Catholic bishops may respect Obama as the president, but that doesn't mean that they're willing to sit idly by while Obama works to "support and expand abortion rights" (that's a euphemism if I've ever seen one). Some quotes from their meeting in Baltimore yesterday:
"This is not a matter of political compromise or a matter of finding some way of common ground, it's a matter of absolutes." - Bishop Daniel Conlon of Steubenville, Ohio
"Any one of us here would consider it a privilege to die tomorrow–die tomorrow!–to bring about the end of abortion." - Auxiliary Bishop Robert Hermann of St. Louis
"If Catholic hospitals were required by federal law to perform abortions, we'd have to close our hospitals." - Bishops Thomas Paprocki of Chicago
I'll be the first to tell you the Catholics get a lot of things wrong, even centrally important doctrinal things. But at least they are standing up to "the greatest social evil of our day - abortion. Our people voted to overlook a little thing like the slaughter of the unborn, because of other considerations like economic prosperity, climate change and the desire to have all the other nations in the world like us again." (source)
Regrettably, it seems that many Christians were more concerned about their carbon footprint than the blood on their hands from the present-day holocaust that continues to rage on in our nation.
Partial Birth Abortion is never necessary to protect the mother's health. Let me repeat that. Medically, there is never a situation that a Partial Birth Abortion would be necessary to protect a woman's health.
From The Continuum:
If a pregnancy ought to be terminated in a late term, there is no reason why the baby has to die. For several years doctors have been able to induce early labor and birth without killing the child. Hospitals have a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for premature births. Partial Birth Abortion is a procedure that comes after such an induced early labor, only the baby is not placed in a NICU. Instead, scissors are inserted into the back of the helpless child's head, and a tube sucks out the brain. This is what the pro-abortion people call a "medical procedure."
Inasmuch as there is no medical reason to kill the baby instead of making use of a NICU, it is painfully obvious that the only reason for Partial Birth Abortion is to complete a contract killing. There is never a medical reason to kill the child. (emphasis mine)
This makes sense. If the baby has already been delivered, except for the top of its head, how could it possibly be "medically necessary" to end the procedure with the death of the child instead of completing the delivery and sending the child off to the NICU and, ultimately, parents who will love him? Instead, the doctor becomes a hitman and "takes care of" the problem.
Say what you want, but I would suggest that Partial Birth Abortion is more satanic than anything you've ever seen in some Halloween movie involving candles and a pentagram. What else could we call the intentional destruction of image-bearers by hands and instruments that were intended to preserve life, if not satanic? Isn't this exactly what the Murderer has been up to since the Garden? And now we've elected, as a nation, a leader who believes that his role as the Executive Officer of this country involves protecting, and even subsidizing, this wicked, detestable act, under the guise of wanting to "protect life."
I've done a lot of thinking since the election about my perspective on and analysis of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. I'll post more on this soon, but for now I'll just say I plan on praying for him and respecting the office that he holds. God put him there for a reason. Let us not grieve as those who have no hope, and so on. I get it. What I refuse to do, however, is to pretend that he is anything but a wicked, evil man who wishes (and has even promised) to expand the culture of death that has gripped our country to the point where we stab children in the skull with scissors and call it "protecting the life of the mother".
HT: Touchstone Magazine
I have frequently reminded Nary an Original Thought readers of the sovereignty of God, in all circumstances. This morning I'm wondering if someone would return the favor….
Somehow the death of roughly 4 million babies during the reign of Obama the Merciless fits into God's eternal plan. I'm having trouble understanding how.
Keep this in mind when you vote tomorrow:
10 If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
11 Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
12 If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?
- Proverbs 24:10-13
Don't think that God will be fooled by the excuse that you had other "social injustices" in mind when you voted for Obama. A vote for the most pro-abortion candidate to ever run for the presidency is not just a failure to rescue those who are being taken away to death. It is outright participation in their murder.
