Leadership Quote by Robert Casey

“Life has become very cheap” is the kind of moral inflation claim that politicians love because it turns a policy argument into a cultural diagnosis. Robert Casey isn’t just opposing abortion rights; he’s sketching a story about national decline, where a legal framework (“abortion on demand”) supposedly remakes the emotional weather of the country. The phrasing does two strategic things at once: it sidesteps the messy particulars of pregnancy by elevating the stakes to civilization-level consequence, and it casts the speaker as a sober judge (“in my judgment”) rather than a partisan combatant.

The intent is to reframe abortion from a question of autonomy and medical care into a referendum on what the nation values. “On demand” is doing a lot of work: it implies casualness, consumer entitlement, and moral frivolity, a rhetorical move that nudges the listener to imagine the decision as impulsive rather than complex. Then “environment” broadens the charge. It’s not merely that abortions occur; it’s that the permission corrodes society, making violence, neglect, or indifference more likely. That’s a slippery claim by design: hard to measure, easy to feel.

Context matters. Casey, a prominent Democratic governor in a party moving toward abortion rights orthodoxy, often used this language to claim moral seriousness without sounding like the religious right. He positions himself as the responsible dissenter: still modern, still public-minded, but unwilling to accept what he frames as a cultural bargain where compassion for women is purchased by numbing the public conscience. The line works because it’s an accusation that doesn’t need proof; it recruits anxiety as evidence.