As I noted, Iran made its bid to join the UN Commission on the Status of Women. And Joseph Abrams of Fox News tells us that the mullahs did it — they now get to instruct the international community on the importance of gender equality. But it seems as though the UN didn’t want to advertise this exciting new addition to their august body:
Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release distributed Wednesday on the filling of “vacancies in subsidiary bodies,” was the stark announcement: Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was “elected by acclamation,” meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states — including the United States.
The U.S. couldn’t muster a word of opposition — not even call for a vote. That would be because . . . why? Because our policy is not to confront and challenge the brutal regime for which rape and discrimination are institutionalized policies. No, rather, we are in the business of trying to ingratiate ourselves, and making the U.S. as inoffensive as possible to the world’s thugocracies. We’d no sooner object to Iran on the UN Commission on the Status of Women than we would leave the UN Council on Human Rights. It is what this administration does and how they envision raising our status in the world. The status of women? Hmm. I suppose with Iran on the commission, we’ll neither be investigating nor documenting the handiwork of Neda Agha-Soltan’s murderers.
Obama’s response that “it’s above my paygrade” should be included in McCain’s commercials. It doesn’t even have to be referenced to the abortion issue. Just saying that about any issue is a disgrace from a presidential candidate.
The Abortion “Issue” is a loser for McCain. He should stick to his expertise on Economics.
“The Abortion “Issue” is a loser for McCain.”
Anyone defending late term abortions is a vile and disgusting human being. They are evil monsters comparable to the Nazis. It is time that we say so loud and clearly.
Hey Dave,no one’s defending anything,we were talking about McCain’s campaign tactics. It won’t get him any votes that he doesn’t already have,but he will also offend those conservative women who had abortions. I’m sure you talk loudly a lot.
McCain should talk about new Jobs,that would be more to the point.
RCAR,
you seem to be impatient with this abortion discussion. Wehner’s post not only highlights Obama’s extreme position on abortion, it demonstrates his inability to remember his own record, or actively misconstrue it. Either way, it is an issue that separates McCain from Obama in the clearest terms. I would recommend that any politician focus on his opponent’s voting record if it is inhumane and out of touch with the voter base. We are electing a President, and we want to know if he shares our views. If a baby survives an abortion, Obama voting against protecting it? Can you address that logic, rather than asking to turn the channel?
The Obama campaign’s tactic is to talk in general terms, misrepresent his record, or accuse McCain of cheating. Let’s stay on the issue.
We are not talking about abortion- how about infanticide (‘The One’ changing positions about a post-abortion birth). We are the ones we were waiting for- huh?
Jonas M says,”you seem to be impatient with this abortion discussion.”
Jonas, I just said it won’t get him any new votes. Discussing Abortion/Infanticide is very interesting,but,in my opinion, it’s not a tactic that will help McCain win in an election. A lot of voters have had abortions,even Republicans.
Obama is an amoral hypocrite who claims to be a Christian. What kind of Christian is he? Oh yes, the Marxist kind from the BLT variety. What a bul…. ter!
McCain doesn’t need to be talking about abortion. He need to be talking about how he was calling the Natinal Right to Life Committee “liars” for claiming the Illinois BAIPA already contained the language that Obama said would have gotten his vote. When the NRLC provided a side-by-side comparison of the language and it was identiical (except for things like substituting “Illinois” for “Federal”), his campaign released a statement, reported by the NY Sun, saying, in essence, “okay, the bill had the language we said it didn’t have and that Obama said he would have voted for, but he had other concerns that he’s never mentioned before that cause dhim to vote against it.” The NY Sun article is linked here:
http://www.nysun.com/national/obama-facing-attacks-from-all-sides-over-abortion/84059/
The money section starts about halfway down.
Obama has been deliberately misrepresenting his positions and votes. THAT is what McCain should be hitting him over, and hard.
Sorry for the typos. I’m typing too fast. Also, the second sentence should read “He needs to be talking about how Obama was calling the National Right to Life Committee “liars.”
I have seen this as the Achilles heel for Obama since I first became aware of his record last year. At first I could not believe that it was true. It seemed too incredible that someone would vote , effectively, for infanticide and that this person would then go on to win a major party nomination. So I researched and found just the committee report now being cited. At that point I knew that Obama would never be president of the US.
There is NO argument that can be made that will convince many people that a vote to kill a baby born during a botched abortion is OK. That’s the bottom line and it will lose him the election. And by the way, this issue doesn’t need to cost him “many” votes ( although I believe it will). It only has to cost him, say, 3 in a hundred or so for him to be toast.
Obama was both a student and teacher of the ideas and techniques of Saul Alinsky, author of “Rules for Radicals”.
One part of the technique is to advance radicalism while speaking in the language of the community, and in a manner that is comforting and appealing to them. If the appearance of being a radical repeals them, the Alinsky technique is to come across as anything but a radical — speaking the language of the non-radicals while getting them to acquiesce to your radical program.
>>Obama uses language that is meant to portray himself as thoughtful and reasonable, able to grasp the nuances of every argument, even those with which he disagrees. Obama is himself, according to this narrative, the antithesis of an extremist.<<
So this is right out of the Alinsky playbook.
RCAR, you are still revealing an intellectual dishonesty here. This is a serious issue, of which you can not explain the logic behind Obama’s position. You would rather change the subject, because McCain won’t get votes out of it. I want to know how Obama is a religious, G-d fearing Christian, and will not protect the life of a baby, if it survives an abortion. Are you able to discuss the issue, or run from it?
kudos to Steve W. excellent post
I keep hearing the word “nuance” from Obama supporters. Anyone remember the last “nuanced” presidential candidate and how successful he was in his bid? I’ll give you a hint: He has drooping eyes, a tarnished smile, his chin is out to here, and he got a Purple Heart for cutting himself shaving.
As for Obama, the more I read and hear about this creep, the more I hope his daughters–who seem decent and well-adjusted despite having such a loser for a father (make that such losers for parents)–sue for divorce. This guy’s not fit to be dog catcher.
Jonas Menchik Says,” You would rather change the subject, because McCain won’t get votes out of it. I want to know how Obama is a religious, G-d fearing Christian, and will not protect the life of a baby, if it survives an abortion. Are you able to discuss the issue, or run from it?
Steve W “knows” that this issue will keep Obama from the Presidency,so what’s the WHOOP. I respect your view that Abortion is murder,although I don’t believe a Jury would ever convict a woman,that had an abortion,of 1st Degree Murder, so we’ll have to leave it up to God’s justice,not Jonas’s. In the meantime, the PRO-Life candidate has plenty of time to accuse Obama of favoring Mass Murder.
It doesn’t have to be about abortion. In fact, the commercials should begin with something like “Whatever you think about abortion, one thing we all agree on is . . . except Barack Obama.” Election over.
“we were talking about McCain’s campaign tactics. It won’t get him any votes that he doesn’t already have.”
Wrong, as usual.
A vast majority of people in America — including those who have had abortions, whose minds you so blithely pretend to read — are vehemently in favor of restrictions on late-term abortions.
In other words, they believe it is wrong to kill a human being after the second trimester. Obama is with the extremists who believe there should effectively be NO restrictions on a “woman’s [imaginary] right to choose.”
That makes him wildly out of touch with the American people, and when voters understand just what he is pushing — which is, make no mistake, NOT the termination of a 6-week pregnancy, but infanticide — he will sink like a stone.
You see, most Americans don’t like leaders whose policies on reproductive issues are identical to those of Nazis.
Steve W., do you by have any chance have a link to the commitee report? I’m having trouble finding the initial information. Wow… I just can’t believe he’d support something like this. Now just leave it to McCain to make this an issue…
RCAR, excuse me? Would you care to describe how a society leaves the protection of a baby up to G-d’s justice? Give me some details.
