Pro-Abortion vs Pro-choice

This post is a paraphrase of an article by Robert George entitled “Obama’s Abortion Extremism” that was published at www.thepublicdiscourse.com earlier this year. Check it out.

Pro-Choice = Pro-Abortion
According to all the “pro-choice” people in the world, no one is pro-abortion. No one wants innocent children to be murdered while in the uterus. In fact most pro-abortion proponents say they think it is wrong and would never have one themselves, but do not believe it should be made illegal. Women do not get pregnant simply to have an abortion after all. Sometimes women find themselves pregnant because of rape or incest (less than 1% of abortions are due to this), or because of poor choices they have made, and they should not be saddled with the “burden” of caring for a child.

Stick with me here; this will make sense in a minute. Many of the founding fathers of our country did not believe in slavery. In fact many of them did not own slaves at all, and some of them freed the slaves they inherited, or purchased. However, they believed that slavery was so woven into the everyday life of America, that it would not be feasible to outlaw it. The economic consequences would have been great for businesses and industries that had been built on slave labor. Therefore slavery was not outlawed by the United States Constitution. Those who opposed it, but did not outlaw it, were not monsters. Rather they were sincere and honest about their concerns. This does not make them any the less wrong in their belief. Looking back at those people, do we refer to them as pro-choice because they thought the choice to have slaves should be left to the individual? No, they are referred to as pro-slavery. It does not matter to us what their personal beliefs were; only what their actions were. Their actions allowed the slave trade to continue in the United States for nearly 100 years before a bloody civil war settled the issue permanently. Thus they were pro-slavery.

I do not see what the difference between the two is. In both instance the people are “morally opposed” to the act that is in question, yet in regards to slavery we have not problem saying they are “pro-slavery”. However if you call someone who supports Roe v. Wade pro-abortion, you best watch out.

Obama is Pro-Abortion no matter how you look at it.
Obama is on the record as saying that he will support legislation that will repeal the Hyde Amendment. This amendment protects me, and other pro-life people, from having money taken from us by the government (i.e. taxes), used to fund abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and is not the result of rape or incest. The “pro-choice” group NARAL (I looked on the website and don’t know what the name stands for) has said, “(the Hyde Amendment) forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” First thing to notice about that statement is that it means there are a lot of living, breathing people here on earth, that would not have been here had it not been for the Hyde Amendment. Second, let’s break down that statement. They are upset because women who made choices, and then suffered the possible consequences of those choices, were not allowed to have those consequences lifted by a medical procedure available, due to the Hyde Amendment. How unfair! Well hopefully once Obama gets his way and the Hyde Amendment is repealed I’ll be able to get that liposuction procedure that I have wanted. I never really thought I would get fat eating all those cheeseburgers. Now I am discriminated against because my shirts cost more because they are plus sizes, and I can not fit through tight spaces anymore. People, I have to live with this spare tire everyday, as a constant reminder of my poor choices.

President elect Obama has also promised that the “the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act” (FOCA). This act creates a federally guaranteed “fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. This includes a “right” to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks of pregnancy for undefined “health” reasons. Pro-abortion groups have stated that FOCA will “sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies” such as the partial birth abortion ban (which he actually opposed and even condemned the Supreme Courts ruling on this issue), and parental consent. At least kids will still need a parent’s permission to get a drivers license.

Not only does he wish to promote abortion, but he plans on removing federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers. Heaven forbid a young woman goes to one of these centers and receive an ultrasound where the technician allows her to see the human life growing in her. It would be unfortunate for her to see that the baby is not a blob of tissue as she has been told, but rather a miniature human. True they can still go to planned parenthood and receive free ultrasounds, but the policy there is to not show the actual pictures to the mother since they know once the mother sees her baby, the chance of her having an abortion is much less. Obama has stated that unwanted pregnancies are a “punishment” for young mothers, and they should not need to be endured. They need to have access to abortion on demand, apparently even if that means not giving them an opportunity to do otherwise, or even be fully informed about what they are considering.

He opposed including unborn children in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), a measure that even Ted Kennedy supported. That should not be a surprise since while he was in the Illinois senate he opposed legislation that was presented to protect children who were born alive during an abortion. This legislation did not ban any abortions (something Obama’s campaign lied about until the facts were over whelming). In fact one year it was the very same legislation that passed unanimously in the US Senate with the support of pro-abortionists like John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. I believe that was the year that Obama was chair of the committee that did not allow the legislation to get to the floor of the senate.

President Bush has restricted the use of federal research money for use on embryonic stem cell lines that were already in use when he became president. He has prohibited the proliferation of this practice into the use of cryopreserved embryos that were created by in vitero fertilization for use in reproduction because it results in the destruction of the embryo. Obama is in favor of lifting these restrictions. But he wants to take it a step further. He is co-sponsor of a bill that will authorize the large-scale industrial production of human embryos specifically for this purpose. It effectively requires the killing of human embryos that were produced by cloning, and makes it a federal crime for a woman to have one of those embryos implanted into her uterus in an attempt to save it. It is my understanding the cloning of human beings is still in the somewhat distant future, however there are people working on it and once a bill becomes law, it is harder to reverse.

Maybe you buy into the misinformation out there that embryonic stem cells will allow us to cure Michael J. Fox of Parkinson’s disease (a disease that runs in my family and one I frankly would like a cure for), or could have made Christopher Reed walk again. Stem cells do hold this promise, yet the only stem cells that have shown any true evidence of working are adult stem cells (i.e. stem cells from people already born that can be found in bone marrow and other places). When a bill was presented to the United States Senate that would have allocated a modest amount of federal research money toward this research, then Senator Obama was one of five senators to oppose it. So he is in favor of federal funding for stem cell research if it leads to the destruction of a human life, but opposed to it if it actually holds promise for saving lives.

Freedom of Speech
This is not from the article I referenced at the top of the post; rather it is simply my opinion.

I first remember hearing about the reinstatement of the “fairness doctrine” several years ago when my own Senator, Tom Harkin (sorry Christopher Reed I voted for you) was wanting to reinstate it. At the time there was a Republican president and control of both houses. Now there will be a Democratic president and a control of both houses, making the possibility of reinstatement relatively good.

The fairness doctrine will require local radio stations to provide access to anyone who calls them and complains about what is being said on the radio. For instance if I were to read this post on WHO out of Des Moines, WHO will be required to provide air time to any pro-abortion group who calls to present their rebuttal to my thoughts. That seems fair, except that radio is a business. If my talk sells they should be able to play it, and not have to worry about providing free access to others. They may be boring while I am entertaining, and the ratings drop. Not to mention the sheer headache it would cause station managers. They will simple drop everything controversial, and go with a very PC and boring program format. This to me is a stifling of freedom of speech. As it is right now anyone can get on radio and say what they want, if they have an audience. It is equal opportunity.