“Don’t worry, it’ll be painless,” I remember my mother saying, “He’ll be made comfortable and gently drift off.” I loved Bennie. I didn’t want him to be put down.

Sure, I knew he couldn’t run around and play anymore, but I also know I could hold him and tell stories to him. Mom talked to me about the cost and the burden and the enormous stress Bennie was placing on the family in his state. “It’s for the best,” she said. “Best for him, too.” The man in the white coat nodded.

Everything in me said that putting Bennie to sleep was wrong. I cried. Then I pleaded. I even screamed. But what more could I do? I think Bennie knew what was going to happen. His eyes were sad and scared. Very scared.

I kissed him one more time before the white coats pulled him away.

“I love you, baby brother.”

The Road We’re On

As assuredly as the day turns to night, this is the road we are now on, but not for dogs. For people. This is the course being chosen. Disabled children — and adults — are getting put down like pets. A destination where life and death are determined by desire and efficiency. The logical conclusion of the abortion legislation being proposed and praised and applauded is the euthanizing of any human deemed a burden. Burden to a family … or burden to the State.

Last week, the Senate to its eternal shame voted down the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. States from New York to Arizona, Virginia to Illinois are rushing to make infanticide a fundamental right.

A child in the womb has no rights. A child that survives an abortion gets no protection. Life or death is at the whim of the mother and doctor. A child living and breathing outside the womb. But just not wanted. Father Frank Pavone, in condemning the Illinois effort cries, there is “No rational basis for this.”

Oh, but there is, there is. The rational basis is that humans are no different than animals. And as long as we’re not an endangered species, we can do what we want with this newborn animal. It … and the creature is an ‘it” … has no unalienable right to existence.

You’ve read the Declaration of Independence. Meet the Declaration of Infanticide. You have no life, no liberty, no chance at happiness … until we endow you with it. (Offer can expire at any time.)

Socialized Medicine’s Unnatural Selection

Sure, we can say this is about just abortion. We can note that every Democrat who voted against the act enjoys funding from Planned Parenthood. However, we cannot separate the rush to encode infanticide into law from the call for Medicare-for-All. The rights of the individual are secondary to the wishes of others.

In a government-controlled medical system, who is boss? Where is the individual and the sacredness of life? In England, we experienced the horrible saga of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans, refused experimental treatments the families’ wanted. Instead made to die.

During Alfie’s fight for life, The Stream‘s John Zmirak asked, “How many years before the same medical ‘ethicists’ who deny little Alfie food and water decide that the same principle applies to all handicapped children?” I would add “How many years before the same mothers who deny life to a child even once out of the womb decide that same principle applies to all handicapped children?”

Already, where we would hope to see a right to life, we see an obligation to die. The mission creep of assisted suicide. Instead of agonizing and hopeless medical conditions, now we see simple “emotional distress” as enough reason to allow the suicide. So pressure is brought to bear on patients to end their lives. In 2017, Dr. Brian Callister reported cases where insurance companies denied treatment to patients, but were willing to pay for assisted suicide. The Daily Caller News Foundation profiled a couple more cases.

But that’s private insurance, right? I’m talking about a mindset. An we know that under single-payer, government-controlled health care, the end result is rationed care. Or as Sarah Palin so famously put it, “death panels.” We know, because Barack Obama’s adviser on Obamacare Ezekial Emanuel told us so. When money starts getting tight with the government-controlled system, the elderly and the young who could not provide value would be denied.

Writing in Forbes, Paul H. Sieh summarized Dr. Emanuel’s 2009 article “Principles for Allocation of Scarce Medical Interventions.”

Dr. Emanuel proposes rationing based on a combination of factors including patient age, expected “quality adjusted life years,” and the patient’s “instrumental value” to “society.” Given that the government would be making (and paying for) these rationing decisions, value to “society” will become “value as determined by the government.”

When Does a Human Get Rights?

No matter what word-games the infanticidists use — for example, calling a living baby outside the womb a “fetus” as The Stream‘s Liberty McArtor noted — this human being has no rights. So, when do the rights begin? What difference is there making that baby comfortable and letting him die and a child similarly unwanted (or too burdensome) an hour older? A day older? A week older? A year older? Five years older?

At the other end of life’s journey, what’s to stop a care-giver, someone with legal responsibility for an elderly person, from simply deciding today’s the day they die? All the excuses that apply to allowing the infanticide are at play. A choice between the responsible party and a doctor, deciding death of people in their charge on factors as fragile as “emotional stress.”

Today Planned Parenthood calls on women to “Shout Your Abortion.” Next step, “Shout Your Infanticide.” How soon do we hear the calls to “Shout Your Patricide”?

Our Responsibility

We who hold that God knits together each life in the womb, that each is precious in His sight, that from conception we are talking about an individual human being need to be in prayer and on the streets. Fighting the demon-filled death-mania possessing our legislators and Democratic leaders with every fiber. This is spiritual warfare.

Even if you are not so keen on the God talk, are you not still keen on the Declaration of Independence? This is political warfare.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” — no one is without value.

“That they are endowed by their Creator … “ — given us as surely as a heart and brain.

“… with certain unalienable rights.” — our rights do not come from our mother or her doctor or a panel of government functionaries. Rights unable to be taken away from by anybody.

“… that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” From first conception to final breath.

Either we fight, or America’s foundation will be put to sleep .. and not just our infirm and inconvenient.

Al Perrotta is Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. Follow him at @StreamingAl. If you like this article or anything we do at The Stream, please consider a tax-deductible donation.