I never stated my position, that you assumed, but here goes. I do believe it is true justice, to protect a born baby from death. I believe that is true for the overwhelming majority of Americans. Your weak attempt to misconstrue the idea that I have some kind of personal code of justice in opposition to G-d’s does not hold any water. Leaving the issue of aborting a fetus aside, I do believe our Creator considers taking the life of a born baby to be murder. How do you respond to that?
It actually shows the overall shallowness of your point. You simply can not discuss the issue coherently. Its all smoke and mirrors.
Andrew (#18),
The NRLC has posted the language of the Illinois version of BAIPA and the Federal version showing how the language is identical, except for changes necessary to make it a state version of a Federal bill (i.e. substituting “Illinois” for “Federal”). You can see it at the link below:
http://nrlc.org/ObamaBAIPA/2003AmendedILBAIPAandFedBAIPA.html
The reason the abortion issue is so important is because it raises one of the most fundamental ethical questions of all: How far will you go to help another human being who cannot help you? It reveals yours character. Will you, on the one hand, defend the interest of the powerless, even though it will bring you no tangible benefit? Or will you, on the other hand, allow convenience or ideology to justify your inactivity?
I’m not suggesting every pro-lifer is morally of a higher quality than every pro-choicer. People can be raised with particular views, and never deeply question them. But here is an intelligent, informed individual who has been involved in public life for a good number of years, and who has had to take positions on very significant and consequential legislation passing through his committee. That Obama had an opportunity to press through legislation that would protect just-born children who survived an abortion procedure–and did not do so–unmasks who Obama really is. He is not a moderate. When the legislation passed by Barbara Boxer is too conservative for you, you are not a moderate.
What, then, is he? He’s not a monster. He’s not directly in favor of infanticide. Rather, he is two things. First, he’s blinded by an ideology that has evacuated the issue of all moral terms, so thoroughly under the power of this ideology that he cannot see the absolute moral claim that these just-born children place upon him. Second, he’s an opportunist. Knowing that he needed the support in Illinois of the radical leftists in his district, Obama took the route of convenience and opportunism. He did not do this, mind you, to appeal to ordinary Democrats. Ordinary Democrats, even such as Barbara Boxer, understood why this was a no-brainer. Obama did what he did to appeal to radical leftists in Hyde Park, on whose support he constantly relied. I would love to know what sort of contributions he was getting when he killed the Born Alive legislation.
Also, apart from the moral imperative at play, absolutely this is a live issue and could be a huge winner for McCain, given how extreme is Obama’s position. The abortion issue absolutely will win McCain votes that he did not already have. I personally know several voters who lean Democrat, but are also pro-life, and have long been frustrated that they could not, on conscience, vote for the Democrat candidates. In this case they were hoping, given Democrat efforts to “reduce the need” for abortions, that they could put aside their qualms and vote for Obama. Now? No way. Soccer moms are not going to think kindly of a legislator who could not bring himself to support living babies outside the womb.
OK Guys & Gals,I guess it’s settled. McCain will prove that Obama supports mass murder,individual murder,& Nazism,and he will triumph in Nov.
Jonas,as far as what you believe,Murder is a legal term. Let me know when a jury convicts a woman/or her abortionist of any type of murder,at that point what you believe will become factual.
Peter W:
“…his ‘health exception’ for the mother is a well-known loophole whose effect would be to allow even late-term abortions…”
While agreeing with you on the whole, I would suggest that calling the health exception a ‘loophole’ is well known pro-life characterization of what I would hazard most Americans believe should be an essential element of any legislation restricting abortions. I, personally, would not object to tightening up such language, so that it applies more specifically to the life of the mother, but excluding it entirely has its own matrix of unsupportable effects. Establishing through law that the life of an unborn child takes exclusive precedence over the life of the mother from the moment of conception not only represents a moral position I am unwilling to take, it also positively invites legal governmental intrusion and intervention in reproductive process at virtual every point along the way. Sadly, and ironically, the true dimensions of that political slippery slope lie virtually ignored by the very folks who see the family as the basic building block of American life.
RCAR, do you know the difference between a law on the books and a jury in a courtroom? They are 2 separate areas of law. The legislative body writes the laws, that the jury considers how to apply them to a case. Once you have that down, you can understand my post. We are discussing the legislative body, and one particular Senator who voted against the baby that survives the abortion. Now, you can discuss the merits of that position, if in fact, you can defend it.
One more point. I’ve been pro-life for a long time, but I feel the issue more viscerally now than I ever have, because I have an unborn child that has been 8 months in the womb. I read to her every night, and she moves around in the womb every time she hears my voice. I can feel where her feet are, where her back is. This morning we went to the OB-GYN, and she, testing the openness of the cervix, reached in and touched the baby’s head with her finger. Her name is Sophia.
I know there are, due to the heroic efforts of right-to-lifers, some protections against late-term abortions. But I also know there are loopholes, especially when it comes to the “mental health” of the mother. Basically, if you really want a late-term abortion, you have a good chance of getting it.
Are you going to tell me that someone can just dispose of Sophia, with no moral consequence? The doctor can feel Sophia right now; I can see her moving every time I speak with her. So when Sophia leaves the womb, she is magically transformed into a fully-valued human being? Can you possibly be serious? And if my wife (who would never do this, thank God) sought to abort Sophia, and Sophia survived, doctors should be allowed to toss her out with the medical waste? Can you think of anything more appalling, more monstrous?
And yet given the opportunity to protect children who survived abortions and are alive outside the womb, Obama, even after he had an exception for the health of the mother, STILL rejected it. It is absolutely unconscionable.
I’ll say it again. The fundamental ethical issue here is: How far will you go to help those who cannot help you? As for Obama, he won’t lift a finger.
Tim, great post.
I haven’t seen anyone mention the fact that Obama is always gassing on about how much he cares about black people and how much he wants to help them. If he wants to help them, how about helping prevent them from killing their progeny? Since 1973, one third of black conceptions have ended in abortion. Blacks represent 35% of the abortions, only 12% of the population. A large number of these abortions involve girls who have been preyed upon by older men.
If you want to help black people, what about calling for better enforcement of statutory rape laws, Obama? What about educating people about the fact that their lives and the lives of their children are precious? What about educating black people, period, in the rotten schools whose lackey you were for 8 years, Mr. Obama? What about giving some tough love to the teachers’ unions and abortion extremist activists who have given millions to your campaigns over the years?
Instead, Mr. Hope and Change’s brilliant solution is to expose unwanted children like the ancient Greeks. At least back then there was the excuse that food and water were hard to come by. What’s your excuse, Mr. Obama?
RCAR:
“Jonas,as far as what you believe,Murder is a legal term. Let me know when a jury convicts a woman/or her abortionist of any type of murder,at that point what you believe will become factual.”
The day a sympathetic nurse takes a cell phone camera into a partial birth abortion is the day this barbaric procedure comes to an end. Your messiah’s worst nightmare.
I don’t think I know what a “neutrality clause” is, and I’ll be grateful if someone can explain this to me.
i just had a revelation, McCain will win easily, it’s over,
McCain just locked up the social conservatives with that debate at the church.
and Obama made a huge error, his team thought they could pick off some social
conservatives because they were not totally on board with McCain,
but he ended up looking weak, which he is.
so now the right will not stray and their fear of rule by secular euro-type socialism,
something Obams has shown his affinity for, will force them to vote McCain,
now MCcain can choose Lieberman as VP, which will enable MCcain to siphon off some Hillary supporters and conservative Dems., that sounds like a key to victory for McCain.
McCain will campaign on big issues and hope with a Ind VP he can tell the Am people he can truly bridge differences, which he’s already done anyway, contra Obama.
doesn’t every survey say people hate the gridlock and and politcal BS?
McCain/Lieberman goes beyond that, now he’s stealing one of Obama’s original charms, the guy somehow above politics, the great united and healer, of course it is BS, now the
stark contrast of MaC/Joe, which really represents change, cannot be clearer to the
average common sense American.