Roe v. Iraq:
On one planchette, thousands of persons per year are being killed unintentionally as a consequence of a conflict waged against a genocidal tyrant and enemies whose military strategy is to target innocent civilians in an effort to annihilate Israel, overthrow Western civilization, and impose an oppressive, theocratic world government. On the other, thousands of persons per day are being intentionally murdered in a Holocaust waged against individuals deemed inconvenient by society….
In the end, the moral comparison of pro-abortion and pro-Iraq war policies is like that of an unrestricted, ongoing ethnic cleansing, against the inadvertent deaths caused by medical interventions, despite the best intentions and state-of-the-art care of physicians.
John Piper is a self-identified "one issue voter", and here's why:
No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. Being pro-life does not make a person a good governor, mayor, or president. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office. For example, any candidate who endorsed bribery as a form of government efficiency would be disqualified, no matter what his party or platform was. Or a person who endorsed corporate fraud (say under $50 million) would be disqualified no matter what else he endorsed. Or a person who said that no black people could hold office—on that single issue alone he would be unfit for office. Or a person who said that rape is only a misdemeanor—that single issue would end his political career. These examples could go on and on. Everybody knows a single issue that for them would disqualify a candidate for office….
So it is with politics. You have to decide what those issues are for you. What do you think disqualifies a person from holding public office? I believe that the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office. It's simply the same as saying that the endorsement of racism, fraud, or bribery would disqualify him—except that child-killing is more serious than those.
Piper goes on to say that he has a conviction to never "vote for a person who endorses such an evil [abortion]—even if he could balance the budget tomorrow and end all taxation."
I couldn't agree more. It shouldn't matter if Obama promises to feed the world's population with five loaves and two fish, and to re-plant the rain forests by the power of his voice. Because he clearly and vigilantly endorses and defends the "right" to stab babies in the skull with scissors, every Christian who thinks biblically should be able to see that he is not qualified to hold this office.
The only argument I could see that would change this would be that both of the "mainstream" candidates (i.e. the two that have any chance of winning) are equally disqualified. I have not heard any arguments about McCain that would make me think that this is the case. At any rate, even if you could convince me that John McCain wants to feed the poor into giant furnaces, emitting harmful greenhouse gasses in the process, that still doesn't change the fact that Obama is not qualified (on moral terms) to receive the vote of a sincere Christian.
It's obvious (even to Obamaniacs who happen to be Christians) that Barrack cares very little for the littlest "least of these", considering his impeccable pro-choice record. But, they tell us, Obama's their guy because he really, really, really cares about the poor. I mean, really.
And that John McCain guy? Ha! If he's president, we'll probably end up drilling through homeless shelters so we can find more precious oil. Right?
Not when you look at the facts (another problem for many Obamaniacs, I know.). If you haven't yet, you need to compare tax returns from the two candidates (Obama, McCain)1.
In all but the two most recent years reported, the Obamas gave around 1% or less of their income to charity. Their contributions increased in 2005 and 2006 to 4.7% and 6.1% respectively, but still are far short of those of McCain who gave 28.6% in 2006 and 27.3% in 2007.
This is, of course, consistent with the general trend of conservatives out-giving liberals. According to Arthur C. Brooks' book Who Really Cares (cited by George Will),
- Although liberal families' incomes average 6 percent higher than those of conservative families, conservative-headed households give, on average, 30 percent more to charity than the average liberal-headed household ($1,600 per year vs. $1,227).
- Conservatives also donate more time and give more blood.
- Residents of the states that voted for John Kerry in 2004 gave smaller percentages of their incomes to charity than did residents of states that voted for George W. Bush.
- Bush carried 24 of the 25 states where charitable giving was above average.
- In the 10 reddest states, in which Bush got more than 60 percent majorities, the average percentage of personal income donated to charity was 3.5. Residents of the bluest states, which gave Bush less than 40 percent, donated just 1.9 percent.
Or, to paraphrase in Pyromaniacs style,
If your idea of charity is raising taxes so the government can care for the poor so you don't have to, then Barry's your guy. It's just that I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind in Matthew 25.
There's quite a furor over on Gary's recently resurrected blog about whether or not a "serious Christian" can, in good conscience, vote for Barack Obama. I've asked this question myself, and even if I hadn't you could probably guess how I would answer it. That's not ground I wish to cover again today.
