over signing this diabolical law deserves no less. What are the faithful to believe about the position of the Church regarding this heinous law if it does not vigorously and publicly come out and censure the governor? Are we to assume that America has become just like Nazi Germany?
The organs, skins, and other body parts of those full-term babies will probably fetch millions of additional dollars to Planned Parenthood and all the “research foundations” in American universities and the pharmaceutical companies who profit from the research. These obscene universities, corporations, and science foundations are all complicit in this Godless mass genocide motivated by the lust for power and money! May God have Mercy on the Governor, and on the Catholic Universities and the Church itself!
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Roberta M. Spengler says:
Very well said! May God fill all our priests with the moral courage and strength to fearlessly discuss the life span issue from conception until death. Their congregation members desperately need to hear them take a firm stand on the side of life!
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Margaret Brunk says:
That lit-up spire is like an ominous needle used for lethal injection abortions. Very eerie! As pro-lifers, let’s jump on this chance to illustrate what late-term abortion is while people are paying attention.
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Denise Ebipane says:
Let us keep on praying our rosaries. . . .
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Eileen Feather says:
I am no more shocked at the lack of church response to today’s societal evils than I am at the efforts of a demoralized society to seek them.
It took an outcry from the public to get the church on the right track in the cases of sexual abuse, and we still have a long way to go. People don’t respond to abortion in the same way as abuse of human beings who are visible and walk the earth with us. . . .
I thank God for your outspokenness and sincerely hope that Cardinal Dolan accepts his accountability to God and his people rather than his affection for [a] man who is publicly defying the church in its mission of truth and love. Yes, Catholics and non-Catholics alike can recognize hypocrisy when they see it, and in this case, it is not only seen but practiced to be the new morality where the church is hypocritical in its supposed hatred of women by being opposed to the murder of their offspring!
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James Berkon says:
Lighting up Freedom Tower to “celebrate” this horrible event is an affront to God and all that is good. We desperately need God’s blessing on this country and NYC in particular. This event is akin to the crowning of thorns — a mockery of God. Heaven forbid that the evil that occurred on this very site in 2001 is . . . allowed to repeat.
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Kathy Stadler says:
God save our country. God help us now and forever. Dear God stop these terrible abortions at all stages of life.
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Betsy Lillis says:
The devil is cunning and works within some people. But, he will not win. Let us all pray to our Beloved Virgin Mary to plead with her Son to give us courage to speak out and work to change the culture of death to that of LIFE! Show your kindness and love to one another.
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Leonard Alfonso says:
As a foreigner but a fellow human being, I am horrified that a so-called American leader is applauded for condemning millions of fellow Americans — male and female — to death with a stroke of his bloody pen! This is far worse than Herod who slaughtered a few hundred! ISIS will never kill 60,000,000+ Americans!
America is its own worst enemy! It is Americans who ignore the Fifth Commandment and vote these monsters into power and then applaud them when they repeat the tragedy of Calvary in our own time! “Whatever you do to the least of these remember you do it unto me!” warns Jesus. The silence of the shepherds is deafening!
Surely they realize that Jesus has no use for hirelings who sit and play dice or some other game while the Innocent on the Cross bleeds in the abortion mills. How can we trust those who run away when they see the wolves coming? Holy Mary, Mother of the Innocent pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death!
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Z. Martin says:
It was incumbent on Cardinal Dolan and the Bishops of NY to have warned legislators when this criminal Bill was tabled that support of it would entail excommunication. Now they have to act and do what is right, condemning is not enough. Their silence is deafening.
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Sr. Elisabeth says:
Where is our Church going?
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Laurence Coventry says:
Chambers Dictionary defines unborn babies as human; human is defined as of humanity. The Nuremberg trials defined mass holocaust killing as crimes against humanity.
The laughing, cheering New York authorities have performed their own selfie Nuremberg trial.
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