Editor:
While continuing to thank Delegate Austin and Senator Newman for a job well done in this session of the Virginia Legislature, I have been thoroughly dismayed by our US Senators as they joined 42 of their party colleagues in helping to defeat a bill that would have protected the lives of babies born alive during an abortion. Ironically, this bill has nothing to do with healthcare and abortion rights for the mothers of these babies and it has everything to do with the right-to-life of a baby born alive after an attempted abortion.
I was negatively impressed with a letter from Senator Kaine in response to my letter to him asking him to vote for the Born-Alive Protection Bill. Among other stale excuses for voting against the bill, Senator Kaine said that such a bill was not necessary because we already have such protective legislation. Did Tim Kaine, by any chance, not hear his own governor’s statement on live radio to the effect that such a baby born alive after an attempted abortion would be kept comfortable while a consultation ensued as to the fate of that infant?
Our… “one Nation, under God,” …is in a very bad way when 44 US Senators (an overwhelming majority of an entire political party) refuse to give protection to babies in those not-so-rare situations! And, one concern that was brought to my attention after my previous letter in The Fincastle Herald was the question of “Who makes that decision?” as though it makes a great deal of difference who decides that a baby struggling for life will be callously left to die? Where do we go from here as a nation?
I truly hope that we will move in the direction that approximately three-fourths of the citizens of this great land seem to be going. There are hopeful signs that we will once again be a nation that holds dearly the sanctity of all human life. This is a most critical issue on several fronts, including moral and ethical, as well as spiritual; and it should never be a political issue!
Regardless of political party affiliation, it is time for all common-sense Americans to take a stand and insist that our elected officials do the right thing– the moral, ethical thing– concerning life. It is time that the most vulnerable among us be rescued from the political games which deny the precious unborn the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that our Constitution seeks to protect.
Robert A. McRae
Eagle Rock
