Bart Stupak Trusts the Promise of the Infanticide President
By Deal Hudson
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
The evening the Stupak-Pitts Amendment passed, I expressed the hope that a new era of pro-life politics had begun. For the first time, in a long time, the Democratic Party had an advocate for the unborn around whom others could rally.
That was four months ago. This afternoon the same man – Bart Stupak — who “made Nancy Pelosi cry uncle,” to quote the WSJ’s Bill McGurn, made her shout with glee. The health care bill, filled with funding goodies for abortion providers, was the legislative lodestar for Nancy Pelosi, a self-described Catholic who shrugged off every appeal from her bishop.
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Bart Stupak looked hollow and shame-faced as he made the rounds of cable news shows on Sunday explaining the reasons for his change of mind. For the past 160 days Stupak has become a hero to millions of Americans who believe the right to life is the basis of all other human rights.
Now, Stupak has become a hero to the other side and just another example of why our young people view politics cynically, not as a vocation but as an excuse to put partisan interests ahead of transcendent truths.
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us — if at all — not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
After seeing through the deceptions of Sr. Carol Keehan’s Catholic Health Association, Catholics United, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, and NETWORK, Stupak couldn’t see through the deception of an Executive Order issued by President Obama providing “safeguards” against abortion funding.
“This is the principle we have fought for all these months — I am now comfortable voting for the bill,” Stupak told Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. Stupak admits an executive order can be rescinded at any time, does not have the force of law, and has authority over those implementing the bill in the private sector, but feels vindicated in his decision.
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
It was reported that Stupak relied heavily on support of staff from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in passing his amendment to the House bill barring abortion funding. Today Stupak turned his back on those who sat with him through the turbulence of the November debate and put himself in thrall to the Democratic leadership who want nothing less than abortion-on-demand paid for by the federal government.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
This executive order is nothing more than a promise from one man to another, from Obama to Stupak. It can be withdrawn at any time, or, more likely, it can be ignored. Stupak should know that the promise of a man who once supported infanticide, and who on his first day in office repealed the Mexico City Policy, is not a man you can trust on the issue of abortion.
Stupak’s decision betrays Catholics and the faith he calls his own. As I said in my press release for Catholic Advocate, “Today’s vote will go down in history as one of the greatest expansions of abortion since Roe v. Wade.”
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Quotations above are taken from T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men,” Poems: 1909-1925. London: Faber & Gwyer, 1925.
Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.
Lord have Mercy
Chirst have Mercy
Lord have Mercy
Pro-Life & Democrat are two words they can no longer be used in the same sentence.
You guys are out of office come November, or your next election. Better start looking for a new job NOW. Your days of not listening to your constituents is OVER. You will be voted out of office, and there is nothing you can do about it.
Bart Stupak was not elected to represent only Catholics. He was elected to represent a swath of a district. I’m sorry that your continuing efforts to legislate your religion has failed. If you don’t like it, move to Ireland, Mexico, El Salvador, or any country that is run by your church, not by government. I’m glad that you can live by your religious beliefs and incredibly sad that you do not respect any others. Democracy is not the tyranny of the few, or even the tyranny of the majority. And don’t bother praying for my forgiveness, for I know exactly what I do.
Suzanne, you completely invalidate your argument with a series of manifestly false statements: You had better do a bit of research — the large majority of Americans remain consistently opposed to taxpayer funded abortions (67% see http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm) — THIS is the issue, and Stupak claims that he represents this position (as do a majority of Congress)! He and 9 others only got this bill passed because they claim there will be NO taxpayer funding! Next, no one who knows the current political situation of any one of the countries you name would for a minute believe that they are \"run\" by any church (hilarious if not preposterous claim) And to suggest that refusing to fund abortion with our taxes is imposing the will of a minority defies all the polls. The reality is that with this bill a minority (33%) will be imposing its violent will upon the vast majority (67%) — the very thing you complain about! You Suzanne are aligned with the very kind of tyranny you claim to condemn if you support this bill! Please get your facts straight before you lecture the rest of us.
Sorry Suzanne, but you guys lost the fight 2010 years ago and never realized it. As a health care practitioner, and among many who think the same, I will not provide ANY abortion/contraceptive services….PERIOD. It doesn’t matter to me if you have no other options, because in reality you do…life.
Also, November is coming fast, and this bill will be history then, and especially in 2012.
Only a third of Mexicans are practicing Catholics. Evangelicals and Pentecostals probably hold more sway in El Salvador. Ireland? I think that they had to legalize abortion to stay in the EU, although I have no time to check on this at the moment. Suzanne\’s theocrat under every bed is a story to frighten liberal children, not something we actually encounter in the real world.
When I was in college, most of our professors had been in graduate school by 1950, likewise the Justices on the Supreme Court. They learned in school, and taught us, that the embryo is \"just tissue.\" That was because, when a woman miscarries in the first trimester, all you see is bloody tissue and clots. In the years since these old men\’s minds were made up, the use of ultra sound and fiber-optics has shown us much more about the child in the womb. I saw my daughter swimming and turning flips at ten weeks, a gestational age at which some people think a baby ought to be aborted if she is inconvenient.
I am not a Roman Catholic, but I see abortion as murder, as do a majority of Americans. Frankly, it is puzzling to me that the pro abort people don\’t just pay for the abortions themselves, which would probably be cheaper than buying Congressmen. Oh, wait. They buy the Congressmen with OUR money, too.