Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo:
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has waded into the matter of child welfare, and it’s time everyone understood what he means by it.
In his budget proposal, which is the subject of much negotiation this week—the budget is due April 1—Cuomo includes the Child Victims Act. In his State of the State address earlier this year, he voiced support for the Reproductive Freedom Act. Both issues touch on child welfare; they also tell us a great deal about where he stands on this matter.
The Child Victims Act would extend the age by which victims could bring suit; this part of the bill is uncontroversial. The “look-back-window,” however, is very controversial: it would allow a one-year period where a victim could bring suit for being molested at any time in the past. New York State Catholic bishops are opposed to this provision.
Gov. Cuomo says that his support for the “look-back-window” is justified on the basis of protecting minors. In fact, it won’t protect a single child. All it will do is open the door to rapacious anti-Catholic lawyers out to “get the Church” for alleged offenses that took place when Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon.
As I pointed out recently, it is nearly impossible to fairly adjudicate old claims. Besides, Catholic dioceses in New York State have already addressed this issue by instituting a program designed to bring justice to those who were truly abused in the past. Gov. Cuomo knows all of this, yet prefers to grandstand anyway, at the expense of justice to the Catholic Church.
What makes his position on this legislation so odious is his enthusiasm for sacrificing the lives of innocent children in the name of “reproductive rights.” I am not talking about abortion: I am talking about children born alive as a result of a botched abortion. Cuomo says let them die on the physician’s table, unattended by any healthcare professional. Yes, that is what the “Reproductive Freedom Act” permits.
Cuomo is now sanctioning infanticide—the killing of infants. This is not child welfare: it is child abuse in its most grotesque form.
It is said that Gov. Cuomo has presidential ambitions. Once the public learns of his tortured understanding of child welfare, it should be enough to finish him. What he is doing is morally wrong and politically stupid.
