House Democrats: *Some* Children’s Lives Matter

 

Well, House Democrats certainly did not waste any time. Their just-for-show funding bill not only rejects border security funding but also packs in all their abortion absolutist wishes. President Trump cannot trade away pro-life policies for some wall funding, so the House bill to end the government shutdown has been strictly leftist loyalty signaling. Can Democrats in leadership yield on these positions, or are they clinging to the backs of hungry young leftist tigers, who might shred their leaders’ careers in an instant?

The spending bill that Democrats introduced Wednesday includes language specifying that foreign non-governmental organizations that perform abortions consistent with the laws in their country are not ineligible for U.S. family planning funds.

Trump, like all his Republican predecessors since former President Ronald Reagan, cut off family planning funds to organizations that promote abortions for family planning.

The White House Office of Management and Budget responded in a Statement of Administration Policy with clear opposition to the Democrats’ bill, including on pro-life grounds, as noted by the Susan B. Anthony List.

[Citing excessive funding that make claims about wall funding non-credible] This includes $2.9 billion more than the request for economic and development assistance, including funding for the West Bank/Gaza, Syria, and Pakistan, where our foreign aid is either frozen or under review. It includes $700 million more than requested for the United Nations, including restoring funding for the United Nations Population Fund. The bill would also undermine the President’s Mexico City Policy (Presidential Memorandum of January 23, 2017), which prohibits the funding of foreign nongovernmental organizations that promote or perform abortions. […] These and other excessive spending items makes the lack of adequate border funding in the combined package all the more unacceptable.

The Democrats’ moral system was noted by the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles:

The Democrats’ priorities for children were noted by EWTN host Catherine Hadro:

All of which brought back to mind the knots into which PETA, a staunch member of the leftist coalition, ties itself. Back in 2005, the government of Norway funded research at the University of Oslo to determine if animal cruelty laws should extend to invertebrates, including lobsters. The researchers concluded it was unlikely that lobsters feel pain.

“Lobsters and crabs have some capacity of learning, but it is unlikely that they can feel pain,” concluded the 39-page report, aimed at determining if creatures without backbones should be subject to animal welfare legislation as Norway revises its animal welfare law.

[…]

Lobster biologists in Maine have maintained for years that the lobster’s primitive nervous system and underdeveloped brain are similar to that of an insect. While lobsters react to different stimuli, such as boiling water, the reactions are escape mechanisms, not a conscious response or an indication of pain, they say.

“It’s a semantic thing: No brain, no pain,” said Mike Loughlin, who studied the matter when he was a University of Maine graduate student and is now a biologist at the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission.

Now follow this chain of claims from the PETA FAQ.

Regarding lobsters:

Contrary to claims made by seafood sellers, lobsters do feel pain, and they suffer immensely when they are cut, broiled, or boiled alive.

Most scientists agree that a lobster’s nervous system is quite sophisticated. For example, neurobiologist Tom Abrams says lobsters have “a full array of senses.” Jelle Atema, a marine biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., and one of the country’s leading experts on lobsters, says, “I personally believe they do feel pain.”

Regarding plants:

The scientific community is just beginning to recognize plants’ advanced capabilities, and we now know that they experience a variety of sensations. […] Perhaps one day, we will learn that they have ways of experiencing pain that we have yet to comprehend. […] Whether it can be proved that plants experience pain or not, vegan foods are the compassionate choice because they require the deaths of fewer plants and animals.

Regarding pro-life activists:

When people say that they are “pro-life” yet choose to support violence, misery, and death every time they eat a meal, they have become “pro-death.” The obvious “pro-life” choice is to be vegan.

Regarding PETA’s stance on abortion:

PETA does not have a position on the abortion issue, because our focus as an organization is the alleviation of the suffering inflicted on nonhuman animals. There are people on both sides of the abortion issue in the animal rights movement, just as there are people on both sides of animal rights issues in the pro-life movement. And just as the pro-life movement has no official position on animal rights, neither does the animal rights movement have an official position on abortion.

