Abortion

One need not believe in God, or the existence of a spiritual realm, to understand the simple fact that human life begins at fertilization.  One need not be religious to believe that "all human beings are equal in worth and dignity."  These two points are at the core of pro-life convictions.  Robert George makes these arguments (and more) with depth and crystal clarity in this article, where he answers questions from the questionable Douglas Kmiec (who calls himself pro-life, but vigorously supported decidedly non-pro-life Barack Obama).

This article is a good overview of a current story making the rounds.  An 18-year-old woman goes to get an abortion, but has the 23-week-old baby before the abortionist can start the procedure.  The non-medical owner of the clinic cuts the umbilical cord and throws the baby, placenta, etc. into a biohazard bag and throws the living baby away.  The doctor who was supposed to show up and do the abortion has now apparently lost his license.

I told my wife and a friend of ours, separately, about the story.  Both of them pro-life, both of them nurses, they both expressed sadness, but then said something to the effect of, "So what's the difference?" 

"The picture on this page is an untouched photograph of a being that has been within its mother for 20 weeks. Please do me the favor of looking at it carefully."

"...There is nothing at all complicated about the utter wrongness of abortion, and making it all seem complicated mitigates that wrongness not at all."

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?"

This article makes the case that Obama's proposed health care plan would force insurance providers to cover abortion.

Asked about his proposal for expanded access to health insurance, Obama said it would cover "reproductive-health services." Contacted afterward, an Obama spokesman said that included abortions.

And this article lays out basically what I've been trying to get at the past few days--there can be no doubt that Obama's first commitment is to the unrestricted practice of abortion in this country.  His actions in that direction would more than counteract any "reduction" measures he's snookering well-meaning pro-life voters with.

While doing research for last night's blog entry, I ran across Obama's claim to Relevant Magazine regarding the Born Alive Infant Protection Act:

The other email rumor that’s been floating around is that somehow I’m unwilling to see doctors offer life-saving care to children who were born as a result of an induced abortion. That’s just false. There was a bill that came up in Illinois that was called the “Born Alive” bill that purported to require life-saving treatment to such infants. And I did vote against that bill. The reason was that there was already a law in place in Illinois that said that you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances, and this bill actually was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, so I didn’t think it was going to pass constitutional muster.

Ever since that time, emails have been sent out suggesting that, somehow, I would be in favor of letting an infant die in a hospital because of this particular vote. That’s not a fair characterization, and that’s not an honest characterization. It defies common sense to think that a hospital wouldn't provide life-saving treatment to an infant that was alive and had a chance of survival.

I find it very difficult to believe that Barack Obama will or even could reduce the number of abortions in this country.  Call me cynical, but the contradictions in his campaign claims make me doubt that he really wants to reduce abortions.

Barack Obama has told Christian groups: "I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that “mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions."

I've wanted to post on this for a long time, but finally found a concise article that lays out the argument pretty well.

Click here to read more.

I'm not a Catholic, but when specific teachings of the Roman Catholic church are truly "catholic" (that is, universal to all Christians), I'm more than happy to agree with them.  Here's a great account of the journey of a woman from being pro-choice to being pro-life.  Her account of her thinking, and the way it changed, is especially enlightening.

(via First Things blog)

I'm sure this has been better said elsewhere, and it probably repeats things I've written here before. But when a friend of mine emailed me (when I drew her attention to this article), and she said essentially that it is presumptuous of us to claim that abortion is murder, that the unborn child is really a human being, I replied to her and tried to say more clearly what I believe. I liked my response well enough to copy it here...

I believe that abortion is, without exception, the number one human rights issue of our time, period.