Planned Parenthood, Infanticide ... and Obama
Check out this video. Just another reason why pro-lifers and Catholics can't support Obama.
posted by A Secular Franciscan | 5:51 AM
View from the choir
I am a Catholic layperson and Secular Franciscan with a sense of humor. After years in the back pew watching, I have moved into the choir. It's nice to see faces instead of the backs of heads. But I still maintain God has a sense of humor - and that we are created in God's image.
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Friday, October 31, 2008
5 Comments:
Planned Parenthood recently admitted on tape that they have live births sometimes.
And yet they do support him, and at rates not seen in almost fifty years, except for Bill Clinton.
Lee, I have to wonder if the insistence from the pro-life movement at this stage, especially bishops, isn't potentially harmful to the cause. It's time to reduce the numbers of abortions outside of the political sphere, simply because that's how it's going to have to be done anyway.
Todd
Todd - nonsense.
In some places the race is tightening - and the pro-life and Catholic voters are part of the reason. Some internal polls actually have the Obama people getting nervous.
Second, abortion is such an evil we need to fight it at all levels - politically and in other ways. Would you have said the same thing to the people "futilely" battling slavery all those years.
And in this case, Obama has promised to support some policies that will increase abortions - or at the least increase how much money is payed out of the public coffers for it. He opposes all means to reduce or limit them. He is a crony of Planned Parenthood.
We also face the situation of the judges - not just the Suypreme Court but overall - that he will appoint.
We may lose, but even if we lose, I'd rather lose fighting for what is right than conceding one way to battle this evil.
More than one way to kill.
A political candidate’s position on abortion has become the de facto litmus test of morality, and of respect for life. However, the data show that economic policies, health care, war, the death penalty and many other issues must also be considered. Consider the matter of health care. For a study of life expectancy in the United States published in PLoS Medicine in 2006, Harvard Professor Christopher Murray analyzed 8 years of census and health statistics data. He found an astonishing 35 year gap - in life expectancy based on county of residence, income, and other social factors. In my home county, Fairfax Virginia, life expectancy is among the top ten in the US about 81 years. Life expectancy in counties at the bottom is only 46 years, shorter than that in many developing countries! This isn’t a new finding - many other studies reported similar results. There are several reasons for premature death, but socioeconomic status and access to health care are the heavyweights. Thus, health care in particular, as well as many other policy differences between the political parties can have as profound an influence on life as the death penalty or abortion. Clearly, the moral justification for voting cannot be based on a single issue.
As a Catholic, I've been opposed to abortion all my life, and efforts to reduce abortions must continue. However, the pro-life concept must encompass all causes of death, not only abortion. The positions the Democratic Party has held with respect to universal health care, taxation, unemployment, war and torture, all of which have life-or-death consequences, are more consistently pro-life than those of the Republicans. My conscience requires that I vote for Barack Obama, and I will do so with great enthusiasm and hope.
Peter Kaufmann, Ph.D.
Past President, Society of Behavioral Medicine
Secretary, International Society of Behavioral Medicine
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the SBM or ISBM.
No one is saying that these other issues should not be considered. Indeed, Catholic theologians and bishops point out that they are all important, and that we should weigh all these issues in deciding about which candidate to support.
BUT abortion is such a blatant injustice, and it helps to foster an attitude of lack of respect for life - a culture of death, as Pope John Paul II noted - that it helps to lead to insensitivity to these other issues. Thus in attacking abortion you are also attacking some of the ruots of these other evils.
As for the Obama case, his policies on a number of other justice and life issues are either not that different from McCain's, or significant action will not be possible given the current economic conditions, that they as issues they are further marginalized.
On abortion, however, action is possible in the next administration, and a move to uphold and even expand the genocide currently underway is likely given Obama's promises and previous actions. Moreover, his pro-choice position is in such marked contrast to McCain's that Catholics cannot justify voting for Obama.
A Catholic looking at all the issues, looking at the two main candidates and their positions on these issues, and weighing the guidance provided by the Church's teachings and legitimate representatives (as opposed to some of the bogus Catholic groups that have formed), has no legitimate moral basis for voting for Obama.
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