Barack Obama & Abortion
Or: Why Obama Would Be the Most Extreme Abortion Rights President In History Obama and abortion. I've been tossing this around in my head since last fall, thinking about how I wanted to bring it up. Then yesterday I read a feature article on MSNBC.com about how Obama is trying to woo evangelical Christian voters, and that did the trick. Obama has talked for some time about how he wants the Christian vote to move to the Democrats so this is nothing new, but now that it's down to him versus McCain the positioning has become more pronounced, so it's time for me to blog. First, I want to talk about the church and abortion. Sometimes I think we Christians lose sight of just how much the abortion issue matters. 20 years ago it was if not the most important issue to most Christian voters it was certainly near the top. But that has changed in recent times. With the focus on relevance, the emerging church, and a post-modern mindset seeping into the pews there has been a subtle but pronounced shift in the church's attitude towards abortion. We're now more concerned about not being percieved as our father's Christian - we don't want to be reactionary or unenlightened. we want to be relevant and modern. There is some validity to those sentiments. And yes, issues like the environment and the war are important. But at the same time some values should never lose their importance or their urgency. And unfortunately more and more today we are abandoning those who need us the most, while our vote is swayed by other voices. Opposing abortion has become passe - commentators are saying it's what evangelicals did in the 80's and the 90's, but today we've "moved on." We fall for the "you can't legislate morality" fallacy and find ourselves using the term "choice" to describe the abortion issue, just as the abortion lobby in the country has worked to program us to do. We have allowed the holocaust that is the abortion industry to continue on its merry way and let the most innocent and defenseless among us be slaughtered in the name of convenience, fear, and, yes, "choice." I'm all for the church not being known for its politics (right or left), and I'm all for the church not being ignorantly stereotyped, but all of that should never be reason for us to abandon causes that are truly principled, especially when it comes to actual life and death matters. In such things I will gladly accept a stereotype, just as Christians who hid Jews from the Nazi's should be proud of that kind of label. Jesus said the world will hate us, and in cases like this it should be both understandable and expected, not dodged or shunk away from regardless of how unpopular it may be.
I'm not saying we should be one issue voters. but how can abortion not be one of the most serious matters to us as Christians who do vote? How can we vote our self interests in so many other ways but not the single most vital issue for the innocent who do not have a vote - the right to live? We shudder and rage when we hear about how a lunatic murders a pregnant woman and kills the fetus inside of her on purpose - that's a double murder in the eyes of our legal system - but as long as the woman herself chooses to do it it's okay? What kind of insanity and schitzophrenia is this? And while we may not want to be single issue voters, it has to in the very least disturb us to our core that a man with the record that Obama does on abortion wants to be our president where he will then be able to appoint Supreme Court justices that share his views. On a side note, have you heard that he may have cut a deal with Hillary Clinton to appoint her to the Supreme Court, as part of her being willing to drop out of the race and endorse his candidacy? That's unconfirmed and could change, but the thought of the possibility alone is enough to give me nightmares. That'd be worse than her in the White House; at least that would only last eight years. So, what exactly does Obama's record on abortion say? Let's take a look. NARAL endorses Obama. They picked him over Hillary, which was a huge controversy at the time, since Hillary has always been extremely friendly with abortion activists, and she's also a woman. But NARAL liked Obama, enough to spurn Hillary and many of her feminist supporters. NARAL has given Obama a 100% vote rating each of the past three years. 100%. That means Obama has never once voted in a manner that disagrees with the agenda of the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. Not once. Partial Birth Abortion. When the Supreme Court finally banned partial birth abortion, Obama had this to say: "I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women." In Illinois Obama voted against SB 230 which would've banned partial birth abortions, and voted in 2000 against banning state funding of them, even though they contained an exception for the life of the mother. Ah, yes, the Supreme Court. Obama voted against the confirmation of both Roberts and Alito - the two superb new justices appointed by Bush that tilted the court enough to actually outlaw partial birth abortion. There is no more politically important matter in the fight against abortion in Supreme Court justices. In this matter President Bush has been superb in his choices. Obama, on the other hand, would appoint extreme liberal judges, the likes of which voted against the partial birth abortion ban. Obama has stated that he admires Justices Breyer, Souter, and Ginsburg, the three most liberal members of the court. Given the chance, Obama will tilt the court back in favor of partial birth abortions. Induced Infant Liability Act / Born Alive Infants' Protection Act (IILA/BAIPA): In 2002 as an Illinois legislator Obama voted against IILA, which would've protected the life of a baby who survived an abortion. Most babies are torn apart in the uterus and the pieces are removed via suction, but late term abortions usually involve some sort of poisoning of the baby and then induced labor on the mother; only sometimes the baby in question does not die. This bill would've protected that child's life once it was outside the womb, alive. The same year the US congress passed BAIPA, a similar bill. The House passed it unanimously and the Senate passed it with only 15 "no" votes against it. This was a bill that even NARAL did not oppose! But Obama voted against the bill in the Illinois senate, voting "present" once and "no" another time.
