The Scandal of Cuomo and New York’s Horrific Abortion Law
Gov. Cuomo Terms Unadulterated Evil “Light” & “Progress”
I can’t imagine a more horrible irony. On Tuesday, January 22, New York Governor 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 unborn babies – lost their lives on 9/11, and another who lost his or her life in 1993. 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 pregnant woman who died there.
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.
One World Trade Center, NYC – Courtesy of: LifeSite News
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 land-marks to express his boundless enthusiasm for the legalized murder of innocents, without any consequences from Church leaders, what message does this send?
Almost 30% of New York Babies Aborted
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 about 712,497 live births. That means there were 400 abortions per 1000 live births in the state during that period.
And yet, at a time when the birth rate 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 healthcare workers to perform abortions on vulnerable women?
Saline abortion survivor Gianna Jessen testifies before 2015 House Judiciary Committee
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?”
Governor Cuomo press conference applauding heinous Reproductive Health Act. Video YouTube capture from account NYGovCuomo.
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?”
Amen.
Note: The original post contained a statistical error stating there were more abortions than live births in the state of New York. This error has now been corrected. We regret any confusion this may have caused.
As president of Human Life International, Fr. Boquet is a leading expert on the international pro-life and family movement, having journeyed to nearly 90 countries on pro-life missions over the last decade. Father Boquet works with pro-life and family leaders in 116 counties that partner with HLI to proclaim and advance the Gospel of Life. Read his full bio here.
Our church has become the repository of unspeakable evil.
Our priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes failed to respond to and STOP the rape, sodomy, and sexual abuse of children, AND they actively covered up these horrific crimes against our children in order to protect homosexual pedophiles and pederasts.
Why do we continue to give our hard earned money to a church that will allow and participate in such evil? By continuing to donate to the church, we are funding this evil.
How can we continue to believe in a “church” that has allowed such evil to exist for decades, no, for hundreds of years?
How do the hands that perpetrated the rape and sodomy of a child on Friday or Saturday night, on Sunday morning transform a piece of unleavened bread and a cup of ordinary wine into the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ?
Would our Righteous, Holy and beloved Jesus allow such an unspeakable abomination?
If Boy Scout leaders, coaches, teachers, and others are held accountable, imprisoned and sued for crimes against children, why aren’t these morally bankrupt and thoroughly EVIL men called priests imprisoned?
I am a product of 12 years of Catholic school education, a former cradle, pre-Vatican Two Catholic of 58 years who left my beloved church 8 years ago.
I was tired of priestly “sermons” that said nothing, stood for nothing, and that failed to address the evils that are in our own church, and in the world. However, while our priests never addressed the horrors that occurred in our church, they never once failed to pass the collection plate.
“If anyone causes one of these little ones–those who believe in me–harm, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”
Matthew 18:6
Hands down. Cuomo is excommunicated in the Eyes of God! For all the brutal abortions he will enable to be horrifically done to those innocent children without a voice by the Act that he signed into law will place him with other abortionists in everlasting hell!!! If he does not repent and rescind this law his immortal soul is in great jeopardy of losing his immortal soul. Other Catholic politicians, like him, will join him in hell as well. Cardinal Dolan should be ashamed of himself for laughing and smiling, while patting Cuomo on the back, for a job well done! I listened to a priest recently, on the Internet, who had a near death experience during which time God gave him a vision of hell. He said, “He saw priests, bishops and Cardinals, whom he knew in hell, for not confessing a mortal sin! Cuomo acts like he is going to live forever as well as Cardinal Dolan. How do these people sleep at night? God help them. God help America! God help New York! God help us to stand up for the unborn and for the culture of Life! We love dear God. We will do Your Holy Will. We will pray for those who reject You and all those who have abandoned You. Help us dearest Blessed Mother to stay close to Your Divine Son Jesus and to cling to Him. “In the End My Immaculate Heart Will Triumph.”
!
It was reported elsewhere that Cardinal Timothy Dole has said that it is useless to excommunicate Gov. Cuomo. The Cardinal reasoned that it would only give the Governor more ammunition to go against the Church.
My question now is:
Are there any reasons left for the Church to excommunicate anybody?”
A Child Protection Training Website has an article titled: “Animals Traditionally More Important Than Children” By Caitlin Bootsma
This article references that New York was the very first state to protect abused children. In the 1870’s, there were no child protection laws, so using the precedent of animal cruelty laws, a little girl named Mary Ellen McCormack was saved from her abusive environment. Perhaps it is time to use animal cruelty laws as precedent to save the baby humans.
