Golden boy Barack “He speaks so well!” Obama seems to be well-liked by many. My aunt even ordered me to “leave him alone” after reading this post about him last month. (Can’t do it, P!)
Obama will most likely become America’s 5th black United States senator. A typical liberal, he voted pro-infanticide in the Illinois Senate, as I’m sure he’ll continue to do on the federal level if given an opportunity. Just a guess. I suspect that rogue groups will continue to challenge President Bush’s Partial Birth Abortion Ban as “unconstitutional.” Poor babies.
Jill Stanek, a former abortion nurse who testified before the Illinois Senate in favor of legislation defining all live born babies as legal persons, describes Obama:
I now know Obama’s mannerisms well, the way he leans back in his chair, thoughtfully rests his chin in his hand, and with Daschle-like softness of voice, skillfully reasons that allowing live aborted babies to die is necessary to protect the rights of aborting mothers and aborting doctors.
Obama lists no religious affiliation on his site, and I’m not about to guess on that one. Even if he considered himself a Christian, it wouldn’t stop him from voting pro-death, strangely enough. I wrote about this phenomenon in a column titled “Christians” Oppose Partial Birth Abortion Ban.
Also see “Keyes Bashes Obama’s Views on Abortion.”
(Hat tip: Aaron, The Liberal Slayer)
{ 45 comments }
According to the Yahoo News story, Barack Obama said he voted against the partial birth abortion ban because “it contained no exception to protect the life of the mother”.
It boggles my mind how anyone can expect that it is necessary to perform this disgusting procedure “to protect the life of the mother”. If the only issue is protecting the life of the mother, and not the mother’s desire to eliminate her unborn child, then why the h-e-double-hockey-sticks perform a partial birth abortion instead of inducing labor early or performing a C-section and allowing the child a chance to live.
This makes no sense to me whatsoever.
“…inducing labor early or performing a C-section and allowing the child a chance to live.”
Good point, songstress!
Im sure you MEANT to say pro-choice, right? I know Christians who are pro choice. His faith, if any is irrelevant. I confused as to the point of this post. Do you want him removed from the senate for his beliefs or what? A typical conservative, im sure you will continue to oppose those who encourage women to make up their own minds.
FC – If you want to continue to comment on this blog, you’re going to have to remember that I’m a dictator, but a benevolent one. Don’t direct your harshness at me. Change your tone, that is, if you don’t want to get banned.
And yes, I will continue to oppose those who advocate the murder of unborn children. I believe no true Christian would support such an abomination. I frankly don’t know what he professes, but he is a public figure and politician, and I have every right to express my views about his positions, especially on my blog. You, on the other hand, don’t have the right to express your views about me on my blog. If you think the post is pointless and don’t like the way this “typical conservative” thinks, take a walk.
Thanks for playing. – LB
Barack Obama is an active member of Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side (it’s known as the political black middle class church). A good friend of mine is a members, and I’ve been there several times.
La Shawn, I think it’s pathetic that ANY and all politicians take the stance, that Obama has, regarding late-term abortions. Medically … there is SUCH a small percentage of women for whom carrying the baby – is life threatening. THAT delivering the baby early involves risk?!? Babies have survived at 22 weeks gestation … and babies born past the 33 week mark barely need even stay in the NICU anymore. It’s all a lie.
I can’t understand support for that “procedure.”
Not at all.
Blech. If ’speaking well’ makes up for lack of moral core, then this country is screwed.
I’m pro-choice, but that’s not a bill for which I would’ve voted.
La Shawn,
There is a distinction, in my view, between Democrats, Liberals and Leftists. I am speaking only of liberals and leftists in this case.
These are folks who, regardless of what religious devotion they might claim, do not believe in absolutes. There is no Good and Evil; no right and wrong – only various shades of each.
Their ideology will ALWAYS come before their theology because liberals don’t believe in absolutes. Government can provide more for people than God, because liberals don’t believe in absolutes.
Liberals and Leftists find everything open to two things – mitigation and litigation. That which cannot be mitigated, is litigated.
>im sure you will continue to oppose those who encourage women to make up their own minds.
Sure, they can make up their minds for the original decision; at that point they have all the rights they want. However, once they accept the deposit, they accept the responsibility for what’s in the bank, or at least they would if they had any moral compunction at all.
