Sign the prayer pledge for 9 pro-life rescuers facing a decade in prison.
Editor’s note: John Hinshaw is being held in federal custody at the Alexandria Detention Center in Virginia, along with six other pro-life activists for participating in a traditional pro-life rescue of the unborn at a late-term abortion center in Washington, D.C. They face a potential 10 years in prison as they await sentencing in May by pro-abortion Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, under charges of violations of the FACE Act and “conspiracy against rights.”
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Twenty years ago, the Republican leader in the U.S. Senate, Trent Lott of Mississippi, complained about the difficulties of leading his fellow Republicans.
“It’s like herding cats,” he said.
Those of us who know and love cats understood what Lott was saying. Cats do not move as a herd; they go their own way, don’t come when called, and are forever on the prowl for their own advantage.
There is one other feature of the feline also characteristic of a Republican, which pro-lifers must confront now that we are forced to work with Republicans as allies. They are heedless allies yet allies, nonetheless. That last feline feature is the timidity, particularly of noise, which sees the cat invariably dart under the bed or out of sight when some sound, sudden, loud or big, comes into the cat’s presence. Let’s be clear, Trent Lott was not speaking of the noble big cats: lions, leopards or jaguars. No, he meant the tame, proud, and timid housecats we love even though we know their love for us is conditional on our giving to them. See the likeness yet?
Since the Dobbs decision, which was more of a Republican half-measure than a major pro-life victory, the pro-abortion media has been blowing up paper bags to smash in places like Ohio, Alabama and Arizona. This has produced the loud, sudden bangs which send our Republican legislators scurrying for the bedroom, with pro-lifers following and, while bending under the bed, saying “There, there, kitty: it’s all right, you can come out now.”
The Alabama IVF decision merely said what every pro-lifer knows and says: Life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg – conception! And we have been saying it for nearly 60 years. Yet our Republican allies seem not to have heard it – even after years of taking our money and votes and giving wooden “I am Pro-Life” statements when their earpiece gives them their consultants’ clearance.
READ: Donald Trump and Kari Lake are dead wrong to defend IVF: here’s why
In Arizona, the media buries facts about abortion and babies as usual. They also give their habitual sneering disdain and shallow soundbites on the issue. The only thing they emphasize is that the pro-life law upheld in Arizona was passed in 1864.
As you know, my fellow rescuers and I are to be sentenced on May 14 and 15 for rescuing in Washington, D.C. We are facing 10 years for violating a “conspiracy” law passed in – 1869! See that anywhere in the media or on Facebook, or on X? Didn’t think so.
READ: Arizona Supreme Court upholds pro-life law banning nearly all abortions
In Arizona, one Republican blathers that “the people should decide” while he reaches for a court to override a law passed by the people’s representatives. It’s babble – inane frightened babble.
On a very serious level, we need to look at how we got saddled with allies who won’t fight. Growing up in the pro-life movement on Long Island (New York) in the 1970s, I had a front row seat on the three-act play of the destruction of a state Republican Party. New York in the 1970s led the way on abortion – legalizing it three years before Roe v. Wade, and the New York law laid the framework for Roe. It was a very hot issue in New York back then while the rest of the nation had not yet awakened to the blood and shattered women that Roe was to give to every state. While there were heroic pro-life Republican legislators in New York in the 1970s and 1980s, they were constantly undermined by their Republican leadership, which ran from the issue while repeating they were “pro-life.” Some years the solid pro-life state senators held up the New York state budget because it contained funding for abortion, but the Republican leadership always caved in the end.
For those who don’t know me, I was involved in Operation Rescue in the 1980s and 1990s and, as such, I was much moved by its foundational text, Proverb 24:11: “Rescue those being dragged to the slaughter.” But, even then, this was not my favorite proverb from the Bible. Immediately preceding the rescue proverb is my favorite, which has been proven true in my lifetime. Proverb 24:10 says, “If you remain indifferent in times of adversity, your strength shall depart from you.”
READ: Kari Lake condemns Arizona abortion ban, calls for ‘immediate’ solution from Democrat Gov. Hobbs
So, today, after years of indifference on the abortion issue, the Republican Party of New York state has the strength and relevance of the Republican Party in the South Carolina of 1860. At least in 1860 the Republican Party in South Carolina had the excuse of being a new political party with principles directly opposed to the great evil of that state. Today, in New York state, where it is legal to kill babies even after birth, the Republican Party has no corresponding principles to this great evil of our state.
I present this as a cautionary tale to what state Republican Parties (listening Ohio, Alabama and Arizona?) can expect if they continue to hide when abortion and the complicit media comes up.
To fed-up pro-lifers I offer the solution of primaries to put forth candidates with the ability to speak on the issue and the courage to act. Some of us have experience in running primaries.
In closing, dear fellow pro-lifers, be gentle, stay calm and comfort your Republicans. For all the recent trend of using cats as emotional support animals, I have always found a cat owner’s fears or serenity has the greatest effect on scaredy cats.
LifeSiteNews’ extensive coverage of the D.C. Face Act trials can be found here.
READ: Trump says Arizona went ‘too far’ in reviving near-total abortion ban, will be ‘straightened out’
Sign the prayer pledge for 9 pro-life rescuers facing a decade in prison.