Where are our true shepherds and moral leaders? Isn’t it way past the time that many (not all) of the “shepherds” in the Roman Catholic Church in America and elsewhere start behaving like real shepherds in imitation of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd? Until now, for the past 50 years or so, the sheep have not heard the truth from our “shepherds”; and they and their flock, have been slipping into the abyss of unbelief permitting and applauding people like Gov. Cuomo, Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, the Kennedys and others like them who act like oxymorons regarding life and truly moral issues like abortion, infanticide, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia among other evils regarding the gender and marriage issues of our times. What is needed for these public sins, permitted and encouraged by those who claim to be “devout” and “moral” Catholic leaders, are public excommunications by Pope Francis and our Bishops which can only be overcome by public repentance, sincere confession and public reparation. Yes, these fallen political leaders need conversion of their minds and hearts, but that is unlikely, unless they realize that they are in danger of losing their salvation. Prayer for them is very important, but so are proclamations from the shepherds of our Catholic faith, regardless of the personal cost which they may endure. Now is the time for all good shepherds to come to the aid of our Church, our countrymen and women, and all of the innocent and defenseless children and others who are losing their lives because of the ideologies of moral relativism, false compassion and the selfishness reigning in our society and even our beloved Church today! To quote Quoholeth in the Old Testament, I pray: “How long O Lord, How Long?” Lord, have mercy on us all!
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 and are now all fit for hanging as befell the Nazi Leaders.
Where is our Church going?
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.
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 60000000+ Americans! America is its own worst enemy! It is Americans who ignore the 5th 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 realise 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!
The devil is cunning and works within some people. But, he will not win. Le 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.
God save our country. God help us now and forever. Dear God stop these terrible abortions at all stages of life.
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 not allowed to repeat
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. We can be amazingly like ostriches and lack the moral compunction to defense that is not based on more of an emotional reaction.
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 man who is publicly defying the church in its mission of truth and love. Yes, Catholics and not-Catholics alike can recognize hypocrisy when they see it, and in this case, it is not only seen but practices 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!
let us keep on praying our rosaries…
That lit up spire is like an ominous needle used for lethal injection abortions. Very eery! As pro-lifers let’s jump on this chance to illustrate what late term abortion is while people are paying attention.
Regrettably and as you reported the Bishops of NY biggest effort was after the law was certain to pass. I ask you how many of those in the NY pews were informed and asked to do something about it before it’s passage. As I indicated to those in NY the busses for the March of Life should have been diverted to Albany for real impact.
After more than 20 years on the sidewalk at an abortion clinic that could have been closed during The Spring of Life in Buffalo had the Bishops supported the efforts then from the pulpit, my family left NY. Cumo said we weren’t wanted back in 2014. Even with that the Bishops, knowing Cumo Catholic, never cared that he basically said Catholics who lived the faith in NY were not wanted citizens of NY. If that isn’t a prejudice that the Bishops didn’t care too much about why do they think true Catholic influence will mean anything to Cumo. Cumo’s sin is public in so many ways regarding how he has opposed the Catholic Church and what it teaches. Thus his call to be repentant and save his soul should be public. Yet how many times if at all has a Bishop counseled him on this public sin to save his soul. I personally believe the Bishops are more focused about Cumo’s holding out the stick that he may give them school vouchers.
Yes I left the battlegrounds of NY but continue to be a pray warrior for NY and our Church because this is the war for souls. Mary, patroness of the US, please plead with God for the Church in the US and its people.
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!
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.
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 & Cuomo proudly proclaim to be Catholic & support abortion, same sex marriage & much more contradictory to our to our Faith. Excommunication is not an evil but a good thing in order to save their souls & the souls of so many who have been led astray by these people & the silence or even support of our bishops. It takes courage & I pray to God for us all.
Jan. 28, 2019: 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 publican 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 evil doers 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!
Cardinal Dolan was on Fox and Friends this morning and he danced around the issue of excommunication. First he said it was up to Cuomo’s Bishop, and then said, what would that prove. I don’t trust him as the Marshall of N.Y.’s annual Gay Pride Parade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVi0FYPtRQg
Florence; you couldn’t be more correct. Your comment was beautifully written, we desperately need our Catholic leaders to stand up for our faith!!