I kid you not, there is not any difference in the eyes of God between a serial killer and an abortionist or a serial aborter. They all routinely destroy human life which is not their’s to take. However, we now only prosecute the serial killer.
I was once asked, when is an abortion murder Biblically, and in my studies I have to go back to Genesis 9:5-6
So the minute the unborn child matures enough to have blood in their veins, that blood belongs to God, not to the mother or the father or the abortionist, no matter what argument any of them makes.
It is in the fifth week that the heart chambers divide and the blood begins to pump in the unborn child. Any shedding of that unborn baby’s blood demands an accounting from God, no differently than shedding of any one else’s blood.
As a former OB nurse for 5 1/2 years, I don’t see how any medical professional could support, much less perform such a heinous act as “partial birth abortion”. I have had to take care of several women who lost their babies early or even up to term. It is difficult and heart-wrenching not only for the patient and their family, but also for the nurse. It is one of the saddest things for a patient to have to deliver a deceased baby(I don’t use fetus).
I truly cannot comprehend how a doctor could purposefully kill a baby. The Hippocratic Oath states, “First, do no harm”. Partial birth abortion is not only harmful to the baby, but to the mother, the doctor, the nurse and any other medical personnel involved. The baby dies, and all the others suffer emotional trauma. They may say they don’t, but at what cost? What kind of cold-hearted, emotionally dead SOB(pardon my language) could do such a thing to the most innocent of lives? They should all be locked up in jail and the key thrown away. I really don’t care for these sociopaths to be living in the same free world as me.
As for needing a clause in this bill for the protection of the mother, it’s just not necessary. These abortions are performed all the way up until term(38-42 weeks gestation). Babies are being resuscitated and surviving at 22 weeks. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for this procedure to be performed at any time or for the mother’s health. The baby can be delivered early. Partial birth abortion is strictly for a sick, perverted, morally bankrupt woman to get rid of her baby, instead of taking responsibility in her life for her actions.
William, just a little bit of education here. I believe that life begins at conception, first off. Secondly, at 4 weeks gestation, the heart begins to beat. However, they have a blood supply long before that. The embryo implants into the wall of the uterus at about 3 days gestation. At this time, the placenta starts to develop, and the blood/oxygen/food supply necessary to sustain life is received at that time. I believe that this is God’s design to keep the baby’s life going when it is necessary in it’s growth cycle to receive further nutrients.
Just a little FYI on gestation(length of pregnancy) to explain how long a pregnancy lasts:
280 days, 40 weeks, 10 lunar months or 9 calendar months.
For eight weeks I was curled up in my bed for five and six hours a day. I never watched so much Star Trek: Next Generation in my life. This little baby inside of me was letting me know of his/her presence long before I could hear the heartbeat.
Now I am 17 weeks along and I can’t understand how women can justify that the being inside of them is just a fetus without any rights. I have felt this baby move. I have
heard his heartbeat. I have a responsibility whether I want it or not (I do) to carry this baby to term. This baby depends on me to live.
What a crazy mixed up world. When’s Jesus coming back?
>William, just a little bit of education here. I believe that life begins at conception
As do I. I was just using the basic Biblical argument against murder, because it despoils the blood that belongs to God, to set a marker (which you reduced by a week) that anyone who claims any semblance of Christianity would have to respect. Most abortions occur after the fourth week don’t they? As such all involved have made themselves accountable to God without the shadow of an argument when this text is considered.
The “woman’s” rights stop at the placenta boundary.
William, just a little bit of education here. I believe that life begins at conception
This does seem to be the consensus- but then shouldn’t we be just as adamnt to stop aborting life at fertility clinics? Life should be preserved in both cases.
Abortion kills people.
Speaking as a woman in her 2nd pregnancy – I’ve seen that heart beating at 5 weeks in both cases.
And yes, childbirth can be tough, but I don’t see how partial birth abortion is any easier on the “health” of the mother. It seems to me that the sole use of late term abortion is to kill disabled babies. That really tells you what abortion supporters think of the disabled — it’s better for them to be dead than alive.
