DALLAS, June 28, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Senator Ted Cruz had strong words for Democrats this morning, lambasting them for turning a blind eye to forced abortion and the crimes committed by late-term abortionists like Kermit Gosnell and Douglas Karpen, and favoring a policy of abortion “no matter what the consequences, no matter what the context.”
The media and the Obama administration follow a “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy when it comes to late-term abortion atrocities, the senator told an enthusiastic crowd of pro-life activists at the National Right to Life Convention in his native Texas.
Referencing Gosnell, Cruz said, “I was proud to stand with Senator Mike Lee condemning those horrific crimes and calling for an investigation in the Senate for other late-term abortionists in this country committing similar atrocities.”
The senator also referenced late-term abortionist Douglas Karpen, whom former staff members have accused of twisting newborn babies' heads off, someone Cruz noted works “in Houston, my hometown.”
Senate Democrats cowered away from a motion to condemn Gosnell's atrocities, because it mentioned abortion. Instead, they sought a bland general condemnation of unsanitary conditions in any medical environment, such as denist offices.
“Apparently a physician having an unsanitary clinic that passes on disease in their mind is morally equivalent to” the actions of “Kermit Gosnell as he took the lives of living, breathing children outside their mother's womb,” he said. “What a sad statement of moral equivalence.”
The senator told the crowd that the right to life is the cornerstone of all governance, one that Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are undermining through an extreme policy that places abortion-on-demand above all other goods – including religious freedom.
The first-term senator called on attendees to reflect on the Declaration of Independence just before the upcoming Fourth of July holiday.
“Without life, there is no liberty. Without life, there is no pursuit of happiness,” he said. “The ability to take life is the ultimate power, and the ultimate deprivation, of our God-given rights.”
Referring to the pro-life and Tea Party movements, he said, “I am inspired that we see Americans standing up – standing up for life, standing up for liberty…standing up for the Constitution.”
One of those first liberties enshrined in the First Amendment is the freedom of religion, something Cruz said the Obama administration undermined by “ordering those who disagree to disregard their rights of conscience, disregard their faith and provide abortifacients or contraceptives” to their employees.
“It wasn't long ago that the Democratic Party was proud to nominate the first two Catholic candidates for president,” he said. “What do you think an Al Smith or a John F. Kennedy would say to a president who says to the Catholic Church, 'Change your faith, or we will shut down your…hospitals'?”
The conservative favorite took advantage of the three-day-long national meeting, which is taking place in the Dallas suburb of Grapevine, to burnish his own pro-life credentials.
Cruz contrasted the actions of a mob of angry protesters in Austin, and of legislator Wendy Davis, who waged a 13-hour filibuster against a pro-life bill, to his own filibuster with Rand Paul and Mike Lee against the use of drones.
“We were filibustering to protect the sanctity of life from arbitrary government destruction,” he said. “When Austin Democrats stood together in their filibuster, they were standing together to protect the ability to carry out late-term abortions, to protect the ability to take yet more lives. What a contrast.”
“If you listen to the media – well, that's your first mistake,” he joked. “But if you listen to the media, those rowdy protesters were adopting a popular view. Yet the simple reality is 62 percent of Texans oppose late-term abortions after 20 weeks. Over 80 percent of Americans oppose abortions in the third trimester. And one of the sad consequences of the Culture of Death we have seen is that the policies in this country are extreme.”
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Cruz, whom NRLC says has earned a 100 percent pro-life voting record in the Senate, also rapped Senate Democrats for refusing to condemn forced abortion in China.
“China has aborted some estimated 300 million children – 300 million, the population of the United States,” he said.
“Regardless of your views on the right to life,” he stated, “you should be united against the horrific evil that is the practice of forced abortions, that is the practice of the government saying to a mother, 'We will force you to abort your child.'”
Cruz lamented, “When that came to the floor of the senate, it was defeated, as the Democrats stood together embracing their policy of abortion no matter what the consequences, no matter what the context.”
Despite these positions, many Democrats tell their constituents they are moderates on the issue of life, Cruz said.
“As you know, Harry Reid does not like for Senators to vote,” he stated, “because he wants to prevent his Democrats from having to make uncomfortable votes.”
“Truth and light has a way of counteracting those representations back home,” he said.
In concluding his speech to the conference – built around the theme “Winning for Life in 2014” – Cruz saluted the work of crisis pregnancy centers and 40 Days for Life specifically, for “explaining the consequences, explaining it not in anger but in love.”
He said the task facing the pro-life movement is to win the national argument over abortion and instill a “culture of life” against the reigning “culture of death.”
“There's nothing we need to do more than persuade our fellow Americans that there is nothing more precious than an infant child, and that every infant child has a right to life, a right to breathe, to live, to work towards a better tomorrow,” Cruz said. “In Texas last year, 80,000 children were aborted. That will change only when we persuade our fellow Americans to embrace an historic culture of life.”
In an announcement released on the same day as his NRLC speech, Senator Cruz confirmed he will be speaking at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., in October.