President Obama has appointed a pro-life progressive to head faith-based initiatives at the Department of Health and Human Services. Alexia Kelley had run the Catholics in Alliance for
Common Good that pushed for health care reform, aid for the poor, immigration reform. It also was pro-life and advocated efforts to reduce the number of abortions by helping women who want to carry babies to term.
This prompted one pro-choice group, Catholics for Choice, to attack Kelley's appointment as a "defeat for reason and logic."
Other pro-choice leaders like Cristina Page came to Kelley's defense as "not the Bush-styled pro-lifer of yore," but rather one who has:
"championed policies aimed at preventing the need for abortion, policies that have been identified as those pro-choice people can support too...Kelley is a new style pro-lifer, one who believes a progressive agenda will produce pro-life results.
More on the conflict from Dan Gilgoff.
My view: if pro-choicers object to the appointment of Alexia Kelley then there's literally no kind of pro-lifer who will be acceptable.
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Whatever she labels herself, working to address the reasons for unplanned pregnancy and solutions to help women take their fetuses to term are excellent and a common ground that both sides of the movement should get behind.
I'm sure there are plenty of people on the pro-choice side for whom no pro-lifer in a position of influence would be acceptable, but hopefully the majority are more sensible and more willing to make negotiations and compromises.
Shouldn't we actually wait and see what this woman does before we pass judgment on her?
If she turns out to be another christianist monster, fine - then we can complain about it, preferably by threatening to withhold our substantial contributions to those blue-dog Democrats who supported her.
But if she turns out to be a genuine Christian, then why alienate her?
It is very hard for me as a gay, married Christian to believe that conservative Christians are not all evil, but since the conservative Christians are not willing to take the first step, we have to.
And yes, if she turns out to be what we all fear, then I shall be among the loudest voices denouncing her.
Until then, innocent until proved guilty.
Pro-Life people should be forced to take a look at abortion the same way Catholics were forced to look at the symptoms of sexual abuse. Symptoms were not the main problem to be solved but a sign of a deeper issue. Symptoms of victims of priest sexual abuse include but are not limited to: suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, and social withdraw. Women, who are abused sexually, psychologically, and emotionally exhibit similar behaviors and often turn to abortion.
As it stands now Pro-Life people are ignoring the abuse of women in much the same way Catholics ignored the abuse of children by priests. The Catholic Church never wanted to admit or investigate that there was an underlying abuse problem. Pro-Life people don’t want to admit or investigate an underlying problem either. Pro-Life people need to admit something is wrong in society in much the same way the Catholic Church had to admit something was wrong in their church.
Also, Catholics blamed the children for the symptoms of abuse. It mounted to double abuse. Pro-Life people do the same. They blame women for exhibiting symptoms of abuse. If Pro-Life people really want to be Pro-Life, they need to help stop the abuse just like the Catholic Church helped stop the abuse.
In the meantime, when I think of a Pro-Life person I think of them in the same fashion as a person who turned their back on abuse in the Catholic Church and created an environment in which normally healthy children turned to suicide. Now similarly acting people are turning their back on abuse toward women and normally healthy women are turning to abortion. Making abortion illegal won’t solve the problem. Women will turn to back-street abortion providers in much the same way children found ways to commit suicide.
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