“i just had a revelation, McCain will win easily, it’s over,”
It IS over.
Now all we have to do is wait until liberal’s eyes reveal that they know it as well.
When the inappropriate emotion in their protests reveal their panic and fear.
THEN we can say, “stick a fork in him, he’s done”.
And the sweetest part is that he did it to himself.
The democratic party, now it’s not just the Palestinians who “never miss an opportunity to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”.
So the nation is discovering that Obama is a blantant liar. Finally.
I hope you all can check out Investors Business Daily’s editorial “Like Father, Like Son.” It outlines the communistic writings of Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. in Kenya. It seems the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh?
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=303952499910291
alot of voters had abortions? alot of your friends perharps?
RCAR, you are getting a little too cute with your “legal definitions”, perhaps Clintonesque, even. Guess you must have missed class the day your law school professor lectured about a legal concept termed “mala en se”. But keep on parsing, as if the great unwashed hasn’t a clue about anything and can be lied to all day long without catching on. You can fool part of them all the time and all of them part of the time, but I’m guessing you can’t fool 51% of them on election day this time around.
By the way, Dead_Ender, thanks. Your Investors Business Daily editorial link is worth everyone’s time to read about the economic philosophy of The One’s daddy.
REAR,
you and your ilk cannot wish this this issue away, and you’re much too stupid to argue it away.
It’s not too late for you to subject yourself to a retroactive abortion, you know.
“Jonas,as far as what you believe,Murder is a legal term. Let me know when a jury convicts a woman/or her abortionist of any type of murder,at that point what you believe will become factual”
This issue is not about abortion, or killing the fetus, whether viable or not. It’s about killing a BABY that survived a botched abortion and is now outside the womb and fully alive.
Once the baby is outside the womb how exactly do you claim its part of the mothers body? I am sure that most who are prochoice would view this as murder – as evidenced by the federal vote.
I think McCain should turn this and obama’s lies about it into a campaign commercial especially in swing states. This could cost obama the election.
Timothy D. You can relax – sophia would not be thrown out with the medical waste.
All foetuses after 6 mths gestation (check your state guidelines) are given full funeral rights. It can be because of abortion /died in the womb / stillborn / as with those not able to survive after birth .
A late term abortion can be for medical reasons to the mother or the foetus ie is diseased , deformed or in some sad cases -the wrong sex.
I notice the overwhelming number of responses are by men.
This very Republican woman had an abortion that has been regretted from the first moment. Anguished regret….even after 20 years. Most women do regret them. For me, the candidate’s abortion position is one of the most important in a presidential candidate.
Martha, that’s fascinating. Go forth and say to all pregnant women who are considering abortion, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you with your emotional health.” Regret should be reduced, by federal law. Lots of things to get working on . . .
Sorry, you started it.
Obama (Soetoro) is not worthy of even being a Senator of our United States.
Finish him in November.
Obama is very consistent — i really liked the guy, and wanted to like the guy. But when he said that “he didn’t want any woman to be punished with a baby” i had to re-think. I’m now 100% out on him. Done.
Timothy, the mental-health exception doesn’t give a woman a “good chance” of obtaining an abortion, it gives her 100% certainty. There is a network of radical doctors who will certify a woman as “at risk” for an abortion with no questions asked other than “Do you want one?” Women have been certified as at risk because of a sense of “diminishment of self-esteem.” As with most of the pro-choice argument, an abuse of language is central. The “life of the mother” appealed to is in an entirely different category than the “life of the fetus.” One refers to an alteration in life’s conditions; the other means death.
As to the specific legislation that has provoked the controversy, it is well to remember that 90% of such “born alive” babies die, the clinical reasons being too gruesome to go into. In actual practice, BAIPA is more about providing comfort to a dying baby than saving the child’s life. A dog struck down in the street by a car usually isn’t merely left to die
there. Steps are taken, even when the case is hopeless, to comfort the poor creature. What Obama supports, for whatever ungodly reason, is not infanticide but withholding of comfort to a dying baby, which is as awful. Framing the argument that way will be more effective than letting the weasely Harvard lawyer change the subject to whether he is advocating infanticide or not.
“All foetuses after 6 mths gestation (check your state guidelines) are given full funeral rights. It can be because of abortion /died in the womb / stillborn / as with those not able to survive after birth .
A late term abortion can be for medical reasons to the mother or the foetus ie is diseased , deformed or in some sad cases -the wrong sex.
I notice the overwhelming number of responses are by men.”
well i’m not a man, and i notice that you dont discuss whether the baby once born will be given proper medical care. You seem determined to ignore what this is about. It’s not about fetuses that are dead when aborted. It’s about those who survive abortion, and are now outside the womb, alive, and whether they are given proper medical care.
Come on, “above my pay grade”, stand up for what you believe in. He did’nt because he was afraid to because of his location, take him out of there and he’s back to not being pro-life by a long shot. The real problem is, he stuck his tale between his legs when he gave the answer, how is anyone going to feel good about him runnig the country.
Obama needs to stick to the issues. For those of you so interested in comparing records, I suggest you look up the voting record of ‘the maverick’. Abysmal on veteran’s issues (no kidding), women’s issues and the needs of common working folk. McCain lies repeatedly about the issues versus the votes and even is on record saying that he wanted to be President because he was ambitious (he accused Obama of that over the weekend). To the Obama camp – expose this fraud for who he is.
At least Obama will protect the lives of innocent animals:
>> Obama responded that he cares about animal rights very much, “not only because I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old who want a dog.” He said he sponsored a bill to prevent horse slaughter in the Illinois state Senate and has been repeatedly endorsed by the Humane Society.
“I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other,” he said. “And it’s very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals.” <>“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.”<<
“Above my pay grade” indeed!
You are either Pro-Choice or Pro-Life. McCain is Pro-Life and Obama is Pro-Choice. If you believe either one of these positions mean more than any other issue in the elections, then please vote your choice. Though it seems the Pro-Lifer’s know their position is untenable in the real world and are therefore mudding the water to neutralise the advantage Obama has by being Pro-Choice.
Abortion certainly is a loaded issue, and most politicians would prefer to avoid putting the spotlight on it if they could. But the president chooses Supreme Court Justices, and we have an unusually bright contrast between the presidential candidates this year on the subject.
Sure, lots of Republicans have had abortions and have some sympathy for the position that they should butt out of a woman’s decision very early in her pregnancy. Other feel that a fetus is a human being, and “butting out” means abetting murder, so they have little patience with that position. But the point is that very few Republicans (or Independents, or frankly Democrats) are truly comfortable with late-term abortions, and I’ve frankly never met anyone in my life who would defend withholding medical care from a live baby, outside the womb, that had just survived a botched abortion. This position is extreme. McCain can and should highlight it in his campaign, particularly when Obama is lying about his position and saying inane things like “it’s above my pay grade.”
While Obama was in the Illinois state legislature did he try to institutionalize a limited infanticide or did he not?
In 2000, Congress took up the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act to make it clear that infants born alive after abortions are persons under the law. It passed the House 380-15. Back in the Illinois state Senate in 2001, Obama spoke out against and voted “present” — effectively “no” — on a similar bill. In 2002, Congress considered the legislation again, this time adding a “neutrality clause” specifying that it didn’t affect Roe one way or another. The bill passed without any dissenting votes in the House or the Senate and was signed into law. In 2003 in Illinois, Obama still opposed the identical state version of the law. He long claimed that he voted against it because it didn’t have the same “neutrality clause” as the federal version. But the National Right to Life Committee and others have unearthed the Illinois bill showing that it was amended to include such a clause, and Obama voted to kill it anyway.
Obama supported infant killing pure and simple. It is well documented in the archives of the Illinois Legislature. You can even find it on the Illinois Legislature’s website.
