My Obama problem
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The presidential election is less than two weeks away, and I still don't know who I am voting for - or even whether I'll be voting. I've struggled with whether to bring this up in a public way on my blog. But a civic forum at Duke Divinity School a couple of nights ago convinced me that I should, and so I am asking for your help.
Please read the following with an open mind (even if you don't agree with me on the issue in question). And if you can help me to reason through this, I would greatly appreciate it. Let me also say that I am revealing a lot more of my political views than I would normally do in so public a setting, so please take that into account if you choose to respond.
My Obama problem is with the issue of abortion. I am a pro-vita Christian, which means that I am ardently pro-life in all of the social/moral issues that tend to confront us. (In this blog post last year, I proposed the term 'pro-vita' as a way to identify those Christians who are both anti-abortion and anti-death penalty, issues that typically divide liberals and conservatives. I would also add an extreme reluctance to engage in war, which I understand to be the very minimum in Jesus' admonition, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Maybe that just makes me Catholic. Whatever.)
During my time as a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I was converted to the anti-death penalty position and demonstrated publicly against it in Nashville. I have been generally pro-life on the abortion issue for many years, but during my time at Duke, this fairly passive pro-life position has been transformed so that I view the abortion issue as indicative of the whole Christian view on the sanctity of life (That is, I tend to think that Christians who rather blithely describe themselves as pro-choice are either: a) unreflective regarding the doctrine of creation; or b) simply inconsistent in their Christian self-understanding due usually to an idolatrous loyalty to the radical privatization of American individualism and the consumerist commodification of all things, including babies).
For what it's worth, I am grateful to both Vanderbilt and Duke for the impacts they have had on me regarding issues of life, and I think it the particular ways they influenced me are a testament to those schools' particular strengths.
Here's how I understand my Obama problem. As a Christian, I see one of the greatest duties of politics as the amelioration of suffering for the citizens of the body politic. (A more optimistic view might say that politics should promote the flourishing of life, but my understanding of the pervasiveness of sin is too great to allow me to make such a statement.) At this point in history, it seems like the Democrats are poised to be much more effective than the Republicans at this task. For one, I think the legacy of the Bush administration (and the complicity of the pre-2006 Republican Congress in its policies) discredits the Republican Party generally. And secondly, I find the McCain/Palin campaign's proposals to help us recover (from war, from economic disaster, from environmental degradation) to be fairly unconvincing.
On the contrary, I think the Democrats are more in touch with some of our pressing problems, including healthcare, the environment, the economy, and U.S. relationships with other nations. Plus, I like Obama. True, I wish he had more national political experience. But I think he reasons well (one of the greatest political skills required of a president), and I think he will surround himself with those who can help make up for some of his areas of inexperience (e.g., his selection of Joe Biden to bolster his understanding of foreign policy). You can go down the list of issues, and in this election at least, I will check off with the Democrats on just about every issue - save one.
But that one is a big one. Depending on whether you go with the CDC or the Guttmacher Institute figures, there are between 850,000 and 1.3 million abortions in the United States each year. And if you regard each one of those abortions as the taking of human life in a way that transgresses the law of love as given to us by Christ, then the issue of abortion looms at least as large as any other single political issue. At the civic forum at Duke earlier this week, one of the professors present said that the interaction between secular politics and the church should work to make both spheres more aware of the outcast and marginalized among us, to the end that they are seen as human beings. I tend to agree with that statement, especially as it relates to the most marginalized persons among us - those in the womb, who are so defenseless that they cannot even cry out in anguish.
The reason this becomes a very pressing issue in this election has everything to do with the Supreme Court. The Court's two oldest members are among its most liberal - John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If they retire in the next four years (and it seems almost certain that Stevens will), and they are replaced with conservatives, it could be mean the end of Roe v. Wade and the return of the moral debate around abortion to state legislatures, where it belongs. There the witness of Christians can actually make a difference in the fight for life (in the legal realm).
[On the likelihood of the next president having the opportunity to appoint several justices to the Supreme Court, see this NY Times editorial. The Times is clearly not where I am on the issue of Roe v. Wade, but I agree with it on the point that the next president may have a significant impact on the direction of the court for years to come. For the record, the attitude of the most conservative justices on the Court on the issue habeas corpus has been extremely troubling to me, as we have seen in the legal twilight zone surrounding the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. In June, the Court upheld habeas corpus for enemy combatants, indicating that it viewed the right to habeas corpus to be universal rather than just confined to U.S. citizens. I agree with that opinion, the passage of which - admittedly - was dependent upon the Court's liberal members.]
In the prospect of judicial appointments lies the real issue, for me, because Obama would probably be the most ardently pro-choice president we have ever had. (For a general op-ed piece on Obama's extreme pro-choice position, see this Michael Gerson column.) Obama's role opposing the Born-Alive Act in the Illinois State Legislature in 2002 and 2003 is generally well-known, but if you aren't aware of it, read this good article written by Robert George and Yuval Levin. It is a shocking story, told with factual detail.
George and Levin explain Obama's opposition to the proposed Born-Alive Act while he was a state senator in Illinois:
"As his original 2002 statements [in the Illinois State Legislature] make clear, [Obama] sought to defeat the Born-Alive Act because he recognized that it bears at least implicitly on the larger question of abortion in America. He seemed to realize that the logical implication of protecting the child born alive after an attempted abortion is that abortion involves taking the life of a child in the womb, and that acknowledging that, even at the extreme margins of the practice of abortion, could put the legitimacy of abortion itself in question. Therefore, Obama chose to defend the widest possible scope for legal abortion by building a fence around it, even if that meant permitting a child who survives an abortion to be left to die without even being afforded basic comfort care."
John McCain might well replace Justices Stevens and Ginsburg with judges who would rightly see Roe v. Wade as a perversion of the U.S. Constitution (though I admit that is not a foregone conclusion). Obama, on the other hand, would almost certainly replace them with justices at least as liberal as they are. That means that the 2008-2012 period stands as particularly monumental in the history of the abortion issue in this country. And if you think the saving of so many human lives is of paramount importance, that has to impact how you view this election.
And that's what has got me in a quandry. I welcome your comments (and advice).
Please read the following with an open mind (even if you don't agree with me on the issue in question). And if you can help me to reason through this, I would greatly appreciate it. Let me also say that I am revealing a lot more of my political views than I would normally do in so public a setting, so please take that into account if you choose to respond.
My Obama problem is with the issue of abortion. I am a pro-vita Christian, which means that I am ardently pro-life in all of the social/moral issues that tend to confront us. (In this blog post last year, I proposed the term 'pro-vita' as a way to identify those Christians who are both anti-abortion and anti-death penalty, issues that typically divide liberals and conservatives. I would also add an extreme reluctance to engage in war, which I understand to be the very minimum in Jesus' admonition, "Blessed are the peacemakers." Maybe that just makes me Catholic. Whatever.)
