For all his talk about breaking through the partisan gridlock and finding common ground on divisive issues, Obama has hewed to a strictly pro-choice line as a candidate and a public official, as Michael Gerson writes today. For all Obama’s speechifying about the need to seriously consider the views of the pro-life community and the hope he’s inspired even among conservatives to find a way to reduce abortions, Obama’s doesn’t appear to actively support legislation aimed at reducing abortion and has opposed every limit on abortion rights that he’s had the opportunity to vote on. Here’s Gerson:
But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called “too close to infanticide.” Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life….
Having endorsed partial-birth abortion, Obama has little room for maneuver on the broader issue. But he does have some. He could take the wise counsel of evangelical Democrats such as Amy Sullivan and come out strongly for policies that would reduce the number of abortions — support for pregnant women, abstinence education, the responsible promotion of birth control. An organization called Democrats for Life has proposed the creation of a “95-10 Initiative” in which states and the federal government would work toward the reduction of abortion rates by 95 percent within 10 years. That would be a unifying national goal.
Obama has every right to take the NARAL line on abortion. But then how can he make the argument that he can take the country to higher ground on such contentious issues? As the Clinton folks are fond of saying, is that just words?
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posted April 2, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Do you think John McCain is the answer to America”s problems. He is for help big business,such as Bear Stearns, but not for helping the middle class to regroup. Another moral issue is outsourcing jobs to other countries to build them up,but refuse to help Americans because it is call socialism. Do you think war is a moral issue as well. Bush was anti-abortion, candidate but also a war monger. What is moral and what is immoral.
posted April 2, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Abortion and war are both immoral isssues. Outsourcing of jobs,and coroporate wellfare is immoral.
posted April 3, 2008 at 10:32 am
There are so many immoral things that Obama’s liberal/progressive ideology supports, it is hard to imagine why he even calls himself a Christian. What he promotes, the Apostles condemned. His view of marriage is strictly pagan and perverse, and not Gospel. War is immoral yes, yes and yes. But so is most of the humanistic way of life that Obama is trying to pass off as Christian.
posted April 3, 2008 at 1:09 pm
By the standard’s y’all are applying here, it sounds like any of the presidential candidates would be way out of bounds in calling herself/himself moral or Christian, considering their views on war, abortion, marriage, outsourcing, big business. Might you be using too tight a screen? Or maybe it is really that difficult to be a truly moral/Christian person.
posted April 3, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I can’t find it in my heart to believe Barack Obama is in God’s favor, just simply from the partial birth abortion fact. Any person, that thinks it’s o.k. to plunge an instrument into the head of a baby being born, to kill it before it’s whole body isn’t born yet is not only sick and sadistic, but should be required to perform the act, or at least stand and watch the proceedure as it is being done. After the nightmares, then be allowed to vote again. God help us! I truly believe with Obama as president, the us will be an Obamanation!!!!!
posted April 4, 2008 at 1:13 am
Abortion isn’t the only time when horrible things happen.
War is another, and in war horrible things are pretty common. I have never been able to get my father, a decorated WW2 veteran, to talk about the horrors he saw and the horrors had to participate in.
I heard about some of them, but only from someone else.
If you only think about abortion, and ignore a war that we were mislead into, you miss some of the point.
There are lots of innocents that suffer horribly in any war. Please think about them too.
And what about the suffering of the poor, when we misdirect our resources into making the very rich in this country richer and ignore them? They are not all lazy, and Jesus cares about them too.
Abortion is a sin, but so is ignoring the plight of the poor. So is unnecessary war. So are many things that we ignore.
Think about them too, please.