And when Obama was confronted with his previous position, he called the people confronting him LIARS. Obama has gotten a free ride from CNN, CBS, MSNBC, The New York Times, Newsweek, and other main stream media organizations.
I find it truly Ironic that a PASTOR, not a REPORTER finally asked the tough, probing question of Obama which has sparked the revelations into his character. What a rude awakening for those main stream media outlets that have tried so hard to shield Obama from the truth about his voting record and his basic convictions.
Above My Pay Grade indeed!
No RCAR, I don’t think we will choose to change the channel. In fact, I want to hear more about “THE ONE”
It’s not Obama’s responsibility to state categorically whether abortion is right or wrong and make that decision for any woman. It is a complex, moral issue, and even McCain’s answer opens up opportunity for further debate. The bottom line is that McCain is against a woman’s right to choose and will legislate it. Obama supports a woman’s right to choose, and believes a woman’s health and well-being are also important.
Obama is a disgrace. I am a life long Democrat who has left this party of corrupt, immoral individuals enthralled with crowing Obama. I am a pro Choice individual who finds his position absolutely disgusting – I would rather see Roe v Wade completely over turned than have a President Obama who votes in support of infanticide any where near the White House and the Supreme Court.
I hope that the Conservative community will band together to help elect McCain. McCain does not represent all my views but shudder the thought that Obama slips into the White House while those opposing him either stay home or support a candidate with no chance of defeating him.
PUMA
the abortion discussion is way above all of your paygrades…….. it is something that you can have a position on but not something you can judge others on or create effective legislation on…..
Firstly the concept that life begins at conception brings with it arguments that we can not really answer.
1. 40 – 50% of conceptions do not make it past the first week of life due to their genetic flaws. So did these”persons” die, was life really within them if they did not have the fundamental make up to deine life ?
2. A large percentage of spontaneous abortions are due to the mother not being ready. From the mother being low on folic acid, malnutritioned, stressed, or on medication. In other words, worldwide and here in the USA you can attribute more abortions to stressers like poverty. So are we actually killing more babies by not providing basic healthcare and nutrition to all fertile women?
3. Although a matter of contention oral contraceptives are able stop implanatation of a morula. It is a fact that via ultrasound women have been seen to produce eggs(ova) when on oral contraceptives. Therefore however small a percentage… many women who are pro-life have actually caused an abortion unbeknownst to them.
A very important aspect of law is having one that can be enforced. I am woefull as an MD, willl I have to report people who come looking for an abortion, or someone who has lost a baby if i suspect them for having and abortion. And what about the young girls who will try and do it on their own. Do they go to jail? In my home country abortion is illegal yet more rampant than here in the USA.
As a christian I do not want a single abortion. As a scientist I am stuck with explaining it. Therefore lets have a more serious discussion on abortion, share ideas. With posturing and arguing that the right and left do… nothing will change and more babies will keep dying.
Why will nobody say it, the man walked in there and backed away from giving a direct answer, good or bad, like it or not, that is what he did. This is not new politics, this is the same old politics from a man who claims it new. If he backs down from a bunch of christians in a church setting, what happens when it really gets hard. This was not about him making choices for everyone, this was about his opion, his beliefs, and he was afaid to express them because of the political fallout. Stand up for what you believe, no matter who likes it, or just sit down and don’t make any noise, because someone will hear you.
Obama’s position against the most basic human rights for born alive infants, who are among the most defenseless members of society makes clear the fact that Barack Obama does not believe in basic human rights, but rather that some members of society are allowed rights and other members of society are not. This is very basic, that all men (and women) are created equal and have been embued by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Barack Obama is on record opposing that! The implications of this cannot be underestimated!
If you are not willing to admit that life begins at conception, then when does it begin? Is a fetus human or not? And if you are not willing to protect life at the beginning, then what life is worth protecting? Where do you morals come from if you are willing to vote to please the creature and not the Creator? Obama should be very thankful his mother did not opt for an abortion. The decline of civilization begins with the loss of respect for life. His views put us closer to the end.
Thank God this is finally coming out. I have been wondering for months now when this subject would arise. Obama’s abortion record is too extreme, we’re dealing with human beings here. The most vulnerable and innocent. Callous! Even for the hard-core abortion supporter the “Born Alive Act” is too extreme to vote against. This has and will continue to damage Obama and it well should. “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked, what you sow you will reap.” Looks like Obama is reaping the “death” of his campaign, that is not such a bad thing to “reap” compared to what the children received.
Instead of throwing around emotionally misleading terms like “infanticide” Phil and others of his ilk should think about the circumstances under which late-term abortion is actually done, and how rare these are. No, it’s not a ghetto welfare queen who wakes up from her drug haze once the baby starts kickin’. It’s overwhelmingly women in stable long-term relationships who WANT the baby but find that it has some sort of illness that will cause death within the first year or so of life. Are these the women you want to force to carry a pregnancy for the full nine months and then have them and their families suffer through caring for and watching the infant slowly die anyway? And the right-to-life liars who claim that late-term abortions are mentally upsetting? It’s not the abortion, it’s that these women couldn’t have a healthy child that’s upsetting. The deceit that’s being perpetrated by right-wingers in South Dakota and elsewhere in the name of protecting “babies” would be laughable if it weren’t so damaging to so many people. If you REALLY cared about babies, how about getting behind initiatives for prenatal and infant health care, high-quality daycare, domestic violence prevention (YES, that too would prevent lots of abortions), teen reproductive education that isn’t hypocritical, and a public discourse that doesn’t rely on a mental image of a two-day old cell floating down a fallopian tube as a miniature doll that thinks and feels.
No President can or will direct this issue. He can attempt to veto a bill on abortion but that is the extent of his porwers. Why does the American public continue attempting to keep this issue in the forefront of the reasons to elect the next President?
David Thomson Says:
August 19th, 2008 at 3:20 PM
“The Abortion “Issue” is a loser for McCain.”
“Anyone defending late term abortions is a vile and disgusting human being. They are evil monsters comparable to the Nazis. It is time that we say so loud and clearly.”
So couples who have amnios at 5 months and determine that their baby will have disabilities or disease that may not allow them to be brought to term, or only have a very short life of pain and continuosu medical care, or be severly mentally handicapped, should not be allowed to make their own decision about carrying the fetus to term? A couple with children determines in the second trimester that the baby is causing severe health issues for the woman, does not have any discretion with the doctor and her husband to determine her fate.
I’m not disgusting, I understand how difficult these decisions are, but believe they are between a woman, her family and her physician
Well said CFB….I agree with your statements completely! Obama should be focusing on changing/educating the black community against their own genocide in this matter, instead of running for President.
IVF proves that individual members of the species homo sapiens begin their existence at the moment of conception, NOT at the moment of implantation or birth. It’s no longer a scientific or theological mystery: all the elements unique to that individual are present at conception.
It’s no longer “the woman’s body” because, duh, you can procreate a human individual in a petri dish. Obviously all embryos and fetuses of ANY species require their mother’s womb to grow just as we born people require healthy environments to grow, but our environments don’t add anything to our being human. Size and physiological development don’t make us ‘more’ human.
Secondly, if individual members of our species don’t begin having human rights at the moment of their coming to be individual members of our species – i.e. at the moment of their conception, then human rights can not logically be said to exist independent of other peoples’ whimsy; inalienable rights would be a complete fiction of our minds.
This is why abortion – like slavery before it – goes to the heart of the entire American experiment and challenges the presuppositions on which the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were based. I note that one political party supported slavery in 1860 and the same supports abortion in 2008. If it’s a matter of opinion when human life begins, then it’s also a matter of opinion and not fact as to who we can call ‘equally human’ or only 3/5th human.
But those in favor of abortion “as a choice” don’t care about these nuances and sophisticated philosophical ideas of rights and existence and being. They want sex without consequences, and pregnancy is inconvenient so they want what they want and feel entitled to it at all cost, other peoples’ lives be damned.
