Obama, Abortion and The War
Posted by: tony on 08/21/2008 04:18 PM
Updated by: tony on 08/21/2008 04:18 PM
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Expires: 09/21/2008 12:00 AM
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I have been reading a lot of commentary on supposedly Catholic websites as to why, in good conscience, you would be able to vote for Barack Obama.
Obama is the most pro-abortion candidate ever to run for the office of the Presidency of the United States of America. He is more pro-abortion than NARAL (the National Abortion Rights Action League). The fact that he opposed a version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the Illinois legislature is a matter of public record. This law would have mandated medical care for children who survived abortion.
This law seems like a no-brainer to civilized people. There should not even be a need for a law like this. However nurse Jill Stanek held babies in her arms in Illinois and rocked them as they died so they would not be alone. She saw the need of a law like this to rein in evil abortionists (there's a redundant statement if I ever heard one).
Barack Obama opposed this law. He used his committee position to prevent it from coming to a vote. Earlier in the campaign, he claimed it was because it didn't contain the exclusionary text to preserve the current definition of "person-hood" to protect abortion. Now it comes to light that he lied. The text of the law he blocked contained the text he said was required for his support. Now that he's caught, how does he justify his actions?
His campaign yesterday acknowledged that he had voted against an identical bill in the state Senate, and a spokesman, Hari Sevugan, said the senator and other lawmakers had concerns that even as worded, the legislation could have undermined existing Illinois abortion law. Those concerns did not exist for the federal bill, because there is no federal abortion law....
So it's OK to leave babies to die because it might undermine Illinois abortion law. Could it be that Illinois abortion law needs to be undermined? Could it be that the current Illinois abortion law is evil?
Morning's Minion at Vox-Nova is officially endorsing Barack Obama for President. This is a site which claims to be Catholic, but I see little adherence to official Catholic teaching from some of their members. This isn't a big surprise. Many of Morning's Minion's posts have been dedicated to the explanation of why abortion isn't so bad compared to other social issues like universal health care, and how Catholics, in good conscience can vote for Barack Obama.
Henry Karlson seems to think that opposition to the war in Iraq is a legitimate counterpoint for the holocaust of abortion (40 million dead, and rising daily).
I don't believe this is correct, and here's why...
Abortion always ends an innocent life. In the case of saving the life of the mother, this killing can be justified, much like a self defense shooting. But in these cases, the killing of the baby is not the goal, the goal is saving the mother's life. If both mother and baby could be saved, that would be ideal. If not, then it's an unavoidable tragedy. One could even argue that this sort of medical intervention shouldn't be termed "abortion".
In an abortion the goal is a killing. That is the purpose of the procedure. The death of the child in the womb is what abortion is all about. I guess this is why it was so problematic for Barack Obama if the child somehow miraculously survived the procedure. Since the passage of the law steps are being taken to make sure that the child dies in the womb before the procedure starts. The child's heart is injected with potassium chloride, and when the child is dead he or she is delivered normally. I guess I'm stupid. I can't understand that when the procedure is exactly the same, and the mother goes through exactly the same labor, what is gained by killing the baby. But that is the purpose of an abortion.
In the case of the war in Iraq, we did not want to kill anyone. If Hussein had laid down his weapons and allowed unrestricted inspections of his country for WMDs, nobody would have died. After we invaded, had everyone laid down their arms, nobody would have died.
Soldiers are killed because the enemy doesn't wear uniforms and looks just like the civilians. The soldiers sometimes hesitate a moment and pay with their life because they don't want to kill innocent civilians. We don't target innocents like our enemy does. We try and minimize civilian casualties and they are an unfortunate side effect of the war.
With abortion, the killing of innocent life is the goal.
With war (at least for the U.S.) the killing of innocent life is to be avoided.
The war in Iraq can be compared more closely to the medical intervention to save the life of the mother and the baby dies (an unfortunate side effect), than to abortion.
Seems like there's really no comparison there. But what do I know? I'm not a contributor at vox-nova.
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