===Original Note===
This following passage came from a woman named Eileen Crosby. She is currently a student at Franciscan University. I received this as an imbox message from one of the groups I am in, "Barack Obama is So Pro-Abortion It's Frightening." Eileen posted this under the topic view: "Franciscan Students are So Republican It’s Frightening." This is post #6, so if you want to see the original copy, you can do so. This woman wrote beautifully on how abortion can affect all aspects of politics, including our foreign policy. I really hope you think this is really awesome! I most certainly did :) Passage from Eileen Crosby: Jul 17, 2008 at 7:27 AM “Why I am a single issue voter: Because abortion, euthanasia, infanticide and all issues that threaten innocent human life is not a single issue.
Foreign policy is largely affected by the life stances of each president. If the president is "pro-choice" then countries suffer. Under Clinton's administration, our UN delegates single-handedly bullied the world conference on agriculture in order to force developing countries to legalize abortion. How? We denied foreign food aid to 3rd world countries until they legalized abortion. We even forced South American countries -- who culturally and traditionally abhor abortion -- to legalize the practice. Barack Obama has also promised to reverse the Mexico city plan which will provide money to Mexico specifically for abortion. These are just some examples. The war in Iraq: will abortion be legal in Iraq? It would be illogical for this to happen -- Iraq is a Muslim nation that is fundamentally against abortion. However, our administration, whether or not they are for or against the war, will have a large impact on the socialization of the country. Will we press our 'values' on this country?
Health care: Senator Obama's health care plan requires that everyone have health care and that all health care covers abortion. That means that whether you agree with this or not, your tax dollars WILL fund abortions for your friends, coworkers, maybe even cousins or sisters. Besides this, his plan calls for socialized medicine, which in itself is not bad, however his plan specifically makes it illegal for you to add your own money to a health plan. Yes, you will not be allowed to purchase more health care for yourself or for your family. This means that when you run out of coverage, you are just out of luck. It means that there will be health care rationing. It means that when you break your leg or need allergy shots or stitches or an MRI you will get it no problem. But when grandma needs kidney dialysis she probably won't have any coverage left, and since the hospitals can only get so much money, they will probably "let her die" in order to set your broken leg next time you fall out of the tree you were climbing. Don't believe me? Check out the futile care cases that are happening now in Texas, where people like Andrea Clark or Emilio Gonzales were denied care and died because of this idea of health care rationing.
Economically: Abortion is a HUGE industry. It affects our economics. Think of how our economy could benefit from the 50 million dead children. Our social security would not be crashing! There would be more people to work, less need to import workers. More people making food, goods, serving others. Instead of paying money to wound our mothers and kill our children we would be benefiting from the work they would do. But I hope you are getting my point, so I will end with one last reason of why I am a single issue voter.
Socially: Our mothers deserve more then a dead baby. We keep abortion legal because we have to "make it so women don't need abortions", when in reality by keeping abortion legal we are telling women that they are not worth a real solution. We keep abortion legal, 'just until we can come up with a better welfare program', and so instead of helping a mother raise her child, feed her child and clothe her child we hand her a dead child. Is this what she deserves? What about the schools? We need a better school system that can handle more children and educate children better. So instead of letting them go through a less then adequate school system (by our standards) we kill them and hand their mother a dead child. Is this what they deserve? We take women who have been raped and say "we understand your pain, here have an abortion and it will make this better" and rip the only life they have left in them out of them, and hand them a dead child. Now she is not a rape survivor, but a victim of rape holding a dead child. So there are no jobs. To fix this do we hand mothers dead children? They now have no job and a dead child. There is not social system to protect these women. You are right. There is no one standing up for them and their dignity. Women deserve better then abortion. Our society deserves better then abortion. It is a joke to set up social program after social program when abortion is still legal. It is a joke to push for women's rights when abortion is still legal. Because when the day comes to a close we are still telling these women that the best we can offer them is a dead child. We tell them that we are working on these programs, but right now all we have to offer them is death. I don't believe that this is what the United States of America represents.
I am a Franciscan student. I am a woman. I am a social work major who is VERY concerned with social policies. Maybe because of these qualities you will not be able to listen to what I have to say. But maybe, because of the women in your own life who I am sure you love and respect, you will hear the danger in taking this issue out of the forefront of our fight for justice.” [Eileen's passage ends here]
Now I have some things to add to this wonderful statement by Eileen In addition to what she said; Obama is so radically pro-choice, that if elected president, he would make sure that the $400 an abortionist would regulary receive from each abortion would increase by $3600. That means that an abortionist will get $4000 for each abortion. This is an additional 36 hundred dollars that would come out of American tax dollars. This also would not just come out of the wealthy class, like Obama claims. I'm sure anyone can do the math efficiently knowing that there are over a million abortions taking place each year in the United States alone. I truly believe that if abortion becomes more common to perform, a huge number of people will become happy to do it for the sole purpose of money. This is just plain wrong and it will be completely contradictory with the position of looking out for the safety and well-being of women who are pregnant.