As for the Hippocratic Oath, in college I took a course on Ancient Science & Math, and got to read the Hippocratic Writings. The original oath also had a ban against abortions or even giving drugs that would induce an abortion (various herbs, like pennyroyal, have long been known to induce abortions, and been used by women for millennia). I have no idea at which point the AMA found it convenient to drop that part of the oath.
Abortion kills people.
I think we all agree on that. But as Kerry would say, it’s more ‘nuanced’ than that. Abortion of people happens in fertility clinics every day. It happens in non-federally funded ESC research labs every day. But somehow these two things don’t seem to matter as much as protesting in front of family planning clinics.
All well-documented religious objections aside:
There are things in life that are not ‘fair’. One of them is that an unwanted pregnancy is usually the burden of the mother in nearly all aspects. Would that the father somehow automatically shared the pregnancy, birth, disruptions to education and career, the lifelong committment to, and care of, the child! But this is not the fact of life and the woman’s role must be also addressed separately from the moral responsibility of the father (on which much also must be said).
But since nature has dictated that the female is burdened (or gifted, depending on your point of view) with the job of pregnancy and birth, and our society has generally failed to imbue in males a sense of urgency of responsibility for the care & feeding of said child ($100 BILLION – yes, BILLION – in current child support arrearages, not to mention the absenteeism of fathers) women must ‘own’ this unique responsibility and view it with the proper reverence and awe it deserves and not seek to escape the responsibility of their failure to safeguard their bodies through the act of abortion.
What has to happen is the acknowledgment that the moment someone decides to engage in sexual intercourse, they take on the responsibility of the possibility of pregnancy. The responsibility is mitigated not at all when birth control methods fail, even if use of said birth control was assiduous, as ALL birth control (aside from abstinence) is widely recognized to have failure rates.
But even so, given the easy availablity of birth control, much of it free for the asking, and the thousands of childless couples in anguish as they wait for the opportunity to adopt a child, and the lack of ’shame’ over an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, there is absolutely no objective reason for the continued insistence on the necessity of abortion other than convenience and/or the wish for women to be as responsibility-free as men. On this issue, women are simply not responsibility-free in the way men are, and we must take back ‘ownership’ of our bodies – albeit with a completely different mindset than the pro-abortionists. In ownership of our bodies and lives, we must acknowledge that, practically speaking, the consequences of sex are much more dire for women than for men and then embrace that fact, embrace our womanhood, and act protectively of ourselves.
Far and few between are the men who decline sex. That is also an unfortunate fact. What moral issues should be faced by men changes not at all the woman’s responsibility to acknowledge and take responsibility for her own body’s capabilities. Women simply cannot view sex in the same way men do (’unfair’ as that may be in the general scheme of things) because we’re not talking about who can eat unlimited amounts of ice-cream without gaining weight. “Fair” isn’t part of this equation. “Reality” is. And the reality is that it is women who get pregnant (much as we’d like men to be able to ‘experience’ at least one pregnancy in their lifetime!)
Our sons and daughters have been taught that their bodies are party favors and that they can rely on rehab centers and abortionists as the ‘clean-up’ crew when the party’s over.
Men are told over and over again they have no say in whether their child gets to live; can we, on one hand, berate them for the mass male disconnect to their children while excluding them from everything except the act of sex itself? Do males have an inherent tendency to discard and abandon their children without traditional expectations of society that teach men to stick around? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did women rebel against forced single motherhood by turning to abortion? Did the ‘MINE MINE MINE’ morality destroy traditions and expectations that mitigated the males’ natural tendency to ’spread their seed’ with abandon? But how can we ever teach our sons to view fatherhood as a precious gift and duty if we kill 40 million of their children without their consent? If the highest responsibility of all – the very sanctity of life – is dismissed as unimportant or even non-existent, how can lesser responsibilities be promoted? Abortion’s consequences reach far beyond those that immediately affect the mother and the abortionists.
The abortion question is encompassed within a daunting and dishearteningly enormous need to restructure our present society, but the first step is acknowleging and embracing the concept of personal responsibility, something that is well within the power of an individual. Ironically, personal responsibility seems to be a revolutionary idea in this day and age.
I told you guys way back when that you’d get a kick outta Osama’s abortion voting record!!! Dr. Osama Kevorkian (D), Illinois.
The boy is as phony as a Chinese Redhead.