During my time as a student at Vanderbilt Divinity School, I was converted to the anti-death penalty position and demonstrated publicly against it in Nashville. I have been generally pro-life on the abortion issue for many years, but during my time at Duke, this fairly passive pro-life position has been transformed so that I view the abortion issue as indicative of the whole Christian view on the sanctity of life (That is, I tend to think that Christians who rather blithely describe themselves as pro-choice are either: a) unreflective regarding the doctrine of creation; or b) simply inconsistent in their Christian self-understanding due usually to an idolatrous loyalty to the radical privatization of American individualism and the consumerist commodification of all things, including babies).
For what it's worth, I am grateful to both Vanderbilt and Duke for the impacts they have had on me regarding issues of life, and I think it the particular ways they influenced me are a testament to those schools' particular strengths.
Here's how I understand my Obama problem. As a Christian, I see one of the greatest duties of politics as the amelioration of suffering for the citizens of the body politic. (A more optimistic view might say that politics should promote the flourishing of life, but my understanding of the pervasiveness of sin is too great to allow me to make such a statement.) At this point in history, it seems like the Democrats are poised to be much more effective than the Republicans at this task. For one, I think the legacy of the Bush administration (and the complicity of the pre-2006 Republican Congress in its policies) discredits the Republican Party generally. And secondly, I find the McCain/Palin campaign's proposals to help us recover (from war, from economic disaster, from environmental degradation) to be fairly unconvincing.
On the contrary, I think the Democrats are more in touch with some of our pressing problems, including healthcare, the environment, the economy, and U.S. relationships with other nations. Plus, I like Obama. True, I wish he had more national political experience. But I think he reasons well (one of the greatest political skills required of a president), and I think he will surround himself with those who can help make up for some of his areas of inexperience (e.g., his selection of Joe Biden to bolster his understanding of foreign policy). You can go down the list of issues, and in this election at least, I will check off with the Democrats on just about every issue - save one.
But that one is a big one. Depending on whether you go with the CDC or the Guttmacher Institute figures, there are between 850,000 and 1.3 million abortions in the United States each year. And if you regard each one of those abortions as the taking of human life in a way that transgresses the law of love as given to us by Christ, then the issue of abortion looms at least as large as any other single political issue. At the civic forum at Duke earlier this week, one of the professors present said that the interaction between secular politics and the church should work to make both spheres more aware of the outcast and marginalized among us, to the end that they are seen as human beings. I tend to agree with that statement, especially as it relates to the most marginalized persons among us - those in the womb, who are so defenseless that they cannot even cry out in anguish.
The reason this becomes a very pressing issue in this election has everything to do with the Supreme Court. The Court's two oldest members are among its most liberal - John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If they retire in the next four years (and it seems almost certain that Stevens will), and they are replaced with conservatives, it could be mean the end of Roe v. Wade and the return of the moral debate around abortion to state legislatures, where it belongs. There the witness of Christians can actually make a difference in the fight for life (in the legal realm).
[On the likelihood of the next president having the opportunity to appoint several justices to the Supreme Court, see this NY Times editorial. The Times is clearly not where I am on the issue of Roe v. Wade, but I agree with it on the point that the next president may have a significant impact on the direction of the court for years to come. For the record, the attitude of the most conservative justices on the Court on the issue habeas corpus has been extremely troubling to me, as we have seen in the legal twilight zone surrounding the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. In June, the Court upheld habeas corpus for enemy combatants, indicating that it viewed the right to habeas corpus to be universal rather than just confined to U.S. citizens. I agree with that opinion, the passage of which - admittedly - was dependent upon the Court's liberal members.]
In the prospect of judicial appointments lies the real issue, for me, because Obama would probably be the most ardently pro-choice president we have ever had. (For a general op-ed piece on Obama's extreme pro-choice position, see this Michael Gerson column.) Obama's role opposing the Born-Alive Act in the Illinois State Legislature in 2002 and 2003 is generally well-known, but if you aren't aware of it, read this good article written by Robert George and Yuval Levin. It is a shocking story, told with factual detail.
George and Levin explain Obama's opposition to the proposed Born-Alive Act while he was a state senator in Illinois:
"As his original 2002 statements [in the Illinois State Legislature] make clear, [Obama] sought to defeat the Born-Alive Act because he recognized that it bears at least implicitly on the larger question of abortion in America. He seemed to realize that the logical implication of protecting the child born alive after an attempted abortion is that abortion involves taking the life of a child in the womb, and that acknowledging that, even at the extreme margins of the practice of abortion, could put the legitimacy of abortion itself in question. Therefore, Obama chose to defend the widest possible scope for legal abortion by building a fence around it, even if that meant permitting a child who survives an abortion to be left to die without even being afforded basic comfort care."
John McCain might well replace Justices Stevens and Ginsburg with judges who would rightly see Roe v. Wade as a perversion of the U.S. Constitution (though I admit that is not a foregone conclusion). Obama, on the other hand, would almost certainly replace them with justices at least as liberal as they are. That means that the 2008-2012 period stands as particularly monumental in the history of the abortion issue in this country. And if you think the saving of so many human lives is of paramount importance, that has to impact how you view this election.
And that's what has got me in a quandry. I welcome your comments (and advice).
posted by Andrew C. Thompson at 8:41 AM
46 Comments:
A very good articulation of the difficult decision we face.
Don't forget Obama's promise to make the Freedom of Choice Act a top priority (FOCA would eliminate all state restrictions on abortions such as waiting periods and parental notification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Choice_Act )
Thank you for these very open and thoughtful comments. My caution would be in viewing any party or candidate through the lens of one issue, no matter how crucial.
You point out that there will be many crucial issues faced in the coming years by our nation's leaders: environment, healthcare, economy, internation relations, etc. Is any one issue big enough to outweigh the collective impact of these others?
The same question applies to the potential appointment of Supreme Court Justices. The Supreme Court will face many, many important decisions in years to come, revisiting Roe v. Wade may be one of them.
What I am trying to say is that it seems to me that making a decision of this magnitude and with such wide ranging implications based on the candidates position on one issue, that may or may not be decided in the next four years is to prioritize the abortion issue far above all others. That seems to me to be a risky way to make such a decision. If you had presented yourself as more on the fence between the candidates, making a decision based upon one issue would make more sense to me. Since you clearly state that you favor Obama in every issue save this one, than part of what I imply you are saying is that this one issue is much, much more important than all the others. Perhaps that is the case for some, but it is certainly not for me. Quite frankly, I think it is a dangerous position for all.
Well, Andrew, I'm pretty much with Mark here. There are plenty of other pro-vita issues to consider -- health care being a huge one in my book. I have a disabled relative who currently does not have health care coverage, and is waiting on a disability claim appeal. Meanwhile, he can barely move, and the test that ER docs ordered for him two months ago still hasn't happened. I have a disabled sister who has encountered several roadblocks to getting the home health care for which she qualifies. Right now, she's in the hospital because she fell, and she's headed for probably a week of rehab. I'm pretty sure having home health care could've prevented the current situation, but that care had been revoked and then reinstatement was delayed. To me, these issues are pro-vita right along with abortion and the death penalty.
