Thomas Hughes – 4/13/16

This page was last updated on April 30, 2016.

Abortion and gay rights steal focus from real issues; Thomas Hughes; Beaver County Times; April 13, 2016.

If you’re not familiar with Mr. Hughes, he’s a flamethrower. In a 2015 letter-to-the-editor, Mr. Hughes said he was 60 years old. The only previous Hughes letter I reviewed was “It’s time to replace the professional politicians.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“All you read in the news papers [sic] is our government wasting money listening to topics like abortion and gay rights. Do you have the right to have an abortion? Yes. Do you have the right to be gay? Yes. Our federal government was not established to listen to this nonsense.”

[RWC] Mr. Hughes needs to expand his sources of news if “All … [he reads] in the news papers [sic] is our government wasting money listening to topics like abortion and gay rights.”

I don’t get people who not only don’t bat an eye at doctors and mothers killing unborn children for convenience, but also vigorously defend it as the mother’s “right.”

Perhaps Mr. Hughes believes as then-Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) during his 2008 campaign to be President. When speaking about abortion and his daughters, Mr. Obama said, “but if they [Obama’s daughters] make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16.” I don’t know about Mr. Obama’s upbringing, but I never learned babies were punishment or comparable to an STD.

“Our federal government is supposed to protect us, keep the country safe and build America to be great. I really don’t know how abortion and gay rights became a federal problem. This is supposed to be a free country. Abortion is a women’s [sic] right. Agree or disagree, it’s still her right. It’s called freedom of choice. Gay people have the same right. Agree or disagree, it’s still their right. It’s called freedom of choice. Government should have nothing to with it.”

[RWC] This is a good place to remember the preamble of the U.S. Constitution.

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Note: The word “Justice” as used in the Constitution refers to its traditional definition as “the process or result of using laws to fairly judge and punish crimes and criminals.” It has no relation to the definition used by modern day leftists in terms like “economic justice,” “social justice,” etc.

If by “Our federal government is supposed to protect us, keep the country safe” Mr. Hughes means “provide for the common defence,” I agree.

On the other hand, nowhere in the Constitution does it state a role of “Our federal government” is to “build America to be great.” That responsibility is reserved for “We the People.”

I don’t get how the same people who so passionately believe unborn babies don’t have a right to life can so passionately lobby for the “right” of men to use the same restroom as women and little girls.

“People do a lot of things I don’t like, but it’s not the governments [sic] problem. Gun violence is at a record high, school shooting [sic] are happening every day and the only problem we see is abortions and gay rights problems? Really?”

[RWC] Here’s an excerpt from Hillary Clinton’s interview on Meet the Press of April 3, 2016.

Chuck Todd: “When, or if, does an unborn child have constitutional rights?”

Hillary Clinton: “Well, under our laws currently, that is not something that exists. The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights. Now, that doesn’t mean that we don’t do everything we possibly can, in the vast majority of instances to, you know, help a mother who is carrying a child and wants to make sure that child will be healthy, to have appropriate medical support.”

For argument’s sake, let’s accept Mrs. Clinton’s opinion that “The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.” Where is the indignation? Why doesn’t Mrs. Clinton claim it’s a travesty the Constitution doesn’t cover the most vulnerable of us and assert we need an amendment to correct that failing?

In Mrs. Clinton’s world, though “It takes a village to raise a child,” it takes only one to kill an unborn child and that’s okay. It seems odd the same people who claim a child has a “right” to “free” education and so on also claim the same child does not have a right to live to get that “right” to “free” education and so on.

According to the Fifth Amendment, “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

Are we to believe a Yale Law School graduate doesn’t know the Fifth Amendment says “person” without qualification?

According to Section 1 of the 14th Amendment, “… No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Are we to believe a Yale Law School graduate doesn’t know Section 1 of the 14th Amendment covers “any person” without qualification?

In fairness, Mrs. Clinton may be thinking of the Roe v. Wade case. To grant the right of a mother to have her unborn child killed, Justice Harry Blackmun – the opinion’s author - first had to determine how to claim an unborn child was not a person. After all, if an unborn child is determined to be a person, Roe v. Wade would have been dead on arrival (no pun intended).

If an unborn child is not a “person,” how can someone be charged with her/his murder? The National Conference of State Legislatures claims “at least 38 states have fetal homicide laws.” According to Wikipedia, “The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law which recognizes a child in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines ‘child in utero’ as ‘a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.’”

This was not the first time Mrs. Clinton got in trouble for getting off message. Back in November, Mrs. Clinton got into trouble when she accidently referred to illegal aliens as “illegal immigrants.” Mrs. Clinton apologized for language the Dream Action Coalition found “offensive and dismissive.”