Needless to say, and as is the case with black AND white liberals – aint even man enough to scream it from the mountaintops.
Yet, my fellow blacks love to refer to Jews as “shysters”? How so, while the vast majority of both groups vote exclusively democrat?
Strange bedfellows, I tell you……….Skrange. (Ebonics lesson 8…..Skrange means “rather peculiar”, not unlike strange in Cosby english)
to abraxas:
The Catholic Church is definitely against IVF and other fertility “technologies” (even if the embryos aren’t destroyed).
Protesters have only so much time, and they pick their places for maximum effect. Standing outside an abortion clinic, you may convince the woman going in not to have an abortion. Picketing outside a prison during an execution will get publicity for your cause — and who knows? might show political opinion to try to get a pardon from the governor.
So consider picketing fertility labs, or drug stores that sell birth control pills, as they can prevent implantation once conception has occurred. How about picketing random hospitals in Oregon (or whereever that euthanasia law occurred)? Not all abortions occur at abortion clinics, but also at hospitals and individual OB/GYN offices. Why not picket there? The impact is really, really low and diffuse. Lots of other things are going on at these places, and it’s not like you can draw volunteers as easily. It’s much more concrete to think you may convince one woman not to abort, as opposed to thinking that maybe of the many people going to a particular drug store to actually buy birth control may change their minds… highly doubtful.
The Catholic Church is definitely against IVF and other fertility “technologies” (even if the embryos aren’t destroyed).
meep,
Our present administration is not consistent in their treatment of preventing the killing of babies. We don’t have to look to the Catholic Church to see that Bush’s position on the killings is untenable. The Church also tells us that we should not spill our seed unless it is for procreative purposes- I doubt most people follow EVERYTHING decreed by the Catholic Church. All I am pointing out is that Bush is not consistent on the abortion issue. Do you not agree?
Unsolicited help, I know, but to get your photos to line up better, try:
Nice blog, BTW!
Sorry, that didn’t work…use align=[left|right] and hspace=# vspace=# in your “img” statement.
Thanks, Dave, but I’m slowly working on getting the site XHTML compatible, and the “align”, “hspace” and “vspace” tags are invalid and deprecated under the new web standard. I have to re-do some of my CSS and get rid of the HTML usage altogther. It’s looking a bit rough, I know!
Re:”He speaks so well!” Did your aunt just ostensibly call him “an articulate black man”? This to me is just as insulting as calling me “a completed Jew.”
Hi Neil – No, she didn’t say that. It’s a take on a comedy routine by comedian Chris Rock. It seems to be the first thing some whites say when they hear a speech given by an articulate black person. Rock was ranting because he’s heard whites say it about Colin Powell, as if it should come as a surprise that an educated man speaks well.
Sorry but I don’t see abortion as a conservative or any other political issue.
It’s an ethical issue often, not always, based on religious beliefs.
I personally feel government should keep OUT of the way of women making their own choice. I have three adult children, all “Christians,” of assorted denominations. One, a son, agrees with my views although he attended an evangelical college and has conservative (NOT evangelical) views. The other two oppose “partial birth” abortions, but one supports abortions earlier in term. I call that a 50-50 split and it occurs on ethical (religious) grounds, not political ones.
Like me they’ll all vote for Bush, oppose gun control, support the war in Iraq under present leadership, and wear a number of the trimmings of “conservatism.” But neither they nor I am a “conservative.” I raised them to think independently and that’s demonstrated by the diversity of the Christian churches they chose, none of which are in the mold of the Great Liberal (whatever) collection of Protestant churches in the U.S. All three are common in the Midwest, are independent, and differ widely in viewpoint.
While I tend to drift towards conservatism I see no need to make abortion a lithmus test for conservatism any more than the gun conntrol issue. Rep. John Dingel, D-MI, is considered one of the most consistent Liberals in Congress, but he has also been one of the staunchest supporters of pro-gun, 2nd Amendment beliefs, and has served at various times on the NRA Board of Directors and been a spokesman for them. The NRA supported him strongly in the previous election because an anti-gun group targeted him and supported his opponent.
Where does one go to get conservative credentials if one thinks independently about each issue? Is is wrong to support the first Bush tax cut, but oppose the second, even if done with a conservative’s rationale, i.e., possibly inflationary?