Also, you wrote, "...it could be mean the end of Roe v. Wade and the return of the moral debate around abortion to state legislatures, where it belongs. There the witness of Christians can actually make a difference in the fight for life." I'm not sure where the debate belongs, and I'm not sure overturning Roe v. Wade would lead to any semblance of a simple solution, either.
Thank you for thinking this through in such a careful way.
Andrew,
I appreciate your transparency. I will echo Mark and Dog Blogger is saying that the supreme court is a major issue for more then just Roe v. Wade. The death penalty, worker rights, habius corpus, and torture are all issues that could be dealt with. Not to mention the biggest human rights issue of our day in determining an answer to Gay Marriage.
I need to preface my comments with saying that I am not convinced that life begins at conception. Furthermore, you need to look at Obama's record more closely. You need to look at why he voted the way he did. In the cases you describe there were other aspects to the law that he disagreed with. He does support a partial birth abortion ban. He will work to decrease abortions and work for increased adoptions.
I will throw this out to you. The republicans have been in power for most of the last 30 years. Are we better or worse off?
Will the republicans actually do anything about abortion? I would propose that it is the only issue that keeps them in office so they will always use it as a talking point but never act on it.
Finally, overturning Roe v Wade would not decrease abortions. It would revert to the states and most states would allow abortions.
Andrew, I have definite opinions and am voting for Obama. But I would like to NOT use my little comment to lobby. I would like to suggest a nice way to frame the abortion issues.
With abortion there are three issues: 1. A moral issue 2. A political issue 3. a practical issue.
The moral one is easy to state. Is it right to have an abortion as a kind of birth control?
The political question is, who exactly will make these moral calls? With abortion being a rather complex thing with many complicating factors, who is best able to make the call for a woman?
The practical question is, given that people will seek abortions however they can get them, what will our moral and political stances do for the safety of the poorest, least educated people of our society, those with the fewest options. Those most likely to, in desperation, head for an alley.
For me the issue is SO complicated. Complicated by the moment when life becomes meaningful. Is birth control that different from the morning after pill? How about 3 weeks along? At what point does an zygote or an embryo take control of the situation? What about the children this person would like to have later when she is ready?
I find that neither side reflects the complexity of the issue. We have "pro choice" people acting like choice is the highest value, and it isn't. We have "pro life" people acting as though the issue is cut and dried and obvious, and we should force people to have children they cannot care for. And there is no flexibility with these folks. The minute conception occurs, the woman's life is secondary.
I wish I could find a political group that reflected the complexity. In the absence of that, I wonder if the state should pass laws and make pronouncements that cannot be sorted and out and will not be obeyed.
I'm struggling on this one.
There are a number of excellent points on here, and I will unfortunately ignore many of them. This thoughtful conversation has generally tended toward a concern that abortion become an overly dominant concern in voting. Mark, for example, is reasonably concerned about viewing any party or election "through the lens of one issue." I am afraid that Mark, and others who make this argument, do not fairly consider the pro-vita understanding of abortion.
According to the pro-vita understanding of abortion, approximately one million babies are scientifically murdered each year, their mothers are often coerced into this murder, and the particular segments of society that have the most murders of this sort are the poorest and most hopeless. This is not just another moral issue of equal weight with the government sanctioned murder of between 20 and 100 convicted murderers per year, the oppression of people with certain sexual tendencies, the image of America in the world, or even our extremely broken health care system which allows people to live hopeless lives of poverty and pain. Only a moral blindness to what is actually at stake in ending abortion could make it appear that abortion is just one more in a laundry list of political positions. If (a big if) it is certain that one political party will do anything to end this large-scale, bureaucratic, racist, inhuman massacre of innocent babies, while the other will encourage its continuance, then surely anyone who actually believes that abortion is the sort of murder that I have described would be more than justified in voting on just one issue, wouldn't she?
So the second issue comes up, the one proposed by Bill: will the Republicans actually do anything at all to end abortion. Leaving aside Bill's perhaps understandable cynicism that Republicans actually want abortion to continue (perhaps true of some, but to believe that such opportunism is widespread smacks of a conspiracy theory) so that they can keep getting elected, it appears that the Republican party proposes bills that limit abortions, while the Democratic party opposes bills that limit any aspect of abortion. When it comes to the supreme court, as Andrew has pointed out, there may be a chance that a McCain presidency will put on more justices like those chosen by Bush (though it is worth noting that most of the justices have been appointed by Republicans and have since 'drifted' left), who in two recent decisions intelligently opposed the unlimited abortion license. Obama, surely, will not. As one final response to Bill, recent polls show that most states would, in fact, limit (though not make wholly illegal) abortions. Wouldn't at least a decrease in the murder of poor inner-city babies be a plus?
On a personal note, I continue to struggle with the same question, Andrew, regardless of how strongly I come across in this email. I am attracted to Obama as a leader, but cannot vote for anyone with his views on this central moral issue of our time. I cannot decide whether to vote for McCain/Palin or simply vote for an appropriate third party to register my own dissatisfaction with the options. Of course, if everyone of our opinion did that, Obama would surely win, but we are now into the issues of double-effect and moral responsibility, so let that go for another time. I will certainly continue to watch this space in the hope of gaining more insight into this difficult issue that you have helpfully raised. Let me briefly state in response to reallivepreacher that I find this position compelling and realistic - but still cannot accept that complexity excuses the obvious implications. Even if the beginning of life is complex and the values to be weighed are many, anyone who accepts a pro-vita position believes that most abortions kill an innocent life. What value can you honestly expect me to put on the opposite side to balance out one million (or even 100!) innocent children's lives?
my problem with the abortion discussion is the language of "pro-life" vs "pro-choice." this language seems to suggest the "pro-choicers" actually like to see babies die while the "pro-lifers" have no blood on their hands. if you vote pro-life there is no guarantee that less abortions will happen. it is a matter of state and federal law. John McCain doesn't seem to want the Federal Law to change, but instead wants states to decide...interesting...
the conversation needs to change...we need to talk about how both sides want to see abortions decrease to the point where there are no longer abortions.
also, so long as we live in a democracy where freedom of choice is highly valued, issues like this will exist. should we want, hope, desire for people to choose life? absolutely. can we expect 100% of Americans to agree with this? nope. Let’s take away guns because they kill people too, and let’s end wars because they also kill people. Why aren’t those essential issues?
vote pro-life, that's fine, but understand that in voting pro-life or for the pro-life candidate you are compromising other areas of Christian principle. in either case, whether one votes Dem or Rep he/she has to make compromises. sorry, Jesus isn't on the ballot!
finally, our hope is not in politics or government, our hope is in Christ. if you can vote pro-life and take all the junk that comes with that candidate with a clear conscience knowing that even though that candidate is pro-life there will still be abortions where they are legal, then vote that way. my hope in Christ says that God will prevail and that God can even use a pro-choice candidate to lower the number of abortions if He so chooses...
on the "born-alive" issue see factcheck.org's take on the full issue. turns out there was already an Illinois law that required doctors to care for babies "born-alive." voting against this act didn't say Obama wants babies to die...
