Thread by @StephenHerreid

Right up until #AlfieEvans was born, the Left would insist his mother had the absolute right to choose if he'd live or die.
Now, when she's pleading with the State to let him live, they insist she has no right to choose life.

NEW: My thoughts on #AlfieEvans and the Christian Leaders who ALWAYS leave innocents for dead when the Secular Left attacks:

Let’s name the evil we’re dealing with: What’s happening to #AlfieEvans is SECULAR LEFTISM.
Many folks going "Don't use #Alfie to score political points!" are saying that because they themselves are invested in Leftism to some degree. They're defensive. 1/?

The people saying "Don't use #Alfie for politics" never said that about victims of of gun violence, whom they used—I think incorrectly—to attack gun rights advocates.
2/?

No, insofar as there are identifiable political positions that lead to travesties like the case of #AlfieEvans, it’s legitimate to cite this case in arguments against those political positions. In this case, the political positions in question are those of SECULAR LEFTISM. 3/

Secular Leftism is materialistic. It doesn’t recognize the basic, inherent worth & dignity of a human person.
To a secular leftist, life isn’t the endless adventure of a creature in the image and likeness of God or a call to eternal happiness with your Creator and His Saints. 4/

Secular Leftism says life is just a brief series of sensory experiences, which can either be fun or no fun.
When a PERSON comes along who might not have enough fun in life for his life to be worth living—or who might COST others more fun than he’s worth, Leftism may kill him. 5/

What’s more, with no basic grasp of the dignity that comes from individual human free will, Secular Leftism also has no reason not to let MASSIVE INSTITUTIONS like the STATE take over, and even make those life-or-death decisions FOR us. 6/

Leftism isn’t a tool for Social Justice. It’s an ideology that victimizes the most vulnerable persons in society. That’s why Leftism is always anti-Christian. Church SERVES the "least of these." Leftism uses/discards them, bc it fundamentally rejects idea of WHAT A PERSON IS. 7/

.@jdflynn, tweeted a great quotation from Pope St. John Paul II about this that sums up the problem with secular Leftism's rejection of human personhood. Ghastly stuff! And we have to fight it. As Christians we have a huge responsibility to fight it.👇 8/

External Tweet loading...
If nothing shows, it may have been deleted
by @jdflynn view original on Twitter

When lives are at stake, & they are—not just #Alfie, but anyone the the "World" can get away with victimizing ... part of the responsibility of being a Christian is making sure you don’t put those lives in the hands of untrustworthy, incompetent, or WEAK-WILLED defenders. 9/

Don’t get me wrong—folks can change on a dime with God's grace, but there are some groups and schools of thought that don’t deserve to be entrusted with the future of Christian witness against Secular Leftism. Not fair to victims.

The "Catholic Left" has a BIG problem here. 10/

Many on the Catholic Left like to go after the fiercer members of the pro-life movement (partly bc pro-lifers tend to be SO anti-Secular Leftism) and say “you only care about babies before they’re born! What about migrants, refugees, minorities, the poor, the marginalized?" 11/

Well first of all, as I've explained before (), while all other victim groups have the same HUMAN DIGNITY as the unborn, they’re not as much UNDER THREAT.
It's not socially acceptable, legal, or taxpayer funded to KILL refugees, minorities and the poor. 12/

Anyway #Alfie IS born. IS a refugee. IS a minority (disabled.) IS poor. IS marginalized!
And that evil pro-life movement is ALL UP IN ARMS DEFENDING him.
And what do many Catholic Leftists who attack pro-lifers for only caring "before birth" have to say for Alfie?👇NOTHING: 12/

And too many on the Catholic Left who DO have something to say about #alfie are abysmal failures at taking a clear and unmistakable stand when it comes to defending innocent human life in urgent cases like this. 14/

When Charlie Gard was sentenced to death by European courts, papal biographer and @Crux contributor @austeni sided with the State against Charlie’s family. cruxnow.com/commentary/201… 15/