Even in the “hard case” of a deformed fetus….why kill it? Why not carry it to term, let it be born and die of natural causes cradled in your loving arms? Would that not be the act of loving parents? Being there when someone dies of natural causes is a morally distinct thing that actively hastening death via abortion or euthanasia.
Or is ‘emotional trauma’ now PRESUMED to be a worse thing that active, intentional killing of anyone?
Doesn’t that boil down to pro-choicers’ elevating their convenience above other individual members of our species’ lives?
And yes, we’ve lost a child to miscarriage – s(he) died of natural causes – no one’s fault. And yes we’ve supported friends who carried a deformed child to term and cradled him as he died of natural causes an hour after being born. Their grief wasn’t tempered by their love for him and their knowledge that they did all they could to save him as opposed to just giving up on a baby in utero to avoid the inconvenience and suffering that love to the end would have required.
And Yes, we have personally assisted young unmarried pregnant girls with care, housing, clothing, etc. to help them choose life.
Abortion is the greatest civil rights cause of our generation because it goes to the root of what is good and bad, what is right and wrong, who is considered human or not and where rights come from or depend on: if rights depend on “the woman’s whim” then NO ONE has rights, not even her.
There will always be some group of people whose basic human rights it will be expedient to ignore, and regarding the notion of killing people based upon test results, test results can be wrong, and certainly a holocaust could be carried out if for some reason a group of health care providers decided to lie.
Again, there will always be a group of people whose basic human rights it will be expedient to ignore, history is full of such cases and Barack Obama is on the wrong side on the issue of human rights, despite the image he would like to create for himself.
This is very basic and the implications should not be underestimated.
A healthy people knows how to regulate its numbers. It is not the case that an unlimited amount of people can live; it is also not the case that “right-to-lifers” consistently value the lives of those who do not breathe amniotic fluid. Lastly – if all life is prescious, then this must also apply to Saddam Hussein: his mother tried to abort him twice. I’m thinking that this is one abortion that the “right-to-lifers” would rather have been successful, despite their overwhelming support for his crimes while he was committing them.
And anyway, this legislation was not challanging the decision to abort those babies, this legislation provided for basic human rights for the survivors of those abortions.
Forgot to mention one sticky fact: if life begins at conception, then how does one explain twins, since twinning occurs after conception, up to two weeks after? I guess, by this logic, twins, or at least one of them, doesn’t “exist”?
Jonas M says,”you seem to be impatient with this abortion discussion.”
Jonas, I just said it won’t get him any new votes. Discussing Abortion/Infanticide is very interesting,but,in my opinion, it’s not a tactic that will help McCain win in an election. A lot of voters have had abortions,even Republicans.
—————
Does everything have to be a tactic? Aren’t there some things in life which should be hashed out whether they win a particular politician votes or not. No, it’s not just “very interesting”, it’s the moral equivalent of slavery back in the 1800s. Many of the same arguments were used. I suppose it was “very interesting” issue to discuss but wouldn’t win many votes. Should Lincoln have avoided the subject matter because it might have not favored his election chances?
Frankly we are talking about a core issue, we are not discussing whether we should build new bridges in Alaska. So, it’s important for everyone to be very clear on where the candidates stand on this. It says something about their character.
The only thing that should matter in this election is abortion. There should be no other discussions about anything else. There are no other issues in the world of any importance. It is a holocaust. Until this issue is addressed nothing should be dealt with. Neither candidate can be trusted in this regard. If we were to replace the president with an entirely religious figure (such as Rick Warren), chosen by a religious committee of elected religious leaders from all the Christian faiths, we would be assured that Christian values would be defended.
The idea that we can live in this country and have the possibility that a non-christian lead us that does not share our values is not only frightening, it is an outrage.
Very slimy position to take, to deny health care and basic rights to an injured survivor of abortion. Very expedient though, of course much has been done in the name of expediency.
The reason Sen. Obama does not see the hypocrisy in citing Matthew’s scripture and unborn babies being the least among us, is that he, and others on his side of the fence, do not see them as human. It is strangely familiar to the past crime of not seeing blacks as fully human as whites.
The fact that 43M human lives have been terminated in a place that says is it for “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is the greatest moral failing of this country. And yes, dealing with that is certainly above Obama’s pay grade.
Hey RCAR:
actually even conservative women who’ve had abortions would be turned off by a. late term and “post-term” abortions, and b. the fact that obama lied about his extremist record. But, since you are apparently not nuanced enough to realize that everything he does epitomizes dirty chicago politics, and Illinois, the place where this huxter was spawned is the most corrupt state with the highest taxes (and rising…), why don’t you just go back to your day dreaming about candy skies and lovely utopia where everyone is morally equal…
Human rights IS NOT A RELIGIOUS VALUE. Its a human rights value to people of all faiths, all colors, believers and non-believers. The ending of life, whether its in the womb or outside of it should make no difference to anyone that is humble enough to know their existence is no more important than the person standing next to them (or the one about to be born). Therefore, the very term “pro-choice” needs to be changed to “pro-self” or “myopically mine” as no one with at least a little selflessness understands that aborting a fetus is ending a life. Ironically, it minimizes the very existence of the person aborting her own child.
I agree with 61. I will add this though. Obama has said and it angered Pro-choice groups that mental reasons should not be included as medical reasons to have abortions for the mother unless there is a documented history of mental illness. So I think the author is distorting the Health Clause portion by not mentioning that point.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/04/obama-on-late-abortion-me_n_110884.html
I think that Obama is more for provention and feels as I do that enough money and you can get anything you want in America. If we ban abortions those who want it bad enough will find a way to get it and those who are greedy enough will find a way to provide it. It is not up to Government to decide what people do with their bodies. It is not up to government to pass moral judgment. Abortions have declined since Roe V Wade because people are making the right moral choices. How about build on that and stop spending money to overturn laws that half the population agree with and spend that money on prevention and work with those on the other side on common measures.
To NYCVoter, from another NYC voter:
You said:
So couples who have amnios at 5 months and determine that their baby will have disabilities or disease that may not allow them to be brought to term, or only have a very short life of pain and continuosu medical care, or be severly mentally handicapped, should not be allowed to make their own decision about carrying the fetus to term? A couple with children determines in the second trimester that the baby is causing severe health issues for the woman, does not have any discretion with the doctor and her husband to determine her fate.
Actually, no, couples should not be able to decide to terminate that human life. If it really is going to threaten the mother’s life, that is one thing. Nevermind that too often people liken mental anguish with “threatening the life of the mother.” If it is going to kill the Mom, then yes, I think you can abort. However, the vast majority of abortions are not this example. Too often it is for contraception purposes, or because someone isn’t perfect enough. Well, too bad! Imperfection is a human trait. Genocide is not an acceptable response to imperfections. 43 million people were not all going to be born with handicaps, and if some were, so what?
If we were talking about slaves – and stay with me on this for a moment – I do not think you would find it acceptable for one person to decide whether another person ought to be able to live. Also, how many times do you need to hear of a baby being diagnosed with an illness that will “prevent them from living a quality life or being viable outside the womb” and they come out just fine?
“The reason Sen. Obama does not see the hypocrisy in citing Matthew’s scripture and unborn babies being the least among us, is that he, and others on his side of the fence, do not see them as human. It is strangely familiar to the past crime of not seeing blacks as fully human as whites.
The fact that 43M human lives have been terminated in a place that says is it for “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is the greatest moral failing of this country. And yes, dealing with that is certainly above Obama’s pay grade.”