First of all, I think it's important to remember that the Democrats hold majority in the Senate and House and will likely retain their position after election day. I personally think we need more conservative judges to balance out the more liberal ones. I am not comfortable giving either part complete control over all three branches of government. I think the Senate and Congress will be able to hold McCain in check. There were plenty of policies Bush proposed that were blocked by the legislative branch.
In response to McDaniel, if you read the article on factcheck.org, there was a law on the books, but the language in it was inadequate and subjective. Obama said he voted against the bill in 2001 and 2002 because it did not protect Roe v. Wade, but said he would have supported it if it used the same language as the Federal Born Alive Protection Act to protect abortion rights. A 2003 ammendment used the exact wording as the Federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act. The bill never made it to the floor because it was voted down in the Health and Human Services Committee, which Obama chaired.
2 points: Obama voted against the Born Alive Act because there was already a law on the books that provided this necessary protection. This bill was redundant in that regard while smuggling in other issues under the radar. Obama has explicitly said that he'd vote for certain restrictions as long as there were provisions for the health of the mother. For me, as someone who believes life starts at conception, I can respect that view even if I might have some issues with exactly where on the continuum he falls. I respect it because even though I believe life starts at conception, I also believe life doesn't end when a woman who becomes pregnant.
Point 2: It seems to me that many of us were duped into voting a certain way based largely on the promise that there would be returns, or at least progress, on this crucial issue. Not only are there no returns; it seems to me that the consequences, the atrocities that occurred at the hands of those who made these promises have been nothing short of tragic. I have friends who point out that at least there were certain judges appointed. They say these are steps in the right direction. To that I say "Alberto Gonzales." Let's remember that the hiring and firing of federal judges included a complete lack of integrity under this administration. This might sound overly simple; but whether you have good intentions or not, the means by which you achieve your end is critical. And frankly, the price we all are paying (literally and figuratively) are much too great to justify making the same mistake again.
The Born Alive Infant Protection Act was not one limiting women from having abortions. It was about providing humane basic comfort care for victims of failed abortions. Most of these babies would not survive, but that doesn't mean they should be thrown in a linen closet with the dirty laundry for nurses to find later. The language of the original law Obama referred to stated the that "viable" infant needed to be provided care. This bill was a method to provide such care for all infants regardless of how long they were expected to live.
His statements about provisions for the health of the mother were in reference to his vote in the partial birth abortion ban.
This was powerful for me: "...There the witness of Christians can actually make a difference in the fight for life (in the legal realm)."
honestly, the argument that Obama is a baby killer or wants to see "born alive" babies die is preposterous. he is, if it's possible, more of a Christian than McCain. it's the arguments that i see popping up in this discussion that drive me crazy!
again, we are painting "pro-choicers" as baby killers and "pro-lifers" as heroes without asking what they will actually do to lower abortion rates. is John McCain guaranteeing he'll put conservative supreme court justices in? is he guaranteeing he'll get rid of Roe v. Wade? NO. he says it's up to the states. i guess the liberal states will allow pro-choice and the red states will be pro-life. not a solution.
and, is it healthy for a democratic nation to have it's highest court voting for one platform? that definitely does not reflect the diversity of opinions and people in our country. can a "conservative" supreme court truly judge fairly and justly?
I don't think the abortion rate is impacted by whether the president is pro-life or pro-choice. Many people expressed these same concerns about Bill Clinton in the 1990s, but the statistics show that the abortion rate declined seven out of eight years he was in office -- including 1993 and 1994 when the Democrats controlled Congress as well. 1993 and 1994 were the same years Clinton appointed Justices Ginsberg and Breyer to the Supreme Court, so I don't see any evidence that pro-choice politicians in any branch of government would lead to an increase in abortion.
On the other side of the coin: Even if Roe v. Wade were overturned, abortion would not be illegal, and even if abortions were made illegal in every state, there would still be doctors willing to perform them.
Abortion is more of a cultural issue than a political issue. It's a sign of how the culture has changed in the last few decades that pro-choice politicians now say they want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. I think that open debate in the public arena is going to have a much more lasting impact than any legislation could.
Hold on now, I never called Obama any names, nor will I at any point. All I did was show his voting record. I just thought that if we were throwing things out as fact, we should be giving the whole story.
The problem with discussing these issues in this format is that we only get one dimension of communication. Had we been sitting down together in person, you would have seen that it was not my intent to speak about anyone in such a way.
My plan was not to contribute to this discussion, but rather to just let the conversation flow as it wanted. But let me just pop my head up for a second.
McDaniel Clan, I think the comments have been fairly tame so far, and the conversation civil. To be fair, no one used 'baby killer' except you (and I honestly don't think anyone was thinking in such irrational terms). The "arguments ... that drive me crazy" remark may say something about your own emotional commitment to a particular side of this issue, but I'm not sure it is fair for you to apply that to the other folks leaving comments. I truly mean my own comments in a gentle way. Just be aware that people are really trying to present their views in a Christian way here.
On another note, let me make a comment as a point of clarification to those who have been leaving comments about the personal views of the president not being able to affect abortion. The reasoning that you may not be seeing is this:
1) President Bush appointed John Roberts and Sam Alito to the Supreme Court, both of whom (so it is thought) are strict constructionists who do not see a privacy clause inscribed into the Constitution that would make abortion a 'right.'
2) It is possible (though by no means certain) that a President McCain would appoint justices similar to Roberts and Alito when the likes of John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg retire.
3) Two such appointments could shift the balance of the court away from Roe v. Wade and send the abortion debate back to the states.
4) While most states would not outlaw abortion entirely, many would certainly curtail its practice and do away with the 'abortion on demand' ethos of the country at present. And while babies would continue to be lost, it would not be nearly the 1 million+ that are being lost each year now. That translates to probably hundreds of thousands of lives saved yearly.
5) Putting the abortion debate back into local contexts (i.e., state legislatures) allows the church to exert a moral influence on both: a)Whether abortion happens and with what frequency; and b)The ethic enculturated around how to care for unwanted babies (meaning that churches would probably be the best institutions to develop a system, through foster care and adoption, whereby unwanted children could be redeemed.
I recognize that none of this may be persuasive, but it is the line of thinking that is causing many otherwise enthusiastic Obama supporters to consider voting the other way.
I am not a GenX-er, but the mother of three of them. That means I've been around a while. I just wanted to share some of the stories that have left me struggling with the abortion issue.
I was a teenager before Roe vs. Wade.
We didn't have terms like pro life and pro choice in those days. As a Christian, and a pacifist, against the death penalty and war . . I certainly would have also voiced an antiabortion stand, had it been talked about, but it wasn't much.
