So Why Does it Matter?

So let's say you've read my previous posts, and are willing to agree with me that (1) Obama supports abortion more deeply and completely than any other national politician, a fact which means (2) his promises to pro-life evangelicals to reduce the number of abortions in America are clearly not going to come true.  You may still ask the question, "so what?"  Maybe you're inspired by the tone of his speeches.  Maybe you think going to war in Iraq was a really bad idea (I've come to think that myself).  Maybe you see the rest of his platform as moderate or centrist.  Why should his extreme views on abortion trump all this other "good stuff?"

In a phrase, "human rights."  Usually we don't talk about the concept of human rights when we discuss people with lots of political or military power, or lots of money.  The concept of human rights only comes up in conversations about people who are powerless, who don't have the guns or votes or money to protect themselves.  And no one is more powerless, more voiceless, than the unborn child.

"But they're not really human, Brian."  Okay, define for me the point at which the substance of that entity formerly known as an embryo takes on the identity of a human.  As I made the transition from being pro-choice to pro-life, that was always the thing I couldn't get past.  I never could nail down any consistent, logical point at which it made sense to say "before this point this thing was not a human being, but after this point it was," except conception.

To this day, that is my challenge to anyone who wants to convince me that abortion and the right to life should not be the preeminent human rights issue of our time: give me any other point in the gestation process when it is reasonable to say that "humanness" begins, and I'll be happy to give mothers the license to destroy the non-human thing before that point.

In lieu of such a defined point, every single baby is a human person from the point of conception, and is worthy of receiving the protection of both law and society.  In our society, such legal protection doesn't exist.  As a result, over a million people (and again, in lieu of a better definition, the word "people" is completely appropriate) are killed each year.

Anyone who claims to be concerned about human rights, anyone who claims to follow Christ, should make this their highest political priority.  Some claim that war or the death penalty should be an a par with, or even more important than, abortion.  I disagree, if for no other reason than simple numbers:

• The death penalty has killed its thousands (1,119 in the US since 1976);
• the Bush Wars have killed their hundreds of thousands (I couldn't find a concise, comprehensive death estimate, but I think that number covers it...);
• but abortion has killed its (tens of) millions (we can figure over 8 million, just during the Bush administration).

At least with the other two issues, there's a chance that some level of guilt might have been involved (in addition to the fact that those are disputed issues within the church overall); with abortion, the victims are all innocent.  As Charles Chaput put it in a recent article,

But [Catholics who support pro-choice candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify [that support]. What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life—which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.

To sum up, Christians are called to protect "the least of these."  There are none more "least" than the unborn.  We must protect them.  In stark contrast to this, Obama is staunchly, even aggressively, in favor of removing every obstacle to the completion of every intended abortion in America.  He has done nothing on any record, anywhere, for the unborn.  Anyone who is pro-life can only vote for Obama if they willfully disregard this simple fact.