The Hill tells us about Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal's decision to interrupt this reprehensible bit of ideological theater from a Republican Party that will do anything except govern in the people's interest:
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) tried to pass a Senate resolution that would have condemned illegal abortion practices.What a lie. Blumenthal's resolution is 219 words long. The complete text is posted below. How poor a reader is Senator Lee that he can't read that in a minute or two?
Lee asked unanimous consent to pass his resolution on Wednesday in reaction to the case of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor who is on trial for performing illegal and unsafe abortions.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) objected, saying he’d prefer to pass his own resolution that condemns all illegal and unsanitary medical acts, including abortions. But Lee objected saying he didn’t have time to read the resolution before it was offered.
The Hill story goes on to quote Senator Lee:
"It is difficult to imagine why anyone would object to a non-binding resolution calling on Congress to investigate these alleged disturbing, horrific and illegal abortion practices committed by Kermit Gosnell and others," Lee said.No, it isn't "difficult to understand why anyone would object" to your resolution, Senator Lee, and you know it, because you wrote it as a blatantly partisan screed, implicitly equating abortion with slavery and Jim Crow, asserting a 20-week fetal-pain threshold as established scientific fact, and essentially declaring all abortions to be un-American. Some excerpts:
...Whereas the Declaration of Independence sets forth the principle that all people are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;See? There you go -- the people of the United States do not universally believe that every human life is precious from its very beginning, at least not in the way Senator Lee and other abortion absolutists mean it (i.e., from conception).
Whereas the dedication of the people of the United States to this principle, though at times tragically marred by institutions such as slavery and practices such as segregation and the denial of the right to vote, has summoned the people of the United States time and again to fight for human dignity and the common good;
Whereas the people of the United States believe that every human life is precious from its very beginning, and that every individual, regardless of age, health, or condition of dependency, deserves the respect and protection of society....
More:
Whereas women and children in the United States deserve better than the 56,145,920 abortions that have been performed in the United States since the Supreme Court rulings in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, and Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179, in 1973; andGosh, it's just a harmless, middle-of-the-road statement of the national mood, isn't it? (I left out the paragraphs and paragraphs about Gosnell.)
Whereas there is substantial medical evidence that an unborn child is capable of experiencing pain at 20 weeks after fertilization, or earlier....
By contrast, here's Senator Blumenthal's resolution in its entirety, from a link at his Senate site:
Expressing the sense of the Senate that all incidents of abusive, unsanitary, or illegal health care practices should be condemned and prevented and the perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.Why does Senator Lee oppose this? Is there any reason not to conclude that he's in favor of severe medical malpractice against those who've already been born?
Whereas in recent years there have been rare and tragic incidents of willful violations of law, human dignity, and standards of care across a variety of health care settings that have exposed trusting patients to death and disease, and shocked the conscience of the United States, including--
(1) a physician at the Women’s Medical Society of Philadelphia who is rightfully facing multiple criminal charges related to horrific practices;
(2) health care practitioners at the Endoscopy Center of Southern Nevada who exposed 40,000 patients to hepatitis C through unsanitary practices;
(3) an Oklahoma dentist who exposed as many as 7,000 patients to HIV and hepatitis B and C through unsanitary practices; and
(4) a nursing director at Kern Valley nursing home in California who, for her own convenience, inappropriately medicated patients using antipsychotic drugs, resulting in the death of at least 1 patient: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that all incidents of abusive, unsanitary, or illegal health care practices should be condemned and prevented and the perpetrators should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