Then a friend of mine told me she was pregnant. She was 14. The father was a much older married man, a friend of her father's who had seduced her over time. She was convinced her parents would kick her out of the house if they knew (I had seen first hand some of the abuse she suffered at her father's hand, so I didn't doubt that. I'm not even sure there was a Child's Protection Agency in those days.)
At any rate, she scraped together enough money to get a back-alley abortion. She died on the table, her body left in a dumpster.
In the years following, I heard of others, either left unable to bear children or dead . . .
and it was at that time that I learned that those with money were able to have options not available to those with no money. Those with means who found themselves pregnant (when they didn't want to be) were able to leave the country for legal abortions, or knew of high paid doctors who could negotiate the system. Safe abortions were only available to the wealthy. It was the poor who were at risk.
I also saw, over and over, that the fathers of these babies abandoned their responsibilities -- in effect, 'aborted' the babies with no consequences.
Then I met a woman who was a married mother of four, and bi-polar. Her husband had left her, and she was working two jobs trying to hold her family together. She quit taking the birth control pills since the husband was gone and she really needed the money for milk and bread for the kids. The husband came home one night, drunk, and raped her, then left again. She was pregnant. Here was her problem: should she quit taking her medication for the bipolar disorder . . even though it threatened the health of the fetus . . or should she quit taking it for the sake of the child, though if she did that she would be unable to work and support her other children and they would be taken from her. And then, after she was able to go back on her medication, how was she to support yet another child, when she was barely making it with the four she had?
With tears in her eyes, she told me she had chosen to have an abortion.
She had no familial support (and certainly there was no governmental or even faith based help that would support this woman and her family for the duration of a pregnancy and the continued support of the child.)
I have never had to walk in the shoes of these women.
Both point to the way so many other issues intersect and complicate the simple answers.
So, I have a different take on abortion: I think it should be legal, safe, and rare.
And I think if those of us who are Christian want it to be rare we will work on a number of other justice issues . . . and work to create a society that does truly value all life: including the life of a 14 year old girl with dreadfully low self esteem inflicted by abusive parents; and ways to value the work of women who work and help support them and their children.
It's been a long time since Roe v Wade was passed, and so many of these stories are lost. I don't want people to forget that there was a time in this country when abortion was illegal. It didn't mean there was no abortion. It meant there was no safe abortion for those who weren't wealthy.
Is there another way to go about this???
I would like to ask your indulgence to post my point one more time. I agree completely that abortion is a complicated issue. It is complicated because there are many things at stake, including the health of a mother, the social pressures that make pregnancy such a horrible option for so many women, the difficulty of raising children (especially in poor households), the health of women who choose to have an abortion in unsafe ways, and political questions about efficacy of voting for parties and what will occur even if Roe is overturned. To be fair, the complications (as it is seldom recognized), run both ways: many women are coerced into having abortions who do not want them because of a system in which they have no good options or because of husbands/fathers/families that are blind to anything but their own selfish pride, our inner cities are being emptied because most abortion clinics exist in inner cities with the result that we are killing off the next generations of poor blacks (and this doesn't seem to be helping their economic situation in the least), abortion often leaves women confused, injured, and feeling extorted, even when done in the 'safe' confines of abortion clinics, and babies with down syndrome, wonderful, loving, precious, dependent pictures of God's love, are becoming increasingly rare as they are aborted at the first sign of 'abnormality' (as if any of us are normal!). I am willing to admit these and many more complications of the sort that reallivepreacher suggested. I willingly shout from the rooftops that abortion is a difficult issue and should not be treated as if making public policy is simple. My point, however, is also simple: the pro-vita position honestly, truly, and without any reservations believes that abortion is killing off human beings, little babies, so despite all of the complications in the world, how can any of us think that we should continue this practice? Why does the very real fact that having babies can ruin lives make it okay to kill the babies to get out of the problem? Any response that tries to mitigate the evil that is done in abortions fails to address the pro-vita position. Unless you can tell me of some consideration that would make it okay to kill one million babies after they are born, I have no reason to think that this consideration will make it okay to kill one million babies before they are born. Does that make sense?
I'm glad that as a Christian, you are weighing the magnitude of this issue rather than rationalizing it away in order to vote with your emotions for a particular candidate. Rather than leaving all my thoughts here, I'm going to post a blog link in which I explained to a friend of mine why I vote pro-life. http://bettyduffy.blogspot.com/2008/09/battle-of-blogsor-gods-will-in-public.html
This is a very complicated issue, and I am sure that I would probably hold a different stance about the issue if I had a close friend or relative who was faced with a situation as lily described. Also, I would argue that you can't simply look at the number of abortions in the last year and suggest that this many lives would be saved if abortions were illegal. However, the sticking point for me on this issue is that if abortions are illegal, even if 50% (very high projection just to make a point) of the mothers who would have chosen to have a legal abortion are still having their abortions in a back alley, we will have still saved a multitude of lives. That is the argument that I hear most often from Christians voting for Obama is that abortions are still going to happen whether legal or not. Yes, that is true that SOME will still happen, but you can't convince me that there will be nearly as many. Plain and simple, many more lives are saved when abortions are illegal.
As for how big of an issue this should be in the campaign, I have absolutely no idea. Admittedly, this is a much bigger issue for me than it probably should be. My wife and I were just having this discussion about the biggest issues for us in the election, and this was in my top 3 issues for whatever reason.
If someone decides to still vote democratic despite their stance on this issue, great. That is a perfectly logical conclusion and there are plenty of other important issues that should affect your vote. However, I don't understand why people try to convince themselves that making abortions illegal will have no effect on the number of babies who are aborted.
Two quick notes:
One, on Friday morning I have edited the post to refer to a couple of NY Times articles referring to the composition of the Supreme Court and the likelihood of appointments by the next president. I put that addition in brackets, and it is in the middle of my post.
Second, keep in mind that a reversal on Roe v. Wade does not make abortion illegal in any sense. That's important to remember when considering the oft-cited 'back alley' cases. Such a reversal would simply return the abortion to the legislative branch of government (where, if I understand correctly, the laws on the books before Roe v. Wade was decided would then be back in force). State legislatures would thereafter be free to act in ways particular to each state and, presumably, the U.S. Congress would also be able to legislate on the national level (which would preempt any and all state laws). I'm not 100% sure about this, but I believe it is the Constitution's commerce clause (i.e., the clause related to the federal regulation of interstate commerce) that has, since the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, been used by Congress to legislate in ways that effectively obviate state laws on a variety of issues. Whether Congress would act in this way in regards to abortion legality is impossible to know. But regardless, it is highly unlikely that an overturning of Roe v. Wade would result in the outright rejection of abortion in all cases.
I think something RLP said might have gotten lost.
The question of abortion isn't whether it should be banned. It doesn't deal with reality.
The reality is that abortion *will* happen, regardless if it is legal or not.