Ivereigh correctly wrote Church teaches families can decide against further treatment. Then he claimed (with ZERO supporting argument) that the teaching meant doctors and government officials can make that decision FOR a family, & enforce it against the us will if we resist. 16/

#CharlieGard's parents called their doctors “heartless.” @austeni called them “one of the world’s finest and most caring children’s treatment centers.”
He condemned the “grotesquely insulting” claim that Judges wanted Charlie dead. Charlie's own parents said that. 17/

You could say Austen indirectly scolded the outcries of Charlie Gard's parents against the Secular State that killed their son. Despicable. Seems he feels the same ambivalence about #alfie's case. Detestable.

.@AmericaMag also published piece that argued against pro-lifers who “reflexively leapt to the defense of the Gard family.” It’s the “proper role of the state” to “protect the best interests of children," even by “resolving” disputes between parents and state-backed doctors. 19/

#CharlieGard’s advocates “failed to recognize the nuances of Catholic teaching on end-of-life care," the article went on. "When life is valued so highly relative to other goods, its pursuit becomes detrimental.” (?!!) 20/
americamagazine.org/politics-socie…

.@PontAcadLife president @PagliaAbp's initial statement on #CharlieGard muddied the moral waters by talking about the “complexity” of the situation “above all," and endorsed the doctors and judges who he said were “called to decide” Charlie’s fate. 21/

#CharlieGard's “best interests” (by this point already determined by courts to be DEATH) were paramount, Paglia wrote. He repeated the exact words—“best interests of”—used by the judge who originally ruled against the parents’ right to obtain further treatment for the boy. 22/

When it came to #Alfie? True to form, Archbishop Paglia sided with the Judge’s initial ruling against Alfie’s parents in March: (23/)
lifesitenews.com/news/vatican-a…)

Similar statement from the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales was just as weak and amoral. They even went out of their way to defend the HOSPITAL staff against the criticism of the #Alfie’s advocates, instead of defending Alfie against the hospital. 24/ vaticannews.va/en/church/news…

These soft little daisies CANNOT be relied on to defend innocent life in a crisis. Unfair to the innocent to pretend they can be relied on.
They’re missing the point, either intentionally or not, because they won’t look the evil in the face and denounce it: SECULAR LEFTISM 25/

Secular Leftism, the agenda that takes away our freedoms and responsibilities, also takes away our dignity as moral agents. It’s no surprise that when we get universalized State healthcare, we also get a universalized state CONSCIENCE. 26/

Under secular Leftist States, individuals, & voluntary associations like the Church, aren't allowed to make independent choices in providing for their own. Instead, decisions are made according to the “conscience” of the State, which makes a point of being godless and amoral. 27/

Under Secular Leftist States, Nuns aren't allowed to decide against providing abortifacient drugs. Health clinics aren't allowed to decide against advertising abortion. And parents aren't allowed to decide against starving their own child to death. 28/

This isn’t just an academic argument about what’s in the “best interests” of a disabled child. It’s about whether a Secular Leftist State has a right to make that kind of moral decision, and to enforce it against the will of the child’s parents if they resist. #AlfieEvans 29/

And I guess it shouldn’t surprise us that when soldiers come after the "least of these brethren," whom Christ commanded us to treat as Himself, Judas shows up too, to give the innocent victims a little kiss before they’re executed. Remember: not all Apostles are trustworthy. 30/

It’s up to Catholic anti-Secular-Leftists in this still-relatively-free nation to name, understand, & act against this deadly ideology.
Can’t forget the lessons from UK, #CharlieGard, & #Alfie.
We have to remember them in our prayers, in our activism, and, yes, when we vote. 31/

Again, since it’s ALWAYS the “least of these,” the helpless and the weak, who end up in the crosshairs, being a Christian is a huge responsibility.
#AlfieEvans #CharlieGard
END OF THREAD