What is interesting to me is the way that this debate seems to get framed among "serious Christians" who are rightly concerned with having a consistent ethic of human life, as it is often called. God certainly cares about the unborn child, but doesn't he also care about the poor, the destitute, the oppressed? Well, folks, you can't read through Matthew 25 without concluding that yes, God most certainly cares about the oppressed, and he will judge his people for how they care for them. Let's all agree that a passage that includes a "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire…" statement should be central to how we understand God's universe. I, personally, am ashamed of how little regard I have for the well being of the poor in my own city, not to mention those around the world. We, as Christians in the U.S., need to do a better job of this. No argument there.
Here's where I start to disagree. Can anybody really argue that the issues of abortion and neglecting the poor are on the same plane? We should take Jesus seriously when he says that when he was hungry, we gave him nothing to eat because "as you did not do it to one of the least of these…". That much is clear. But, is it much of a leap to also assume that when a doctor jams a pair of surgical scissors into the head of a child, there are some "least of these" issues involved as well? I've heard the argument for choosing the lesser of two evils, but it's hard for me to think of a list on which government-sponsored infanticide is not quite as bad as X. Jesus cares about hungry folks, but he also cares quite a bit about babies.
Secondly, this argument assumes that a vote for a Democratic president is a vote for fighting poverty. I don't think I'm quite ready to concede this point. We've had decades of the government-sponsored "War on Poverty," and things don't seem to be turning around. To use familiar terms, we're in a quagmire with no exit strategy. We have thrown billions upon billions of dollars at social programs of all shapes and sizes, and for what? Have they worked? No. Not even close. So, is the answer that we need *more* of these types of programs? Probably not.
So, before I'm going to buy the "McCain cares about babies, but Obama cares about the poor" argument, I'm going to need some proof that Barack really is the best choice if we want a leader who cares "for the least of these" as we ought to. At this point, I'm not seeing it.
In an unintentional trip through most of the 2008 Best Picture nominees, I've seen There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and Juno, in that order, over the past few weeks. Yes, please applaud my cinematic hipness, however delayed it may be.
Out of the three, Juno is the one that I enjoyed the most. It is one of a recent string of films depicting pregnant women deciding what to do about their, um, problem. In each of these films, the mother eventually decides not to terminate her pregnancy. In Juno, the title character explains that, "Well, you know, I was thinking I'd just nip it in the bud, before it gets worse, because they were talking about it in health class, how pregnancy, it can often lead to… an infant." She makes her way to the abortion clinic, only to change her mind after a protesting fellow-classmate informs her that the baby has fingernails. While the film certainly is not overtly or dogmatically pro-life1, it seems worth noting that this teenage mother chose not to abort the baby.
Last night's Grey's Anatomy offered up another example of this on-screen pregnancy pirouette. After receiving confirmation that she's pregnant, the HIV-positive mother-to-be asks to schedule an abortion. By the end of the episode, Izzy (played by Katherine Heigl of Knocked Up) confronts the mother, informing her that her baby would have a 98% chance of being born without the disease. The mom, relieved by this news, begins to cry and decides not to abort her baby.
So, here's what I don't get. It's no secret that an overwhelming majority of our film-making friends on the Left Coast are stridently pro-choice (and pro-everything that's not traditional, moral, or religious). So, why can't any of them pull the trigger? Why would they present us with multiple examples of women contemplating abortion, only to be won over based on, of all things, medical facts? If it really is just a lump of tissue, and if women really do have "reproductive freedom," why not show us this perfectly normal, valid choice on screen?
One hunch is that it just wouldn't make for a good story. I can see that, to a point, but if these folks really believe what they keep telling us they believe, why not tell the courageous story of a young, pregnant mother defying all odds and making a triumphant choice that's "right for her"? My guess is that, despite all the rhetoric, no sane human being can truly bring himself to see things this way. We know better, and we won't buy (or tell) a story that ignores this intrinsically understood truth.
RSS 2.0