So there you have it: lobsters must be liberated because they have a nervous system, however primitive; plants probably don’t feel pain so PETA needn’t campaign for them; pro-life activists should definitely be vegan; and unborn humans capable of feeling pain … ummm … PETA takes no official position on that. In the same way, Democrats are all about protecting vulnerable women and children, except when they are inconvenient, and then they … ummm … are just stories Trump and the extremist Republicans are inventing to scare people and create hate.

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  1. Bryan G. Stephens Thatcher
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    They get a lot done with only the priniple of power

    • #1
  2. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    The spending bill that Democrats introduced Wednesday includes language specifying that foreign non-governmental organizations that perform abortions consistent with the laws in their country are not ineligible for U.S. family planning funds.”

    So . . . Nancy Pelosi did not blink — she, in fact, upped the ante. Will the President blink? 

    • #2
  3. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    The spending bill that Democrats introduced Wednesday includes language specifying that foreign non-governmental organizations that perform abortions consistent with the laws in their country are not ineligible for U.S. family planning funds.”

    So . . . Nancy Pelosi did not blink — she, in fact, upped the ante. Will the President blink?

    While she was staring blankly into the camera while Schumer was speaking it looked at times like she tried to blink but the eyelids only made it half way down (probably a plastic surgery side-effect).  

    Oh wait, you we’re talking metaphorically? Nevermind.

     

    • #3
  4. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    They get a lot done with only the priniple of power

    It seems that their goal is just to keep the president from claiming victory. So, where is the room for negotiation? If you give him partial funding the the White House can claim a victory and then use that to continue to ask for further funding. If you give the president the funding in exchange for some other project that the Dems support, well that is still bad because the president gets what he wants. Spite leaves no room for negotiating.

    • #4
  5. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    Bryan G. Stephens (View Comment):

    They get a lot done with only the priniple of power

    It seems that their goal is just to keep the president from claiming victory. So, where is the room for negotiation? If you give him partial funding the the White House can claim a victory and then use that to continue to ask for further funding. If you give the president the funding in exchange for some other project that the Dems support, well that is still bad because the president gets what he wants. Spite leaves no room for negotiating.

    They’ve never had to really negotiate before. They’ve always gotten what they wanted.

    Donald Trump seems to be the first politician in my lifetime who actually knows a thing or two about negotiation. I hope he doesn’t blow this one.

    • #5
  6. Susan Quinn Contributor
    Susan Quinn
    @SusanQuinn

    When critters clearly become more important than people, and deserve better treatment and funding, just to signal the Leftist agenda, we are close to being lost. Then again, maybe we are already lost. Heaven help those aborted babies and the lobsters, too.

    • #6
  7. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Heaven help those aborted babies and the lobsters, too.

    I only want to help lobsters into a close relationship with drawn butter.

    • #7
  8. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    When critters clearly become more important than people, and deserve better treatment and funding, just to signal the Leftist agenda, we are close to being lost. Then again, maybe we are already lost. Heaven help those aborted babies and the lobsters, too.

    I remember hearing that Nazis had some strong animal welfare laws including regulations on how to cook lobsters and crabs (you couldn’t boil them alive). This is not to suggest that PETA or Democrats are Nazis in any way, it just points out that people can have some really weird priorities regarding the lives of others.

    • #8
  9. Al French, sad sack Moderator
    Al French, sad sack
    @AlFrench

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    Susan Quinn (View Comment):

    Heaven help those aborted babies and the lobsters, too.

    I only want to help lobsters into a close relationship with drawn butter.

    Preferably, MY butter.

    • #9
  10. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    Well said, as ever, @cliffordbrown!

    • #10
  11. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Vance Richards (View Comment):

    •  

    Funny you should mention that claim, there is a PETA FAQ on that, which I did not bother reading.

    • #11
  12. Suspira Member
    Suspira
    @Suspira

    Clifford A. Brown: PETA does not have a position on the abortion issue, because our focus as an organization is the alleviation of the suffering inflicted on nonhuman animals.

    What about abortions of animals?

    • #12
  13. Clifford A. Brown Member
    Clifford A. Brown
    @CliffordBrown

    Suspira (View Comment):

    Clifford A. Brown: PETA does not have a position on the abortion issue, because our focus as an organization is the alleviation of the suffering inflicted on nonhuman animals.

    What about abortions of animals?

    Hmm. I did not see that in the FAQ. Perhaps you could ask.

    • #13
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