So can Catholics vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is yes, but as I found when I publicly endorsed Obama, you’ve then got “some ‘splain’n’ to do.” It’s a matter of conscience, but had Obama proclaimed himself to be pro-choice and said nothing more, it would have been problematic. But there are those additional words about appropriate education as well as adoption and assistance for mothers who choose to keep their baby.
This is not just debate posturing. It is consistent with Obama’s successful effort to add language to the Democratic platform affirming the choice of a mother to keep her child by pledging pre- and post-natal care, funded maternity leave and income support for poor women who, studies show, are four times more likely to pursue an abortion absent some tangible assistance.
Some might ask, isn’t John McCain, the self-proclaimed “pro-lifer,” still a morally superior choice for Catholics? Not necessarily. McCain’s commitment, as he stressed in the debate, is to try to reverse Roe vs. Wade. But Republicans have been after this for decades, and the effort has not saved a single child. Even if Roe were reversed — unlikely, in my judgment — it merely transfers the question to the states, most of which are not expected to ban abortion. A Catholic serious about preserving life could reasonably find Obama’s educational and material assistance to mothers the practical, stronger alternative.
How I despise the term ‘pro-choice’. As Robert George said, can you imagine anyone saying ‘Don’t like slavery? Don’t have a slave then’? Of course not. To favor ‘choice’ means to favor abortion if it’s considered expedient. Any other conclusion is simply moral evasion.
Obama is the most pro-abortion candidate in US Presidential history.
Azusa: pro-chioce is no better or worse then pro-life when the life of the mother is endangered by a continued pregnancy. My real question however is how is Sen. Obama more pro abortion then either of the Clintons, Al Gore or John Kerry all of whom where far more outspoken about the issue?
Abortion is murder – now figure out a response
John Miller – Sen. Obama is more “pro choice” because four times he opposed the Illinois state Born Alive Infant Protection Act that would require medical care for those babies born alive due to a botched abortion even though it had the language in it that the “pro choice” lobby advocated for. This has been verified and confirmed. He also supports partial birth abortion, a practice most people reject. Very few abortions in the U.S. occur because of the immediate physical danger to the mother – most are for convenience. Obama also supports the federal “Freedom of Choice Act” which would mandate federal support for abortion at any time during a pregnancy, up to and including nine months, and that could require taxpayers to fund abortions. For these reasons, I think Sen. Obama is the most dangerous to the unborn, and even to the born – what he advocates in opposing the Born Alive Protection Act is infanticide, just to make sure we all understand what this means.
Dear John:
This is why Obama is more extreme:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.14_
George_Robert_Obama’s
Abortion Extremism_.xml
Sorry,
I believe it is necessary to copy and paste the entire address. Only the first line came out highlighted.
Sorry, again, link is not working. Anyway, the site is the Witherspoon Institute, an article by Robert George, on 10/14 — excellent!
CofS:
Here is the link to the article you referenced:
http://tinyurl.com/4y6nqp
Here is a link to a follow-up article by Prof. George:
http://tinyurl.com/5p2yb9
I suggest Doug Kmiec take a close look at [url=http://www.wf-f.org/Bishops_Catholics_Politics2008-Present.html]this web site[/url] that outlines an extensive list of statements from bishops as well as from the Vatican on this issue. Specifically I direct him to [url=http://www.wf-f.org/CP_Hermann08.html]the October 10 statement by Bishop Hermann of the Archdiocese of St. Louis[/url]:
[i]”Save our children! More than anything else, this election is about saving our children or killing our children. This life issue is the overriding issue facing each of us in this coming election. All other issues, including the economy, have to take second place to the issue of life.”[/i]
I have been reading Dean Kmiec’s repeated endorsements and statements on this subject (including his self-professed martyrdom in being turned away from Holy Communion). I am now convinced that he is doing this solely for personal gain – he is hoping to get that coveted judgeship. It has come time then, to view him as the very worst traitor – a 21st century version of Richard Rich.
You may recall in the play or movie “A Man For All Seasons” Robert Bolts’ Thomas More is persistently pestered for an appointment to office by Richard Rich. (play: http://tinyurl.com/3dd2pg) More tells him early on that he can have a post at a school as a teacher:
[blockquote] Why not be a teacher? You’d be a fine teacher. Perhaps even a great one.
RICH And if I was, who would know it?
