This week the world learned about attacks on the State of Israel perpetrated by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas over the weekend. These attacks are shocking in their brutality against non-combatants: young people shot at a music festival, families killed at home in their beds, women assaulted and paraded in the streets as trophies, even reports of infants being decapitated and adults being dismembered.
Tuesday President Biden expressed shock and moral outrage at the reports in a statement he delivered at the White House. He condemned these atrocities, declaring, “This was an act of sheer evil,” and he invoked the memory of “a millennia of antisemitism and genocide of the Jewish people.” He affirmed America’s loyalty as an ally of the Israeli state and pledged military and diplomatic resources to support their efforts to defend their citizens and recover their hostages.
“We condemn the indiscriminate evil, just as we’ve always done.”
President Joe Biden
All of this is as it should be. The attack by Hamas and the atrocities committed are examples of moral evil, and we ought to be outraged by them. As a nation which has allied itself with the democratic State of Israel, we are morally obligated to stand with them in the fight against terrorism and the abuses which have been perpetrated. It was encouraging to hear our President say unequivocally, “We condemn the indiscriminate evil, just as we’ve always done.”
Still, I cannot help but think of Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with whatever judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you” (Matthew 7:1-2). These are among the most misunderstood of the sayings of Jesus, but I believe they apply to the response offered by our President to Hamas’ atrocities. In offering a very clear moral judgment, the President and his party invite judgment by the very same standard.
Democrat Party Platform
The official platform of the Democrat Party states, “We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.” It adds, “Democrats oppose and will fight to overturn federal and state laws that create barriers to reproductive health and rights.”1 In another paragraph they say, “Democrats will reverse [Trump era] rulemaking and restore nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV/AIDS in health insurance, including coverage of all medically necessary care for gender transition.” What care is medically necessary for gender transition? The Democrat party answers, “gender confirmation surgery, and hormone therapy,” for which they seek mandatory coverage in all federal health plans.
These are just a few sentences from a 92-page document detailing all of the things the party of Joe Biden values and seeks to accomplish when in power.2 They establish a clear position on the subject of abortion, that is, “the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus,” specifically the “induced expulsion of a human fetus.”3 In many cases, this is done by physically dismembering and removing the developing infant from the womb. They further maintain that gender “confirmation” surgery is a fundamental right of all self-identified “trans-persons.” This involves the dismemberment of healthy, functioning genitalia and the attempted construction of genitalia which resembles that of the opposite sex.
Not only does the Democrat Party state their explicit belief that such procedures should be legal, they believe that access to these is a fundamental human right and the United States has a duty to provide them. They also state their opposition to any laws which would create barriers to any individual seeking access to them.
President Biden’s Position
President Biden continues to support the Party platform and has taken steps to protect access to abortion under the term “reproductive health care services.” In July of last year he signed an executive order “Safeguarding Access To Reproductive Health Care Services.”4 And in January of this year he signed a Presidential memorandum “Ensuring Safe Access to Medication Abortion.”5 While it is admitted that these executive actions relate primarily to so-called medication abortions rather than ones that forcibly dismember the baby, it is also clear that President Biden agrees with his party that abortion is a fundamental women’s right.
In March of last year, President Biden signed an executive order intended to demonstrate his support for LGBTQ+ individuals.6 This order explicitly opposes restrictions either by Congress or by individual States on gender reassignment surgeries for children. It also seeks to help U.S. service members and incarcerated individuals receive surgical or hormone treatments to alter their bodies according to their self-identity.
It is difficult to see how the acts of abortion, especially one which involves the destruction and dismemberment of a child’s body, and gender “confirmation” surgery are dissimilar to the offenses committed by the Hamas terrorists against children and infants in Israel. Especially if the surgeries are performed on minors with or without parental consent. This evident hypocrisy on the part of President Biden and others in our government and society at large certainly calls into question the sincerity of America’s moral outrage at atrocities committed on another continent. Is it any wonder that so much of the world considers the U.S. to be a nation of hypocrites?
1 https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/achieving-universal-affordable-quality-health-care/
2 The entire platform document may be downloaded at https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/2020-Democratic-Party-Platform.pdf
3 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abortion
4 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-protecting-access-to-reproductive-health-care-services/
5 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/22/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-presidential-memorandum-on-ensuring-safe-access-to-medication-abortion/
6 https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/31/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-advances-equality-and-visibility-for-transgender-americans/