I happen to be on the side of Choice. However under no circumstance would I give my children the impression that Abortion is in some way a form of birth control. I don’t think that anyone on the choice side is doing that. The fact that the life side thinks to that extreme is the reason why we can not solve the issue. What to lifers think of birth control some don’t agree with it some are ok with it. That is part of choice. What do lifers think about teaching children at a young age about sex and abstanence? Some thing children should be exposed some think its ok. That is creating choice. Sex is a reality and children are going to be exposed to it. If we continue to debate the law and avoid the reality we will never solve the problem. I am pro-choice and believe life begins at conception and if everyone is given all of the tools to avoid making the choice to end a life then the laws won’t matter.
Rich:
Actually many circumstance pointing to obama’s extreme lack of character and judgment have been aired (but not by the MSM, since they’re too busy shielding young obama from the evil conservatives in this country). Why, we’ve seen such superb character attributes in obama’s association with rabid anti-white and anti-America “preachers”, we’ve seen it with his association with a known and active, if not unrepentant terrorist who colluded with him for God-knows-what on the Woods Foundation and the Annenberg Challenge (please go to nationalreview.com on the details about how the University of Illinois is obstructing the process whereby the public can find out just what involvement both have had). Hell, we’ve even got an idea of how he operates by the mere fact that he began running for office in the first place by forcing all other candidates off the ballot in Illinois by obscure technicalities. We know that he KNOWINGLY associated with convicted felon Tony Rezco in a shady land deal buying a 1.7 million dollar house in Hyde Park (wonder if that would qualify as “rich”?). We know that simple math tells us that if he’s been a senator for 3 years and running for POTUS for 2, then he’s spent exactly 33% of his prolific government carreer serving the people and 66% serving himself. Finally, we know he is Hollywood’s choice. What more needs to be said? Yet there they are, everyday I see them (granted, I live in Chicago, embarrasingly), the obama bumber stickers sported by clueless automatons more often than not gabbing on their cell phones or preening themselves in the rearview mirror. My only thought is that these types are so pissed off Bush “stole” the 2000 elections and he’s had the gaul to protect us from terrorists for 8+ years, they are willing to suspend disbelief simply to prevent the election of anyone with a (R) at the end of their name.
I am so tired of the “Right to Life” people—they never mention the rights of people already born–we have homeless and hungry children in the good old USA-poverty—unforgiveable in this county. They never mention all the innocent children, babies, that we have bombed to death. If they would work on making this a better world for all, maybe women wouldn’t choose abortion. THINK! Get to the heart of the problem—and by the way, I am not Pro-abortion–I have 8 children and wouldn’t want to be in a position to be tempted to have an abortion, however, I have been fortunate, others not so.
Have any of you people thought of adopting a “crack” baby, or a baby that a mother couldn’t take care of, or who has had so much pain in her life that she knows she can’t handle anymore? Have any of you offered to baby-sit for a working mother, maybe a single mother, either while she works, or just to give her a break? Have you ever looked into the reasons why some women choose abortion? Please—either DO something to make a difference besides shooting your mouths off—-How ignorant can it be to vote just on one issue. There are American soldiers loosing their LIVES—-do they have a right to LIFE———
Also, how many times do you need to hear of a baby being diagnosed with an illness that will “prevent them from living a quality life or being viable outside the womb” and they come out just fine?
How many people know that information? How many people have actually counted why the 43 million abortions did happen? How many people who thought that a handicaped child would be a burden are told that there is help out there for them? How much help do the Pro-Life organizations give to programs for the mentally handicap? How much effort do the pro-life organization put into adoption laws and making the process easier for qualified parents? What are the pro-choice organizations doing on these same issues? Probably nothing because they are spending too much time, money and effort on fighting eachother on abortion.
What McCain needs to do is find someone who was born alive after a failed abortion and put him in an ad saying, “Thank you John McCain for be willing to save my life when I was just an infant.” Or something to that affect, and then a voice saying “John McCain voted to protect babies of live-born abortions. Barrack Obama voted against it.”
I am so tired of people obvuscating the point of discussion by bringing up the poor homeless, hungry children. Or the scourges of war and just how bad and dark a place this world is to usher a life into. What right does a person have to make the decision for an unborn child that their life was going to be so bad, they need to have the ultimate bad thing happen to them anyway? I can never understand or accept this LAME EXCUSE for why folks think it’s ok to abort. In other words, a single person playing God, thinking they are all ominicient and actually know what a childs future is going to be, so just kill it and put it out its misery anyway!?
What a heavy handed commentary! Like Rick Warren, you paint Obama into a corner with supreme rhetorical flair. But there is little merit to your essay because you fail to take seriously (a) the facts surrounding a nuetrailty clause (and not just Pastor Rick’s spin) and (b) Obama’s actual reflections and commentary. But then, you are preaching to the choir, sir. It’s really important to keep those fundamentalist, right-wing Christians on board. Just remember, the rest of America will not stand for this. We repudiated it in 06 and we’re about to repeat history in 08.
Georgiann, as a pro-lifer, I admit that I am not the man I would like to be. I have a hard enough time being a good father to my own 4 children, and don’t dare to presume that I could show sufficient love for an adopted child.
However, to answer your question, in our rural town of about 1,000, in my circle of maybe 20 or 30 Christian families that I hang out with, there are 6 families that have adopted children. One family is a single woman who never married and has two children adopted through a prison ministry, daughters of a crack-head mom. Another is a 58-year old pastor and wife with 3 grown children of their own and two adopted middle-school aged daughters of a different crack-head. Another family has 11 children of their own and 2 adopted from a poor region of Africa as a response to the mom miscarrying a set of twins. Another has 3 of their own and one from Asia. The others I don’t know the details on. I have personally contributed financially to 2 of these families and can vouch for their outstanding character.
Please do not deign to criticize the hypocrisy of us “pro-lifers” when it sounds like you don’t know very many personally. Can we all do more? Absolutely.
I congratulate you on your 8 children. However, as a mom, you should understand the difference between a Commander-in-Chief sending his VOLUNTEER army into harms way in the nation’s interests and a mother-with-child ending its life in her own interest. There’s also a difference, though equally tragic, bewteen a bomb mistakenly taking out a pre-school and a woman telling the doctor to just leave her live-born abortion in a back room to die while she goes back to her life.
If you can’t see the difference between choosing to end an innocent, unprotected life and acts of war, you need to do a little thinking of your own.
Dude says,”——-why folks think it’s ok to abort.”
Dude, It’s OK because it’s legal,make it illegal,and it won’t be OK. If you think abortion is a crime and the government doesn’t,maybe we should outsource the legal process to Blackwater;we can rendition those unholy women with their Satanic abortion MDs to Saudi Arabia.
First a question: I understand that when Obama voted against the Illinois legislation there already was a law on the state books prtoecting the life of any baby born after a botched abortion.
Is that true?
If true, then the whole absurd-sounding infanticide charge falls flat on its face.
I also undersatnd that later Illinois passed a similar bill to the one he originally voted against that had language that made it clear that Roe v Wade was unaffected by Illinois law.
If Obama suppports Roe V Wade and its successor Casey, then he allows for the state’s growing vindicatable interest in protecting the life of the fetus as pregnancy progresses to full term.
The life of the mother exception for later term abortions where there is real danger to the mother is a legitimate concern that raises legitimate and tragic issues.
People hurling around notions of infanticide seriously need to check their fanaticism at the door and need to be infinitely less self-satisfied.
And I don’t even like the guy–Obama
Hey RCAR,
The two main points of the articles are these: Senator Obama is in a very small minority on this issue (providing medical (or comfort) care to a child born alive following an intended abortion), and has now, apparently, lied about his position on this issue.
While a candidate’s position on abortion is a deciding issue for 20-30% of voters, misrepresenting one’s position on issues consciously is a sign of one’s character or lack thereof. I would think this would have a potentially significant impact on the decisions of some voters.
As far as the jobs issue is concerned, what exactly do you expect the federal government to do to impact the number of jobs?