I respect the views of anyone, Christian or not, who opposes abortion. But it’s an ethical issue based on individual choice, just as I have chosen many “conservative” views, but also have those categorized as “liberal.”
You’re outnumbered. Extremes in political philosophy have always been in the minority in America. We “moderates” (La Shawn dislikes that term), Independents or whatever are the ones who ignore the special interest groups and cast votes on the basis of our own individual perceptions of each issue. Invariably there’s a conflict because few candidates are consistently extreme, Liberal or Conservative, and in the coming election since the war in Iraq is the most critical one I suspect that I, my children and their spouses, will all vote to re-elect the President.
But I personally will vote for Bush NOT because the NRA rates him highly, although I generally share their views, nor because of any other special interest group which makes up the vast majority of those aligned with either candidate.
Rant ends. I enjoyed this discussion and article as I do so many on this blog.
La Shawn,
Whoops! I forgot to put the
in my post. I was being a little wry. But, whites often have little idea how insulting it can be to say that “Oh, he’s so articulate” when talking about an educated man who happens to be black.
A black woman once said to me “Oh, so you’re a completed Jew.”
I told her, “I know you mean that as a compliment, but it’s as if I would have called you ‘an articulate black woman’”. She got it right away.
On another note: all this bickering and arguing about abortion, and choice, etc. One thing people overlook is that when you look at the demographics, most abortions are had by white women between the ages of 18-24, and usually twice or more. Sometimes up to six times. White women use it as a method of birth control. These pregnancies are aborted not because of some terribly hardship they will cause, but because they are inconvenient. There is no ethical justification behind that.
Personally, I’ve always been an advocate of the whawt I call the “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” policy. Since medical records are largely computerized, and there is a move to make all health records accesible, why not give every woman the right to have ONE no-fault abortion, no questions asked (cases involving rape or incest would be excepted, even though they account for an extremely miniscule number of pregnancies). Now, this goes against my personal philosophy, but since I live in a pluralistic society, I can’t always have my way. But, then again, neither can everyone else. So, OK, give each woman one abortion. This gets encrypted on her medical records that no one can access except abortion providers. Kind of like an instant background check for firearms. If she’s already had one, she is denied, and the record of that inquiry is destroyed.
But, if this is her first time, then after the procedure, she is then educated about pregnancy, etc. and after that NO MORE. After that, there are no excuses.
I believe that choice begins before you get pregnant, so that’s why I personally have tried to *ahem* keep my pants on. And that, only by the grace of God, believe you me. But for people who don’t believe that, then they need to use contraception. Laws need to encourage people to act responsibly.
I think this policy does precisely that. It allows for mistakes of youth, etc, but doesn’t give away the farm. Christians don’t get a total ban, and pro-choice people don’t unrestricted abortions (which really only benefit white people anyway). Nobody gets everything they want, and that is PRECISELY what a democracy is supposed to do.
most abortions are had by white women between the ages of 18-24, and usually twice or more. Sometimes up to six times
Neil,
It’s also true that black and hispanic women between ages 15-44 are up to 3 times as likely as white women to have abortions. If you look at the latest trending reports compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this trending is going up. Rougly speaking, 5 percent of black women have abortions, 4 percent of hispanic women, and 1.5 percent of white women.
In the Book of Laws, revealed nearly 100 years ago by The Glory of God, (promised by Jesus of Nazareth), God tells humankind that ‘…the rational soul is associated with its human body at the moment of conception…’
Me, personally, I’ve NEVER read of a fertilized human zygote developing into a dolphin or a giraffe (Woman gives birth to giraffe!), so the idea that God’s Law marks humans as humans from the moment of conception is congruent with science and observed reality.
It does, however, make abortion a vile and murderous event.
“It does, however, make abortion a vile and murderous event.”
Carridine,
Most people reading this board agrees with that statment. The problem is that Bush is inconsistent in his position on aborting embryos. I don’t want to get all ‘nuanced’ on you, but the problem is that Bush doesn’t support a full ban on killing human embryos.
Abraxas, my guess is that it would not be politically timely for GWB to support a full ban. Better to attack the outrageously horrific fringe first; I don’t think anyone has doubts as to GWB’s personal views on abortion.