The thing that troubles me so greatly about Obama is that he is not pro-choice, but pro-abortion. His views about abortion are completely radical to the average pro-choice view. The reason why this is a problem is because his opinion could impact the public opinion of abortion, due to the fact that he is so popular. Since the president of the country is supposed to be a moral leader, I don't believe Obama is qualified for president. Words such as "punished with a baby" (words that Obama used) show that he has complete disregard for the sanctity of life and the seriousness of the abortion procedure.
Neither McCain nor Obama are going to be able to provide peace and prosperity for the people of the world as well as they should, believe me when I say that. At the end of the day, however, one candidate will be publicly against killing the unborn while the other candidate will support it. It's one thing for a leader to fail to provide for the American people, (like Bush and Clinton). It's another thing for one, however, to personally approve killing the most vulnerable and innocent members of our society intentionally. This is all my opinion though, and I do respect the fact that others may have their own views.
The last that I have to say is to simply look at one of the pieces of legislation that he has promised to sign into law with his first act of presidency. Eileen mentioned one of them in another post. The one that she mentioned is the "Freedom of Choice Act." This is by far more radical then Roe v. Wade. It would legalize abortion in ALL 9 MONTHS OF PREGNANCY for any reason. It would also make it illegal to give information or support to women in these crisis pregnancies. This is flat out ridiculous. I honestly respect people for being pro-choice, but this is too far to the extreme. Most pro-choice people I know only support it before 6 months of the pregnancy. I still STRONGLY disagree with that philosophy, but I can respect those who have this opinion, because I know that they have this view out of concern for the woman. I find it very difficult to respect people's opinion of abortion of all 9 months, however. I hate to sound rude, but that this is common sense, and you really have to lack common sense if you think a baby is not a human after 6 months. As you can tell, I am VERY passionate about this, so I'll stop before I go to far and offend anyone. I thought this was really important to address though. I don't think many people truly know Obama's positions. He has become more of a celebrity than a presidential candidate, which is really dangerous. Anyways, feel free to add any comments that you wish to add.
===My Response===
Even if Obama personally has many radical views on abortion, there is no political will to change the current status of abortion. The majority of the American people support the right to choose but a majority also supports restrictions on abortion. The status quo is not going to be changing.
That being said, this article makes the assumption that we are forcing mothers to get abortions (see the section about handing rape victims a dead baby). Abortions are not forced. They are a painful decision made by a woman and her doctor. I respect the fact that the author of this article is a woman and thus has more of a right to be anti-abortion than me, but I still do not believe anyone has the right to make a decision about abortion other than the woman who has to make the decision.
The claim that abortion hurts our economy is simply untrue. If it was, then why isn't our government pushing for people to have more children? The book Freakonomics has a chapter that brings up the highly controversial theory that legal abortion was the key factor in the decrease in crime in the 1990s. I will not voice support for the theory solely due to the controversy of it, but I will summarize it. Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973. Prior to the decision, middle-class and rich women got illegal abortions that were either highly dangerous or highly expensive. Poor women could not. After Roe v. Wade, poor women who were in the unfortunate situation of having an unwanted pregnancy could afford to get abortions. Those poor women were often urban, black, and single (taken from the book). Think about children raised in that kind of environment. It is common knowledge (check the records) that many criminals grew up in impoverished, urban settings with a poor family life. The theory asserts that 1990 was around the time that the aborted babies would have grown up to become criminals. Ideologically, the theory is untouchable, but you have to admit it makes sense.
I am moderately pro-choice, solely because I know I have absolutely no right to forbid a woman from having an abortion. Abortion is always the option of last resort, and it is a painful decision for a woman to make. I remind you of the occasion when Bill Clinton talked about his pro-choice stance in front of a group of Democratic activists, who applauded. Clinton promptly ended the applause, as his goal was to reduce the number of abortions to zero. He also understood that the government has no business in a mother's womb. This article, like many from anti-abortion (yes, unlike pro-abortion or pro-life, the term anti-abortion does not mince words about the people it
describes) voters, seeks to demonize those that perform abortions or have abortions performed on them. It does not recognize that there is a biological difference between a fetus and a baby. It uses the term "infanticide" and implies it to be the same as terminating a fetus.I do not support the most radical policies of pro-choice activists, however the debate is not about them. The debate is about the women who are put into the unfortunate situation of having an abortion. When right-wingers protest in front of Planned Parenthood clinics and shout insults at the women walking in, they are hurting women who are already in a difficult situation as it is. We must respect the sanctity of life, and some people forget that respect applies to living adults as well as unborn fetuses.
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