Tom (#82) said “It’s really important to keep those fundamentalist, right-wing Christians on board. Just remember, the rest of America will not stand for this. We repudiated it in 06 and we’re about to repeat history in 08.”
Zogby now has McCain up by 5. I wanted to support Obama, I really did. People like you who paint all opponents of infanticide as “fundamentalist, right-wing Christians” will be shocked when McCain wins. You really need to get out more.
Now it has become quite clear to me why the Democrats are trying to deflect the conversation away from abortion in regards to Barack. A lot of the commentators on this thread are trying to do the same as well.
Don’t deflect, just answer the question on Obama’s position on this issue…….hopefully words won’t escape you…….”.just words, just words” quote from Senator Obama
I agree with post 85. I do believe that there was a law on the books protecting babies born during failed abortions.
To: non Says,
“i notice that you dont discuss whether the baby once born will be given proper medical care. You seem determined to ignore what this is about. It’s not about fetuses that are dead when aborted. It’s about those who survive abortion, and are now outside the womb, alive, and whether they are given proper medical care.”
There’s about 43 million to be exact without proper medical care after birth! When we can take care of the people already born then the abortion arguement will be valid. But until then, it’s a no brainer.
Please explain why a life must be preserved before birith but ignored after one is born?
One reason to weave and dodge on abortion is that the numbers are simply staggering! According to a direct Federal survey of abortion providers, 1,312,990 children were aborted in 2000 in the United States. That figure represents that for every 1000 live births, 306 pregnancies ended in abortion. Since Roe vs. Wade, Federal estimates are that 44,670,812 children have lost their lives. This is especially troubling in an era when mandatory sex education, family planning and our level of affluence allows everyone access to and instruction in pregnancy prevention, a half billion dollar US industry.
I abhor all the US soldiers lives lost in the “legal” war in Iraq. But the emotionally charged rhetoric of antiwar activism displays a hypocrisy of thought, that mandatory hand-wringing must surround the battlefield while casually ignoring 3597 infant deaths a day. No, sadly, these aborted fetuses do not intrude across our television screens nor are the statistics ever reported by the media even though they are reliably compiled by the CDC.
Instead, peace activists demonstrate a biased view of activism, linking morality of thought to a political party’s demographic base, resulting in muddled statements. There is only one answer and no middle ground on abortion. You are either for it or against it. Hence, the pay grade “punt.”
Obama is a pro abortion extremist who would not want his daughters “punished with a baby” if they became pregnant. That shows his attitude towards children and women. Unfortunately, his parents were “punished” with him. Pro life is a winning issue notwithstanding the point of view of RCAR. And many women have REGRETTED their abortions.
Let’s not forget that the next president will appoint at least two members to the US Supreme Court – making abortion maybe the second most important issue in this campaign, next to national security. Obama loses on both counts.
Republicans. Lovem or hate em, you generally know where they stand. Simple and succint (sp). Let a liberal democrat talk long enough, they’ll tell you what they really think!!!
Props to Rick Warren to teach ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC and Fox how to run a debate.
Disugusted in GA
Thats your solution, Heil Rommel? We dont have enough healthcare so, lets just suck their brains out? Your twisted.
This will only cost Obamessiah votes if the American public knows about it. With the media covering for him at every opportunity, we need to find a way to broadcast the truth.
The truth is on our side, it is up to Obama to explain WHY he voted the way he did- not up to us to prove why he did. We need to just get this issue out there widely enough that the media will have to finally deal with it. Hopefully we have some smart ad guys..
Lt Jaf,
If finding out that the great emanicipator is (was till it was politically bad for him) actually a member of a Black nationalist church listening to (but not hearing apparently) racist hate speech for TWENTY YEARS did not sour his lemming like followers (includes the media), then nothing is going to. I laugh when I think about it. I wonder if the media is sublimitally flashing in pro-obama stuff throughout their broadcasts making the impressionable hypnotized obmamabots.
Could not agree more. Presidents have to lead, they can’t defer on a hard decision. In this case, Obama’s deferral was an artful act of deceit of a Christian audience. He deferred to avoid losing votes. His votes in the Ill legislature accurately portray his pro-abortion stance. After reading several books and reviews on Obama on http://www.honestjohnwade.com, I have enough biographical data, and insights into his personality and experience that I can comfortably discern his “pay-grade”, but wish I really knew what he stands for and what he will do as President.
For those of you who are pro abortion or have no opinion, I wish you could meet my friend who had an abortion because her husband wanted her to have one. She is regularly in counseling with a very good psychiatrist here. She cannot forgive herself or be able to ever love her husband again and probably never be able to marry again. She is the most pityful person I have ever known. I don’t believe any woman who has an abortion is able to live with the fact that she has killed her own child. Would you all just think about this before you start fighting one another on this issue?
Oh brother! Any educated person knows that on most bills there are “little extras” to be used to manipulate the vote. Its a double edged sword. This “article” is ridiculous and feeds right into the right-wing smear BS that plagues our elections each and every election season….
Pathetic. Which 527 is paying you, Mr. Wehner?
The abortion issue should be managed carefully. The best place to play it up is in the midwest and the south – to paint Obama as an extremist and to energize the evangelical voter to work on his behalf. North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, and Ohio are the best places to play this card.
Yet another race featuring “pro vs. anti-abortion”.
The more “anti-abortion” candidate has won 5 of the last 7 elections (Reagan, Reagan, Bush, Bush, Bush)… yet what actual moves have been made to actually do anything about abortion? Little to none. 7 of our 9 current supreme court justices were appointed by Republicans who claimed to be “anti-abortion”. So why hasn’t Roe been overturned? What are they waiting on?
Anyone else getting the feeling that the GOP candidates have a strong tendency to claim that they are “anti-abortion”… and then not do a thing about it?
Since 1972, the largest drop in the abortion rate occured under Bill Clinton… a “pro-abortion” president, who the Right claimed would support “abortion mills” on every corner.
Let’s be realistic- “anti-abortion” Republicans have done absolutely nothing to curtail or end abortions.
This issue is a loser for the repubs. No mother wants her daughter to have less rights than she had. Thge majority of american women will vote for Obama because he will protect R vs W
James B.
Thanks for the well thought out response without invective:
“I happen to be on the side of Choice. However under no circumstance would I give my children the impression that Abortion is in some way a form of birth control. I don’t think that anyone on the choice side is doing that. The fact that the life side thinks to that extreme is the reason why we can not solve the issue. What to lifer’s think of birth control some don’t agree with it some are ok with it. That is part of choice. What do lifers think about teaching children at a young age about sex and abstinence? Some thing children should be exposed some think its ok. That is creating choice. Sex is a reality and children are going to be exposed to it. If we continue to debate the law and avoid the reality we will never solve the problem. I am pro-choice and believe life begins at conception and if everyone is given all of the tools to avoid making the choice to end a life then the laws won’t matter.”
But I have to disagree.
I do not believe that 43M lives were lost due to all or even most having handicaps that would have prevented them from living a quality life. I think life is cheap to too many, and they took another’s life away because things were going to be tougher on them. I think most were aborted due to birth control. I also feel that we are wrong to not realize how many blacks, for example, have been aborted, and how the population might look today if this had not happened. We have killed off an entire generation of people who could have grown into great things.
To the person who lamented that since we don’t have national health care, and this fact should invalidate a moral response to abortion: it is an intellectually lazy argument that you make. Bottom line:
Humans don’t spontaneously become so; they are human from the beginning. Aborting them takes a life. Their life is worth as much as yours and mine. That is the important fact here. If we, as a country, decided that blacks are worth as much as whites and we were terribly wrong to ever have suggested otherwise, than it’s time we acknowledge people as people, and not as something that fits into a convenient framework.
For the record, I support sex ed at an appropriate time, but not, for example, in second grade and not with the presumption that all the kids in the class are having sex. We should give them a chance to develop at their own pace and not assume they are all sexually active (and abnormal if they aren’t).
