Remember the waterboarding scandal of 2013 that so outraged progressives? 

After learning about post-9/11 tactics against mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others, progressives went crazy with condemnation of CIA methods to obtain information about the attack.

Even the clergy got in on the act. 

The Rev. Richard L. Killmer, who appears to have a permanent bully pulpit installed at the Huffington Post, is described by that publication as "a Presbyterian minister and the Founding Executive Director of the National Religion Campaign Against Torture, an organization representing more than 320 religious organizations and tens of thousands of Americans of faith committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture forever."  (Italics mine.)  The reverend wrote an emotional plea for the release of the torture report.  

Even Vice President Joe Biden was cited as agreeing that to "excise the demons" required knowing the truth about post-9/11 torture.

Killmer wrote:

Biden's words echo the fear that we in the faith community have if the truth about torture isn't revealed to the public. The United States has a history of providing important moral leadership in many areas. But by shrouding our tortured past in secret, we endanger both our country's moral legacy and our national security.

Only by admitting the reality of our own sins can we then resolve never to repeat them. The American people deserve to know the truth about torture and to understand how government leaders came to believe that torture was an acceptable policy.

Doubtless the debate about the ethics of waterboarding suspected or actual terrorists will continue to be fierce. 

But there are worse tortures being perpetrated right here on U.S. soil – tortures that make the heart sick, tortures still unknown to the majority of Americans because of media inattentiveness and the lack of outrage from well-known progressive leaders.

When it comes to the recent exposure of the torture of babies and the sale of their body parts by Planned Parenthood, search as one might, words of fiery anger from progressives, especially from those who have been so quick to question the methods of the CIA toward terrorists, are difficult if not impossible to find.  As far as one can discern, Reverend Killmer, Vice President Joe Biden, and former president Jimmy Carter, who also has spoken about the erosion of America's moral authority when it comes to human rights issues, have remained pretty quiet.  For instance, did anyone hear Carter speak out about the atrocities of Planned Parenthood in his latest press interview?

But what the Planned Parenthood videos have revealed has done more by far to weaken America's moral authority than the CIA's waterboarding of terrorists.  The revelations mean we in the USA have no moral standing from which we can say anything about human rights.  Until we get our own house in order and stop the sickening actions of America's top abortion mill, which is committed to selling harvested organs of babies, we don't have much to say about other countries' human rights violations.

For years and years, progressives – justifiably! – have championed the Falun Gong, a group that is severely persecuted in China.  Well-substantiated reports have revealed that members of the group have been used to donate organs against their will. 

Peter Worthington, writing in 2012 for the aforementioned Huffington Post, railed against China's one child policy.  He also mentions the open secret that Falun Gong members are being jailed and then used for organ harvesting.

Mr. Worthington cites USA Today's in-depth report on China's one-child enforcement measures, actions that include kidnapping and forced abortions.  He writes (italics mine), "These are beyond the imagination of western cultures, but are in accordance with China's view of reality[.] ... [O]ne-child families are a cornerstone to the country's ambitions. International awareness has forced discretion on some of China's actions."

Think about this: the series of undercover Planned Parenthood videos has exposed mind-numbing atrocities – brutalities worthy of ISIS or the Nazis.  American citizens are using the equivalent of poultry shears to cut through a living baby's face to harvest its brain.  They are discussing over wine and salad the price of baby body parts.  They are advocating ways to deliver aborted babies intact, the better to harvest their thymuses, kidneys, spines, and brains.

Just what right do progressives, including those high in our country's administration, have to rebuke China for their actions, actions similar to Planned Parenthood's?  What moral authority does the left invoke in order to persuade China to stop harvesting organs from Falun Gong, Christians, and other political and religious dissidents?  What belief system can be invoked in order that China is pressured to stop doing forced abortions as late as eight months into a pregnancy?

The answer to those questions is this: progressives have no moral grounds for rebuking China for its human rights policies, because they essentially advocate the same policies right here in our own country.  Planned Parenthood is the latest case example.

In sum, under progressivism, America has lost its moral authority where advocacy of human rights, including the right to life, is concerned.  What authority is the ground for rebuke when any given morality is equal to another?  Who is going to be morally outraged when everyone is a god or goddess who is infallibly right in his or her own eyes?  What progressive can rail against China's human rights policies when he/she does not believe that the unborn child is a human being? 

Progressives suffer from moral paralysis.  They can't and won't rebuke Planned Parenthood, at least not effectively.

If there is to be rebuke, it must come from people who are committed to views that are the opposite of progressivism.  Moral rebuke will never come from the left, which is now completely committed to the eradication of what it truly means to be a moral human being.  It must come from people of faith – Christians, orthodox Jews and Catholics, and other conservative denominations.  It would be a positive development, for instance, if the current pope were to speak out against the barbarities of Planned Parenthood.  

But exposure and rebuke in every way possible must continue, else the barbarians will multiply, and their atrocities will accelerate exponentially and inexorably.