The question, then, becomes how as a society do we want to deal with the *fact/reality* that abortions will occur.
Do we want them to take place under the care of medical providers or do we want them to take place under cover?
If the church wants to fight abortion, it should do so by making child-care, health-care, subsidized adoptions and other types of support absolutely available. It should fight abortion by fighting the stigma of single parenthood, and it should fight abortion by talking about sex, not forbidding it.
thank you for calling me out Andrew, and since the internet doesn't show emotion, i am actually being honest when i say that! i get too riled up about issues and forget to curb my emotion. i realize that being over emotional about an issue actually turns people the other way...
i guess my response was more to Bethany's post that suggested Obama voted in favor of babies being thrown into a linen waste basket. this is the rhetoric that divides us; this is the rhetoric i can't handle.
i read an article in Sojouners magazine a friend pointed out to me...i'll give a little quote, then the link, "For instance, a self-described anti-abortion evangelical commenting on “Jesus Creed,” a leading blog of the emergent church, wrote that policies that fight poverty, work for health-care justice, and generally improve economic conditions for poor and working-class people will likely result in the number of abortions decreasing much more than under an administration that simply declares itself opposed to Roe vs. Wade—and thus supporting the former initiatives should arguably be considered more “pro-life” than the latter."
find whole article here:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=magazine.article&issue=soj0811&article=the-meaning-of-life
i apparently suck at using html!
Let me preface my comments by saying that I am not a Christian. To be completely transparent, I would identify myself as a person who is respectfully cynical of Christianity. My brother, whom I'm very close with, is a devout born-again Christian, however. That being said, I hope you will consider my humble comments with the same respect and thought that you have given to the Christian contributors to this discussion.
I agree with many of you to the extent that I am anti-abortion (and anti-death penalty). I believe that most ethical people (Christian or not) would agree that abortion is something that we as a country and a culture need to continue to reduce drastically. It's a fact that abortions cannot be eliminated (for all of the reasons previously discussed), but it's also a fact that abortions can absolutely be reduced. The question is how to do this most effectively.
I believe the most effective strategy is to pass federal legislation that restricts abortions to cases in which there are extremely special circumstances (such as Lily described), or when the mother's life is put in jeopardy. I also think that the argument to restrict abortions will resonate more with "mainstream America" if it is discussed as a moral issue, rather than a religious one.
With regard to the issue of Obama vs. McCain...It is very difficult to generalize a candidate's position on one issue based on his/her voting record because of the complexity of each piece of legislation. Most bills contain extensive add-ons and addendums which make it impossible to simply vote yea or nay based simply on one isolated issue. I think it's more meaningful to listen to what an individual says, how they explain particular votes, and determine if their explanations, campaign messages, and actions verify what their postion is.
Obama has consistently shared with the public his commitment to supporting legislation that will reduce the number of abortions. McCain has made clear his intention of appointing conservative judges to the Supreme Court. Which strategy will more effectively reduce abortions? I believe Obama's will.
As a final thought, I want you all to know that this type of thoughtful and civil discussion should really be the norm and would be enthusiastically received by folks like me. I would be much less cynical of Christianity if most self-proclaimed Christians engaged in these kinds of meaningful dialogues, as opposed to the aggressive "right wing Christian conservative" agree-with-me or go-to-hell tactics that I am normally exposed to.
I thank you for allowing me to contribute.
McDaniel Clan - No worries. I wasn't trying to call you out in a bad way. I only thought you might have misunderstood the intent of the post Bethany left. Alas, blog comments and e-mails suffer from a 'tone deafness' that it doesn't seem possible to overcome. I once read a columnist who called e-mail a 'multiplier of misunderstandings' and recommended that it never be used for intra-office communication because of what it can do to a workplace environment. Not a bad idea, although the Pandora's Box we've opened with it isn't likely to get closed anytime soon! At any rate, thank you for your comments (and for the link).
Eddie - I appreciate your willingness to post your comment here. I don't think there are too many issues where the rhetoric can get heated faster than with abortion issues. I've been reading comments on this post for two days now, and I just appreciate everybody's willingness to engage the way they have. My one thought about your suggestion about federal legislation is that it is probably a difficult thing to do, because of the way Roe v. Wade tends to get interpreted by the Supreme Court (for instance, it has been difficult for states to pass anything related to partial-birth abortion bans - an issue that many pro-choicers have some sympathy with - because such statutes tend to get struck down on the federal level).
You've touched on the biggest problem with Obama and you've rightly tried to weigh it properly---rather than with a shallow "there are other life issues" equivocation that ignores the magnitude of abortion.
Rather than ramble on here, let me point you to an op/ed I wrote opposite Brian McLaren in Creation Care Magazine.
http://republicantreehugger.blogspot.com/2008/10/endorsement-mccain.html
You are right to take a Pro-all-life approach, and while not perfect, I think McCain is your man. (Also, on poverty and healthcare policy, ask yourself this: Despite the nice sounding name did LBJ's Great Society make things better or worse for the poor. More money, poorly spent is not the answer...though I am not a leave it all to the market guy either.)
Following up on an earlier comment that raises a standard argument---some abortions will happen anyway, so quit talking about legal protections for the unborn.
Some rapes, murders, and robberies will happen anyway, does that then mean that those acts should not be illegal. Consider the earlier comment in that context:
The question of [rape] isn't whether it should be banned. It doesn't deal with reality.
The reality is that [rape] *will* happen, regardless if it is legal or not.
The question, then, becomes how as a society do we want to deal with the *fact/reality* that [rapes] will occur.
Do we want them to take place under the care of medical providers or do we want them to take place under cover?
John,
So, basically, what you are saying is that rape is equal to abortion.
And here, I thought there was an intelligent discussion. If you're going to try and refute my argument, refute my argument, don't do this dog and pony show of subbing phrases, because, rape and abortion are completely different.
If you want to argue that point, please help me understand where you are coming from.
If you don't like my original argument, engage with it rather than a simplistice dismissal.
Point well taken, Andrew. I agree with you that legislation of this nature will be hard to get through. However, I do think it's possible. Actually, there have been numerous bills which have sought to do what I have suggested, but have been voted down by pro-life Congress-people b/c of their refusal to compromise on the issue and refusal to vote for any legislation that includes "exceptions". I believe this strategy is counter-productive for several reasons...any measure that will reduce abortions should be embraced by anyone who is anti-abortion, moving the country in the direction of what most consider to be ethical is a tactic that will acceptable on both sides of the argument, and a refusal to compromise paired with a stubborn insistence on imposing what many consider a religious stance further alienates pro-lifers from the majority of Americans who sympathize more with the pro-choicers (even though they may be anti-abortion).
One other point to consider re: Roe v. Wade...