Adele, thanks for your post and pointing out some very important points. I just wanted to correct your number to 48 million have died since R v W
http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortionstats.html
As we dont want to forget anyone. The point is that us “evil conservatives” dont want to restrict a woman from THE VERY FINITE POSSIBILITY of aborting a fetus if in fact her life is in danger. However, it is quite evident that abortion is being used BY A HUGE MAJORITY as birth control. This is what us evil conservatives want to eliminate. Please stop the greatest holocaust mankind has ever rendered on this planet.
Dude, duly noted, and thanks.
I will look at the link.
My VOTE IS PRO-LIFE FOR THAT MY VOTE IS FOR MacCAIN.
ABORTION = KILL CHILDREN
100% REPUBLICAN THE BEST PARTY
In 1953 Frank Marshal Davis, a known communist under investigation for subversive and unamerican activities fled to Hawaii. Obama says in his book he sat for hours at Franks feet listening to his poetry and stories. Obama moved to Chicago and linked up with other radicals including the socialist party (called the New Party) which supported him in his state senate race and his run for the US Senate. After years of tutoring, grooming, scripting and packaging, the socialist party feels Obama is ready to become the leader of the United Socialist States of America.
But the mask is slipping
MY VOTE IN FLORIDA, IS FOR MACCAIN.
DEMOCRAT PARTY = EVIL PARTY
REPUBLICAN PARTY = GOD PARTY
ABORTION = KILL CHILDREN
A couple commentators have claimed that Obama opposed the Illinois bill because Illinois already protected born children from harm.
That is just wrong.
When this issue arose, the Illinois attorney general dealt directly with that argument by noting that children who survived abortion were not covered by the Illinois murder or manslaughter statute.
The sad fact is that Mr. Obama opposed protecting children who survived an abortion. Period.
Why did he do this? One explanation might be that he was preparing to run for the U.S. Senate and needed to secure his pro-abortion credentials.
What is really disturbing is his and his campaign’s attempt to prevent scrutiny of this position by misrepresenting what he did.
WorldCitizenUK,
your comment reads like a parody. Even your screen name pokes fun at the type of new world order moron who thinks Obama is the Anointed One and that a pro infanticide stance will help him win the election. For your sake, I hope it was a parody.
GC,
Instead of throwing around emotionally misleading terms like “abortion” “pro-choice” and “women’s rights,” you and others of your ilk should think about the gruesome circumstances under which late-term abortions are actually done, and how often they’re done.
If you have reliable documentation to support your claim that most late term pregnancy “terminations” are due to illnesses that would kill the baby “within the first year or so of life,” please provide it.
I wont hold my breath waiting.
Putting the word babies in quotation marks as you did is a lame attempt to dehumanize them, and only dehumanizes yourself.
Pro-life activists and voters already support “initiatives for prenatal and infant health care, high-quality daycare and domestic violence prevention” (not that domestic violence is an abortion issue in the real world.) Do you?
Like everything else you wrote, claiming that all pro-life supporters believe a fertilized egg is a “miniature doll that thinks and feels” is a flat out lie. It’s a moot point though. Whether a fertilized egg is scraped from a cervix or a baby is murdered, the end result is the same. A human being has been forcibly prevented from living.
Your distortions and distractions don’t address the fact that late term abortions–infanticide–of healthy children is legal and practiced in this country, and that Obama opposes the Born Alive Act. If an aborted baby lives, and the doctors murder it, or withhold care and sympathy, that’s flat out obscene and monstrous. As are you for supporting it.
If the Supreme Court can invent a “right” to privacy and legal infanticide to go with it, the American voters can pass an initiative outlawing it. The murder of adults is already illegal. It’s time to make the murder of infants in the womb (and out, according to Obama) be made illegal. The President of the United states absolutely has the moral responsibility to state his position on this life or death issue, and to act upon it.
James B.,
the government already passed moral judgement and decided what people can do with their bodies. The Supreme Court did so with the Roe Vs. Wade decision you cited.
Of course, it isn’t about control of the woman’s body. It’s about control of the baby’s. Nobody has real control of their body, especially not a pregnant woman. Women don’t “abort” themselves, they “abort” their children. Fathers are denied any rights whatsoever in the process, despite the fact that they contribute 50% of the child’s genetic package.
Your vapid claim that “if everyone is given all of the tools to avoid making the choice to end a life then the laws won’t matter” is contradictory. If pro-death women have a choice, they will exercise it. Wishing for rainbows and butterflies while babies are murdered just doesn’t cut it for decent human beings.
Claiming that many abortions are peformed for health reasons is a tired old canard, as is the claim that pro-lifers don’t help unwanted children. If you want information on reasons stated by women for having their abortions, do a Google search.
This brings up the main differences between pro-life Americans and pro-death Americans. Honesty and knowledge. The majority of pro-death proponents are dishonest or misinformed. If you people have to lie to promote your warped views, those views aren’t worth promoting.
I read every comment in this thread. Most of them are very thoughtful and there is sense in almost all of them.
One thing I didn’t see anyone mention is the following fact: if Obama’s past and present positions on abortion are so mainstream and so pro-child and pro-family and pro-female, why does he appear to be so afraid to talk about them?
Why not hold a press conference and just answer questions, like McCain did when the New York Times accused him of having an affair with a lobbyist 15 years ago? He took every single question from every single reporter who wanted to ask him about it.
On an issue like abortion — which is way more important to the future of this country than whether or not John McCain played grab-ass with some redhead — shouldn’t we feel entitled to a President who is willing to explain what he believes, and why?
And those of you on this string who assert that the President doesn’t have any power on this subject are either ignorant or disingenuous. The President will appoint the Supreme Court justices who will rule on this essential question. If you don’t believe it, just go over to the Planned Parenthood Web site and observe their hysterical efforts to get Senator Obama elected. Or do some research to find out how much money they have given to pro-abortion candidates throughout the country. Planned Parenthood knows how important this election is. We should, too.
“And those of you on this string who assert that the President doesn’t have any power on this subject are either ignorant or disingenuous.”
Please read my post on page 11. I never said the President has no power here. I said that, in spite of the fact that Republicans who were supposedly “anti-abortion” have been on office 20 of the last 28 years and have appointed over 3/4′s of our current supreme court, nothing has been done to attack the lagality of the procedure.
Seems that all you have to do to be considered “pro-life” is to simply claim it. Because the actions of the last 3 Republican presidents haven’t shown them to be anything but in agreement with the vast majority of the population of the county- firmy pro-choice.
Smart of the GOP, really. They know thay have 20-30 million voters who make their decision based on the abortion issue only. All they have to do is dangle the “anti-abortion” carrot, and they show up, election after election, screaming about infantacide. 4 years later, no laws have been passed, nothing has been challenged, yet somehow the trick works again. It’s been happening since 1980.
I posted a couple of pages back and have read some more comments and feel that I need to post more. Discussing what madhatter has said about the last 3 republican presidents and the supreme court: The ‘anti-abortion’ crowd will not try and overturn roe v wade in the courts until the supreme court is moved more to the right that it may have an actual chance of being overturned. I have always been against abortion used as birth control, but in matters of rape, incest, health of the mother (physical), there it may be a possible option. Education needs to be done, and not only abstinence education. Sex education in high school is fine, not in middle or grade school. Unfortunatly, children are engaging in sexual activity at very young ages now.
I think I have said enough for now, but I will leave you with a final thought….. are the fertilized eggs that are made in fertility clinics that are not used and discarded considered abortions too??
Because we don’t want to elect a President who is a liar and a moral coward.
It IS in Obama’s “pay grade” to answer the question. SB1082!…
The problem with Barack Obama’s answer at the Saddleback Civic Forum, that wrestling with the issue of when do human rights start for a person, was above his “pay grade”, is not primarily that he didn’t want to answer (yes that …
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