Let's be clear - Obama plainly voted against a bill that would've protected the life of a baby who survives an abortion.
Living baby + outside womb + killing that baby = infanticide. Do the math. Jill Stanek, a supporter of the Illinois bill, argued for its passage, but Obama would not relent: At the end of the hearing, according to the official records of the Illinois State senate, Obama thanked Stanek for being “very clear and forthright,” but said his concern was that Stanek had suggested “doctors really don’t care about children who are being born with a reasonable prospect of life because they are so locked into their pro-abortion views that they would watch an infant that is viable die.” He told her, “That may be your assessment, and I don’t see any evidence of that. What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.”
Babies as "punishment": Obama stated, "Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old," he said. "I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at age 16, so it doesn't make sense to not give them information."
Note the sequence of events he describes - if they make a mistake, then I don't want them to be punished with a baby. Michelle Obama and Partial Birth Abortion: "In February 2004, U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama's wife, Michelle, sent a fund-raising letter with the "alarming news" that "right-wing politicians" had passed a law stopping doctors from stabbing half-born babies in the neck with scissors, suctioning out their brains and crushing their skulls. Michelle called partial-birth abortion "a legitimate medical procedure," and wouldn't supporters please pay $150 to attend a luncheon for her husband, who would fight against "cynical ploy[s]" to stop it?" [link] The Bottom Line: Obama wants the support of evangelical Christians, and so this Christian is going to weigh him based upon his actual record and not just his rhetoric and charisma. And what I see is on the matter of abortion and innocent life, Obama is grotesquely off-base, and that is putting it kindly. This man claims to be a new kind of politician. He wants to put divisive politics behind us. He says he's against the politics of personal destruction. He says he stands for hope and for change. He says he wants to unify the country. The hard truth - a truth that too many of those considering supporting him are blindly ignoring - is that Obama's kind of unity only exists when we fall lockstep behind his extreme liberalism. The hope and change he speaks of are merely implementation of his liberal policies and ideology under the guise of a gentle, smiling presentation. He talks a good game and says the right buzzwords, but what he actually stands for is clear liberalism that is no different or better than Gore, Hillary, or Kerry. How can I, as a Christian, unify behind the ideology and voting record of a man with so little regard for the lives of innocent babies? This goes well beyond simple pro-choice vs. pro-life arguments. I can willingly agree to disagree with a pro-choice voter who does not see an embryo as a human life. I disagree, but I can understand why someone who does not share my worldview would not see the matter in the same way so early in a pregnancy. But when you are talking about babies who are viable outside of the womb, when you are talking about the vile procedure of partial birth abortion, and when you are even talking about BAIPA and babies who survive an abortion only to be then killed outside of the mother's womb, I cannot and will not ever unify behind a man who supports such things. I couldn't do it even if I wasn't a Christian. But even more so as a Christian, I can not support a candidate who is so blatantly willing to allow for the destruction of the most innocent of God's creations. Furthermore, I will not support the candidacy of a person who is so intellectually dim that they either fall for or hide behind the "woman's choice" argument/propoganda even in extreme cases like BAIPA babies. I find no "hope" in that kind of worldview, and that is the last kind of "change" that I want to see anywhere in the world. Each person has to make up their own mind how they will vote and what importance they will place upon issues like abortion. I would hope that when considering our vote we would do it with open eyes and a clear mind, and a conscience that remembers our responsibility to the unborn. Obama has surrounded his IILA votes with more rhetoric and excuses, cloaked in the guise of reluctance and sadness. Such talk is just noise - what matters is the vote. He can talk all he wants, but it doesn't change any of his anti-life votes. When push comes to shove, Obama does not stand up for the lives of aborted babies, no matter how old or viable, inside or outside the womb. And no excuse that he could ever possibly give will be good enough to explain that away. Wall-E
On a side note, I saw Wall-E today.
I loved it. I was totally enchanted and it was exquisitely told. Is it
even possible for Pixar to make a bad movie? I don't think it is.
Here's how I'd currently rank the Pixar flicks, in order of how much I
like them:
Toy Story 2
Finding Nemo
Toy Story
The Incredibles
Wall-E
Ratatouille
Cars
Monsters Inc
A Bug's Life Starbucks
They're closing 600 stores. Wow. Guess you might actually have to walk around the corner or across the street now for your latte. Horrors!
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