As most (or all) participating in this discussion are aware, Roe v. Wade was upheld based on the Supreme Court's interpretation of the Constitution which basically ruled that the right to privacy was implied. For Roe v. Wade to be overturned, the Court will have interpret the Constitution more literally. This has the potential to lead to many other decisions being overturned. For example, the right for an individual to bear arms is based the implied intent of the 2nd amendment. If this were interpreted literally, individuals could only bear arms in the context of a militia.
So my dilemna is this...overturning Roe v. Wade won't necessarily lead to a reduction of abortions (many states will not limit or reduce), and it may lead to the loss of other individual rights. On the other hand, federal legislation (if agreed to by pro-life members of Congress) might lead to fewer abortions. It seems to me the most productive course of action is clear.
Don't vote for a presidential candidate. That is the decision I have come to after considering the very things you posted. Why do we (the U.S. church) feel so compelled to change our society through politics and law? Are these the instruments of God today? What happens if I hold my vote for president and say that neither candidate meets the threshold of what it take for me to sign my name beside his and that of his party's platform? This election (for the first time) I'm holding my vote. I do not consent for either to pursue an agenda of death. Let the church not be conflicted, but pursue justice on Jesus' terms not the political and judicial system's terms. Is the role of a disciple to react to what culture offers, and pick the lesser of evils? How far we've missed it if we think it is.
I think you have parsed the issue well for what is important to you. I also believe you are correct to withhold your vote from a candidate who conflicts with a deeply held belief. You have the luxury of not being a politician, you don't need to come to a compromise position.
Lastly, no matter who gets elected, it will not be the end of the world.
In this situation, I personally would lean towards not voting for a presidential candidate or writing in a candidate if you don't like to leave it blank. As a matter of fact, that is the very position I find myself in as well based on the same issue and a couple others that you discussed here. I'm contemplating who to write in or to just skip the presidential choice.
The only thing I can think of at this point is how much any social policy will matter if we violate the foundation of our existence: life itself. How much value can be expressed in a social policy of "wealth redistribution", for instance, when we allow that some lives are not worth our time or attention? Or a national health care policy in which the government calls the shots, perhaps making a decision for a young, unwed mother-to-be?
I know that last one is a little over the top but consider the adage: "give them an inch, and they'll take a mile". It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility.
I have no problem not voting for Obama. My problem still is in determining whom to vote FOR.
To D (and any others interested) in response to this from D:
D: So, basically, what you are saying is that rape is equal to abortion.
RTH: No, not at all. The point is that your "criminalization won't stop abortion" argument is flawed in my view. There are lots of things that criminalization won't completely stop . . . but it does sure slow them down (and that's a very good thing).
I doubt anyone would argue that because rapes will still occur, we should chunk rape laws and rely only on PR campaigns and abuse shelters. (It's a reduce to absurdity type of argument.) Perhaps "rape" was too emotional of a choice for the example. But both involve a sinfully distorted mix of sex, reproduction, and violence upon others (so perhaps the example is better than "robbery" that was also listed in my original.)
Use "speeding" if you prefer. It still happens, but we drive a lot more safely than if there was just a billboard that said "Please Consider Choosing to Drive Slower."
Hope that helps you understand where I'm coming from. It was not intended as a simplistic dismissal based on rape = abortion (I obviously agree they are different). Sorry if in the brevity of a blog comment that point was not communicated clearly.
I find myself in pretty consistent agreement with those who are probably not going to vote, though I confess that I probably will when it comes down to it. I was just re-reading the other day the list that I have in my notes from seminary of those jobs and livelihoods which people, upon professing faith in Jesus Christ had to give up because they were fundamentally incompatible. I believe President of the United States would be one of them today, at least the way our parties have been set up and polarized.
I know of some people who don't vote in national elections because they believe strongly that "all politics is local" and that they will pour their energy into affecting change within the scope that they can. There's lots wrong with that argument too, but I can see how consistently offering a different witness through the church to citizens in our neighborhoods might have far more of an impact in actually changing people's minds and hearts rather than just changing legislation, and I believe the change in heart and mind is really the only way that abortion will truly cease. The person that commented about "procedures" and "DNC" operations for those with means and social standing was pretty much on, and if we're going for total eradication of the practice of killing children before they're born, then legislation is only half the battle--an important half, but half nonetheless. As I'm thinking about what impact I can have through my politics, I also think about that.
John,
Thanks for clarifying, but my point isn't that criminalization won't stop abortion. My point is that criminalization makes abortion worse.
Your argument is that we should try to reduce the number of abortions. I agree this is a commendable goal, but I don't think that criminialization is the best way to do this. In my original comment, I proposed better, I think more compassionate and Christlike, ways of doing this (which looks at the root causes and motivations for having abortions). I don't think people decided to have abortions because they want to have abortions, but because they think that is the only option. As the church, we have to give the other long-term options, not just a moment of birth option.
So, I think there are better ways to reduce the number of abortions. My point is that criminalization of abortion makes the abortions that happen anyway that much worse and much more dangerous, emotionally and physically, for everyone involved, and it has more lasting consequences on fertility and sexuality throughout life. In short, it is less respectful of life, if you look at the issue long-term rather than short-term.
We probably disagree, though, that abortion represents something that should be considered a crime. Basically, it is an argument about when life begins. (I have a hard time with this because of the question about discarded embryos in fertility banks and such. If those are humans, what does it mean ethically that we have a whole slew of humans with souls in suspended animation. Should they be forced into attempted conception? Should we set up an adoption agency? Why aren't we talking about all the embryos that are unused and destroyed as murder? What about IUDs that prevent fertilized eggs from implanting? If life begins at conception, the moment of fertilization, then even IUDs constitute abortion.)
My point, I think, is that the debate about when life begins ignores every day, complex realities of the people struggling with a decision about a pregnancy.
I think comparing abortion with a criminal activity fails to give the mother equal humanity and fails to look at the complexity of people struggling with a decision about abortion.
Even comparing criminal acts to other criminal acts is unfruitful. We have to engage with each on its own terms.
And, when dealing with an issue this cantankerous, I hope we all understand how this issue was *chosen* by the Moral Majority in the 80s as the cultural issue to rally disparate conservative religious groups.
Originally, even denominations like the SBC didn't argue against Roe v. Wade, but understood why it was important and why it was needed. Only the Catholic Church (of large church branches) opposed the decision from the beginning.
I realize the short half-life of blog comments (ie no one but D and me are reading this and we are off on our own tangents) but a few points from D could use some reply. (This will be it for me. D if you want a last word you are welcome to it.)
D: My point is that criminalization makes abortion worse. . . . We probably disagree, though, that abortion represents something that should be considered a crime. Basically, it is an argument about when life begins.
Me: Well, you have boiled the issue down to its essence. If it is a life, abortion is killing and the unborn life should be protected by law unless her survival places another life (woman's) in danger [or perhaps if the unborn child is involuntarily conceived (rape)].
