Whose Life is Worth Living?

Photo Credit: Adam Schultz/White House

President Joe Biden walks to the Oval Office with President-elect Donald Trump, Nov. 13, 2024.

Lexis Roberts was 12-years-old when Thomas Sanders shot her four times and cut her throat, four days after he murdered her mother on a road trip near the Grand Canyon. The cold-blooded murderer was on federal death row until President Biden commuted his sentence two weeks ago. Sanders was one of 37 out of 40 violent murderers to have his execution signed away with the stroke of a pen.

While other news events have since eclipsed this outrage, including the terrorist who mowed down New Year’s revelers in New Orleans, it is important to recognize the political and ideological milieu that led to Biden’s decision. And equally important to consider its effects.

The lame-duck president was under pressure from fellow Democrats, such as Senator Chris Coons, who had strongly encouraged the president to commute federal death penalty sentences. Biden also bowed to the wishes of Pope Francis, who had shortly beforehand advocated for the commutation of sentences of “inmates on death row in the United States.”

Neither the pope nor Democratic activists seemed to advocate for the families of the victims. Heather Turner, whose mother Donna Major was murdered in a 2017 bank robbery by one of the pardoned killers, wrote, “Joe Biden’s decision is a clear gross abuse of power. He, and his supporters, have blood on their hands.”

President-elect Trump denounced both Biden and the criminals. In a statement, Trump condemned the move as an “abhorrent decision” that benefitted those “among the worst killers in the world.” His spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “President Trump stands for the rule of law, which will return when he is back in the White House after he was elected with a massive mandate from the American people.”

Coddling the perpetrator at the expense of the victim is nothing new among leftist ideologues. Biden’s act of clemency is just another fulfillment of the woke wishlist that promotes its version of a death culture – from soft on crime laws, promoting illegal migration with no vetting, abortion on demand, even supporting physician-assisted suicide. Indeed, a CloudResearch poll found that 28% of people who identified as liberal supported Luigi Mangione’s assassinating the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, compared to 5% of conservatives.

Not all Democrats back all these policies. But the very fact that these policies are supported by a large contingent of Progressive Democrats, without vocal pushback from the rest, is indicative of acquiescence. Pardoning the death sentences of murderers is one of Biden’s final acts of progressive bravado on his way out.

Perhaps the most twisted logic of all, and the one that most undermines the premium put on the value of life by supporters of Judeo-Christian beliefs, is the antisemitism that has taken over large swaths of the Democratic Party. The aftermath of October 7 laid bare the warped conviction of leftist Democrats that, where the value of life is concerned, the innocent is guilty and the guilty is innocent.

Blaming Israel for daring to defend themselves against enemies bent on their eradication and siding with brutal murderers who hide behind human shields would have been bad enough if it was confined to the Middle East. However, with calls to “globalize the intifada”, leftists broadened Israel’s existential battle to include Jews worldwide.

In the U.S., this translated into Democrats tolerating and supporting outright antisemitism in universities, K-12 schools, the media, and on the streets. It is the reason why a week ago Broward County Rep. Hillary Cassel announced her decision to leave the Democrats and join the GOP. In a post on X, Cassel wrote, “As a proud Jewish woman, I have been increasingly troubled by the Democratic Party’s failure to unequivocally support Israel and its willingness to tolerate extreme progressive voices that justify or condone acts of terrorism.

It is also why renowned attorney and lifelong Democrat Alan Dershowitz left the Democratic Party in September. He announced his departure after what he called the “most anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Zionist convention” he has experienced.

Antisemites twist themselves into a logistical pretzel accusing Israel of genocide while yelling “We are all Hamas,” and exonerating the actual genocide perpetrated against Jews. Too many Democrats subscribe to this Jew-hatred, despite the IDF placing a premium on life to the extent that it does the most of any military historically to spare innocent civilians and provide humanitarian aid to the enemy.

Determining the value of life is a question of moral relativism on the left. Whether life is sanctified or not depends on whose life it is.

It is interesting to note that Senator Coons, who was so influential in Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of death row inmates, was quick to call for conditioning U.S. aid to Israel last winter. He said, “If Benjamin Netanyahu were to order the [IDF] into Rafah at scale…and send in a battalion to go after Hamas and make no provision for civilians or for humanitarian aid, then I would vote to condition aid to Israel.”

Equally ironic is the fact that Pope Francis, who publicly asked for everyone to “pray” for the commutation of the sentences of U.S. prisoners on death row, is the same pope who suggested that Israel committed genocide in Gaza and called Israeli airstrikes in Gaza “cruelty.”

No where is the absence of absolute rights and wrongs more dangerous than in the realm of life itself. A corruption of which gave us an administration that pardoned ruthless murderers while allowing anti-Israel protestors in New York City to chant “New year’s resolution: Intifada revolution,” hours after the New Orleans ISIS terrorist attack. It gave us an administration that welcomed an illegal migrant who burned a woman alive on a Brooklyn subway and prosecuted a vigilante like Daniel Penny who tried to save innocent lives from a madman on another subway.

What an obvious illustration of the famous midrash that states, “Anyone who becomes merciful to the cruel will end by being cruel to the merciful”. And what a relief that it is coming to an end.

January 20 can’t come soon enough.