MORE You, your pupils, your friends, God. Not a bad public, that . . . Oh, and a quiet life.[/blockquote]
At the end of the play, when More is on trial, he refuses to testify and Cromwell produces Sir Richard Rich who gives perjured testimony that results in the eventual conviction of More. As Rich leaves the witness stand, this exchange occurs:
[blockquote] MORE I have one question to ask the witness. (RICH stops) That’s a chain of office you are wearing. (Reluctantly RICH faces him) May I see it? (NORFOLK motions him to approach. MORE examines the medallion) The red dragon. (To CROMWELL) What’s this?
CROMWELL Sir Richard is appointed Attorney-General for Wales.
MORE (Looking into RICH’S face, with pain and amusement) For Wales? Why, Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world . . . But for Wales! [/blockquote]
Kmeic is 57 and would be 66 at the end of the Obama presidency – it’s his last hope for a judgeship. So what if Obama solidifies abortion on demand and makes you pay for it, he will be known as Judge Kmeic – isn’t that worth it?
Prof . George’s column is at a couple of places:
My last message got messed up.
Professor George’s column is here:
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A00008450.cfn
Try it. His column is definitely worth reading!
I’d like to get it right!
Try this:
http://townhall.com/Columnists/RobertGeorge/2008/10/15/obamas_abortion_extremism
Ah-h-h-h!
It works!
This is a really good column on arguments about abortion!
Thank GOD for Dr . Robert George!
the fact is that most of the country is pro-choice. Its instincts are that the woman, not government, is the person who makes the moral decision.
A good Christian only says that a candidate’s sole position cannot be pro-choice. A christian who supports adoptions, contraception, clean water in Africa, is clearly pro-life. The difference is if you think it can be legislated or not.
Abortion might be murder. But then, we should also put women in jail for it (or give them the death penalty.)
Perhaps we should punish women for having sex before marriage.
OBAMA and INFANTICIDE (Babies born alive after abortion)
More from Professor Robert George of Princeton on Obama’s opposition to the Born Alive Act and his lies (yes, the only word for it) about this on the TV debate:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.16_George_Robert_Obama and Infanticide_.xml
Sorry about the url.
Kendall: I think George’s article deserves an entry of its own.
“Abortion might be murder. But then, we should also put women in jail for it (or give them the death penalty.)
Perhaps we should punish women for having sex before marriage.”
John, try to think as a Christian.
“Slavery might be wrong. But then, we should also put slave traders and holders in jail for it (or give them the death penalty.)
Perhaps we should punish people for kidnapping people for sale.â€
You see, John, while I’m personally opposed to slavery, I won’t impose my morality on others in the free exercise of choice …
Obama is pro-abortion. I detest the terms pro-life or pro-choice(which can be misused as JW has done deliberately). We all know that the terms are euphamisms for abortion. Abortion itself is a euphamism for the deliberate killing of a human being.
John Wilkins writes:
“Abortion might be murder. But then, we should also put women in jail for it (or give them the death penalty.) ”
It’s funny that it always the pro-abortion side that makes these arguments, never the pro-life side. In all of history, where abortion is banned it has been the “doctor” not the mother who is punished.
#21: Women have historically been punished for the infanticide of their newborn. But Obama wants to legalize infanticide for newborns who survive abortion. And he is opposed to restrictions on partial-birth abortion.
By no stretch of the imagination can these views by called decent or Christian.
John Wilkins can’t spin this, try as he may.
people, people! You can abbreviate the URL into a link by following the instructions above the comment box. using the brackets with url= and then the rest. then you can give the title of the article before the /url close.
so a link to the Book of common prayer would look like (I’m leaving in unneeded spaces for demonstration, everything in the bracket should be typed without spacing):
[ url = http://vidicon.dandello.net/bocp/ ]Book of Common Prayer[ /url ]
so in actuality:
[url=http://vidicon.dandello.net/bocp/]Book of Common Prayer[/url]
it works fine.
In His Peace
Jim Elliott <><
Mr Sulik,
Bravo on the depiction of Kmiec as Richard Rich. A weasel like him is the perfect image. Sadly, I know quite a few Christians who are willing to sell out their supposed prolife convictions. Most of them do it for the materia gains they imagine that a Demoncratic administration will afford them. Some do it for universal healthcare (something I wouldn’t want if you paid me to take it). Others do it for student loans or Social Security. It doesn’t matter that most of what they are expecting will turn out to be smoke. The point is that they are willing to put a price on the lives of the innocents.