Wendell Berry puts it this way on p. 30 of his Citizenship Papers:
"As for the 'right to control one's own body,' I am all for that. But implicit in that right is the responsibility to control one's body in such a way as to avoid dealing irresponsibly or violently or murderously with other bodies. Women and men generally have understood that when they have conceived a child they have relinquished a significant measure of their independence, and that henceforth they must control thier bodies in the interest of the child."
Later you made an interesting argument defending abortion based on our cavalier attitude towards embryos from fertility centers. I would point out that this disregard for life is the result of an abortion culture (i.e. if the unborn are not protected at 8 months, why should they be protected at 8 minutes; therefore, why not create embryos as backups even if we won't use them).
Pointing further down the slippery slope to justify a previous practice ('regular' abortion) which greased the skids seems to be questionable logic in my view.
Finally, dismissing a consistent stand by roughly half of Christendom (Catholicism) seems a weak argument. Thank goodness the evangelicals finally came on board I say. I hope the mainstream Protestants will soon follow. Catholics have consistently stood for the unborn, against capital punishment, for human rights, for better health care, for the rights of the poor, etc. Let's don't dismiss this, but rather give thanks to God for a consistent pro-vita ethic.
D, feel free to comment on republicantreehugger.blogspot.com if you'd like to keep the conversation going. Otherwise, I thank Andrew for a thoughtful post that has got a lot of us thinking.
Thank you, John (and D, and all the other folks who have commented) for what you've contributed to this discussion. We're only a week away from Election Day, and I still don't know what I'm going to be doing. But the conversations here have been really helpful (as well as all the private e-mails I've received).
The civility of the dialogue here has been encouraging as well, particularly with as difficult an issue as we've been discussing.
Pax Christi,
Andrew.
How will you answer your savior?
Psalm 139:13-16 ((NIV)
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
George and Levin explain Obama's opposition to the proposed Born-Alive Act while he was a state senator in Illinois:
"As his original 2002 statements [in the Illinois State Legislature] make clear, [Obama] sought to defeat the Born-Alive Act because he recognized that it bears at least implicitly on the larger question of abortion in America. He seemed to realize that the logical implication of protecting the child born alive after an attempted abortion is that abortion involves taking the life of a child in the womb, and that acknowledging that, even at the extreme margins of the practice of abortion, could put the legitimacy of abortion itself in question. Therefore, Obama chose to defend the widest possible scope for legal abortion by building a fence around it, even if that meant permitting a child who survives an abortion to be left to die without even being afforded basic comfort care."
Hi Andrew,
I can certainly sympathize with your situation. I personally like both candidates. I prefer Obama's approach on taxes, and I think it might be that time when a more sheepish foreign policy would be a healthy thing. I appreciate his focus on healthcare, though I believe that the notion that we will 'fix' healthcare OR social security in the next 10 years is simply unrealistic (I hope I'm wrong).
But the moral weight of abortion as mass-murder on a scale unknown in human history far outweighs all of these positive considerations.
For me, it was actually a comment that Obama made in the last debate that convinced me to vote for McCain (when I was planning to vote Libertarian). He said that "Roe v. Wade" hangs in the balance with this election. I believe he is correct.
Good luck with your discernment.
If 8 tears of Republican government haven't abolished abortion, why should another four years do so?
It's a non issue.
I beg to differ, Steve. From 1972 to the present day, we have "progressed" to a procedure commonly referred to as partial birth abortion. Without some sort of moral check with cloning and stem cell research, how far will be "too far" and who will make that call?
And when Obama makes a comment about the future of Roe v Wade at stake in this election, you can bet he sees an issue for judicial appointments that will affect our society long after the next president is out of term.
It is life, friend. It is always an issue.
Forgive me for my ignorance but...
I understand how important the abortion issue is to Christians, but don't understand the obsession with the Republican Party. Abortion has not been resolved by Republicans despite their hawkish promises. In fact, the largest decrease in the number of abortions by any recent president occurred in 1993-1994 under Bill Clinton.
Further, "liberal" Democrats stand for many more issues that seem to be issues of morality and ethics as described in The Bible -- eradicating poverty and hunger, protecting the planet, kindness to all of God's creatures, taking care of those who are less fortunate, providing healthcare to all those in need, ensuring that not a single innocent person is ever executed, etc.
Don't these issues deserve more energy than the fight to overturn Roe v. Wade, considering the fact that overturning R v. W will not even guarantee that there will be fewer abortions. Certainly these issues are more deserving of attention than the obsession with preventing gay marriage.
Again, please forgive my ignorance and cynicism...but I simply don't understand the moral/ethical priorities.
Eddie,
Thanks for your comment. I had thought we were spent on this post. You might note three things in relation to the questions you raise:
1) Neither my post here nor the subsequent comments show an "obsession with the Republican party" or an "obsession with preventing gay marriage." I'm not sure where you would have gotten that, and the statements in your response itself appear to be non-sequitors. We are here trying to reason through what many of us consider one of the most complex and pressing moral issues.
2) As to your point that abortion has not been resolved by Republican presidents, I would simply refer you to the text of my post itself. If Roe v. Wade were to be overturned, it would only come about through a particular, constructionist-oriented composition of the Supreme Court. That isn't something a president does by fiat. It happens as court vacancies come open. Many of those (such as myself) who have been very critical of the Bush administration in general see his appointment of judges like Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court as a step in the right direction, as far as the abortion issue is concerned.
3) No, the overturn of Roe v. Wade would not guarantee fewer abortions. But it would allow the issue of abortion to be given back to the legislative branch of government, where it was before Roe v. Wade was decided. And then, whether at the state or federal level, a more thorough moral debate could go on which would, most likely, result in legislation that would curtail the practice of abortion on the whole.
You're absolutely right, Andrew...and I apologize for making that kind of generalization in this context. The posts here have been reasonable and fair. I really do appreciate the opportunity to participate in this kind of dialogue with Christians who are trying to reason through this issue.
Please forgive my frustration. I live in a valley in California with a tremendously high population of Evangelical Christians (my brother being one). While I am coming across more folks who are open to real dialogue, the vast majority do seem to be obsessed with Roe v. Wade and banning gay marriage...and I wonder why the energy is not exerted in more productive ways with regard to the more important (in my opinion) ethical issues that I previously mentioned.
I suppose this was not the right context in which to bring this up...maybe we could have a private dialogue.
Eddie
No problem, Eddie. And as I said, I do thank you for your comment. Where you are right on target is that the pro-choice/pro-life debate often gets lumped into a bunch of other things, where it does not belong. That typically happens when people identify with a political party and assume that that party represents 'true' Christian concerns (for example, assuming that all Republicans represent true Christianity whereas Democrats do not; or vice versa).
Like I said in the original post, in this election I sympathize with Barack Obama on virtually every issue save one. My dissatisfaction is that I think both of the major parties can be very right on some things and very wrong on others. That's why I tried to frame the discussion in the way that I did.
In the long wrong, dialogues like this one may not influence much. But I think they're helpful for Christians who want to sort out all the complexities. At least I hope so!
Peace,
Andrew.
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