Our paper, the Tampa Tribune, just ran a story the other day (can’t find the link) about the youngest fetus born here. At 27 weeks, she weighed less than a can of soda. Now, as a teenager, she’s an accomplished violin player, though still somewhat small of stature. I so agree, LaShawn, poor, poor babies.
Jeannie,
I agree with you whole-heartedly that every life is precious, whether they be in the womb, 1 day old, 1 year old, black, white, yellow, or brown. In many (if not most) cases of elective abortion, a bad situation is compounded by a monumental decision. Choice to kill life should not be made lightly by anyone.
LaShawn,
Obama is a product a member of the ultra liberal Trinity United Church of Christ, where Jeremiah Wright is the pastor. Wright is a strong advocate of homosexuality among other things.
http://www.tucc.org/home.htm
http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/spirit/cst-nws-spirit05.html
Jerry, you write, I respect the views of anyone, Christian or not, who opposes abortion. But it’s an ethical issue based on individual choice…
Who’s choice? That’s the problem we have. (Remember: there’s two or more people there and only one of them gets to make the choice of life or death. And the one who makes the “choice” gets to live regardless of the final decision.)
You’re outnumbered. Extremes in political philosophy have always been in the minority in America.
Opposing abortion is “extreme”? You’re kidding, right?
Let me give you some unsolicited advice. Just because you’re a “moderate”, doesn’t mean you are any more of an open minded person or aren’t any less “extreme”. It just means you take a little from each prevailing camp of ideas. Conservativism is just a collection of ideas. Being for abortion and conservative usually don’t go together and could possibly mean that one isn’t a conservative.
When one holds many ideas and beliefs that are similar, we tend to group them to identify them easier. It’s kind of like an easy access file system for your brain. No different than calling someone a Christian and expecting them to hold certain views. No different than being a Japanese guy and expecting them to be have certain culture customs and beliefs. Doesn’t mean that one will toe the line to the group, it’s just a general marker so the human mind can make easy distinctions.
We “moderates” (La Shawn dislikes that term), Independents or whatever are the ones who ignore the special interest groups and cast votes on the basis of our own individual perceptions of each issue.
We conservatives do the same thing. (Notice I didn’t say partisans. You may be confusing someone who honestly holds conservative or liberal beliefs with someone who will change their beliefs to fit the party.)
The AMA has stated that there is never a ‘health of the mother’ reason to perform a partial birth abortion. I agree. We’re not living in the middle ages, where a midwife might (rarely) have to perform such a procedure in order to save a woman’s life.
Obama is very likely going to be Hillary’s running mate in ‘08.
I have often wondered what drives otherwise decent people to participate in the sanctioned killing of a defenseless human being. A reason that comes to mind is money. Abortion is a billion dollar industry. Why do you think Planned Parenthood and others promote it so heavily? Propaganda aside, it comes down to money. Abortion is easy money.
I find it amazing that people can so casually dehumanize a child and condone killing that child for convenience and profit. For those espousing women’s rights, how many future women have been killed in the name of “rights”?
In the exceedingly rare cases where the mother’s health is truly in jeopardy, I can understand the case for abortion (if the fetus would not be viable). But solely for convenience, as the vast majority of abortions are? It leads one to question what else will be condoned in the name of convenience.
by the way keyes daughter is a lesbian.
I think that’s common knowledge, Serena.
its selena…..so u believe that she’s really a les
Bruce, even so, modern science has made that particular point moot. Have you ever seen a neo-natal ward? It’s amazing.
As for rape, for Christians, that point is moot as every soul is precious in God’s eyes.
More so, since Jesus, more appropriately, Mary, was descended from a bastard child of a prostitute. In between, King David abused his authority to kill the husband of a woman that he lusted after. I believe that is akin to rape in that he took what wasn’t his to take, nevertheless, Solomon was born as a result of that marriage.
I’d be happy if abortions became rare and cases of convenience relagated to the history books.
Life begins at conception. Abortion boils down to one thing. The sacrifice of our children to the god of convenience and not just the mother’s, a few hundred dollars for an abortion gets the father out of 18 years of child support.
What’s pathetic is bored, anonymous cowards trying to comment on my blog. – Admin
Comments on this entry are closed.