I would like to think of them as just fools, but it’s hard not to also think of them as selfish cold hearted fools. Having been on the front lines of abortion protests I can well attest that the party of “compassion and tolerance” is anything but. These Christians’ political soulmates are some of the angriest and foulest that our culture has to offer, which says a lot about the state of the souls of these “Christians”. Anyone who cared to could investiagte the truth about the Demoncratic party and its stand on abortion and about Obama’s vile positions. Either they know and don’t care or they don’t care to know. Either way, they are culpable.
Here is a YouTube video that is worth viewing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI67MuPwsX0
as well as Senator OBama’s address to Planned Parenthood.
Not wishing to be uncharitable, but the Senator’s coolness which many have admired in the debates is not to be found here.
Everytime a fraudulent Catholic downgrades the importance of where Obama stands on life issues they lie and deceive in making their point. For Obama has 4 times voted for allowing infanticide and he has repeatedly lied about it. This has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt by some diligent investigative work by some pro-life groups and a New York newspaper. But the corrupt MSM throws up the Obama smokescreen and takes the Obama line: “How dare you insinuate that Obama is willing to accept infanticide?”
And because the truth is so vicious and repugnant people assume it is a smear.
I completely agree that life must be protected–from abortion, from war, from the death penalty, from starvation, from slavery, from degradation in its many deadly forms. Since when has the office of the president–Republican or Democrat–made a huge difference in our nation’s commitment to “life.” We need to do it and quit expecting the politicians to be our proxy. What a “pro-life president” does, a “pro-choice court” strikes down. The battle is won or lost on the ground . . . where people are making the choices. Unless we abdicate our responsibility to vote, we have to vote for somebody. Neither choice is “clean.” I support Obama even though I disagree with his stands on abortion and gay rights because I believe he will be better for the country and the world in a lot of other ways. We simply need to keep working locally and personally, with the love of Christ in our hearts, on our lips, and in our efforts as we seek to show the world how a faithful community lives and blesses the community around it. I am grateful for so many examples of Christians caring for post-abortion women, for unwed moms, for prisoners, for AIDS sufferers, for the starving and the outcast. And yes, I do pray for a reversal of the selfishness that drives us to value “choice” and “national interest” above life.
Infanticide is illegal. Obama could not have voted to make it legal.
There is no answer to the question, is there? I do think that technology has made these questions a bit more difficult, and that the woman decides. That is all. She can agree with someone who is pro-choice or pro-life. But if she’s not making the decision, its not really a moral issue for her, is it?
Personally, I think that being pro-life is a low sacrifice issue. We wouldn’t pay taxes to help poor kids; we don’t really want to offer financial incentives for women to bear them. In the end, the pro-life sensibility is one that doesn’t cost very much.
John Wilkins – Obama did the next best thing – he voted AGAINST providing medical care to babies born due to a botched abortion – in anyone’s book, that is advocating for some form of infanticide. The moral compass of someone who could vote to withhold care from a helpless infant because they see the living result, a baby, of a botched abortion as a threat to a woman’s right to abortion is twisted and evil reasoning. (And I’m not saying Obama is evil, I’m saying that his reasoning is.)
Messrs. Sulik and Hathaway: Professor Kmiec had had a distinguished career in the law. The easier route to a federal judgeship would have been to continue his past support for conservative Republican positions. Is it possible that he believes what he says as a matter of personal conviction? I suggest you consider that possibility. (You don’t have to agree with the substance of his more recently espoused views, but you might want to leave yourselves room to think that honorable men sometimes act for honorable motivations – I have no reason to believe that Doug Kmiec is not an honorable man of carefully thought-through conservative principles).
Branford,
Save your breath. “Obamamaniacs” go for style over substance. Obama SOUNDS Presidential, therefore, despite or regardless of the issues, he is the more qualified candidate.
You can’t argue with them based on logic. Or anything else, for that matter.
Peace
Jim E. <><
Infanticide is illegal
It wasn’t in Illinois according to the Attorney General. He could find no grounds to prosecute. That’s why the law was introduced. Voting against something with the excuse that the law isn’t needed is always BS.
And anyone who claims to be prolife that supports a man like Obama who votes to keep infanticide from being criminalized is, by my definition, without honor. I really don’t care what his motivations are. I don’t care that much why people change the meanings of things to abandon their principles, I just know what they are when they do so.
Using the established moral principles of cooperating with evil, I have put forth my argument for why it is morally illicit to vote for Barak Obama.