Barack Obama and Abortion…
I was reading a very important e-letter, regarding Barack Obama’s strong support of abortion. It was written by J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma Magazine. I don’t see how any clear-minded, moral person (Let alone a born-again Christian) could vote for Mr. Obama, after understanding what his stance is regarding the unborn and partially-born.
Read for yourself:
Obama, Jakes and the “Goose Bump” Factor
What kind of vibes did you feel when Barack Obama claimed the Democratic nomination?
What kind of vibes did you feel when Barack Obama claimed the Democratic nomination?
Now that Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been kicked to the curb, the nation’s most powerful Democrat is steamrolling his way to the White House. The Obama machine is surging ahead with support from a huge army of young volunteers. And since John McCain isn’t doing much yet to attract the fractured evangelical voting bloc, Sen. Barack Hussein Obama will probably turn red states into blue ones in November.
A lot of people are excited about that possibility, including the nation’s most prominent African-American preacher, T.D. Jakes of Dallas. In a gushing endorsement, he told CNN last week that he “watched with visible goose bumps” as Obama claimed his party’s nomination. “This is not just a victory for African-Americans,” Jakes wrote, “it is a victory for democracy that proves that our country provides possibilities for all people.”
I’ll say amen to the fact that we are finally putting racism behind us. But I must admit that the goose bumps I felt last week were different from the ones Jakes experienced. I sensed sadness, and a bit of dread, as I realized that the people of the United States are hellbent on electing another leader who has no problem with killing unborn babies.
| “It baffles me that liberals who pride themselves on being racially sensitive can get away with supporting a practice that destroys black families.” |
Sorry for being so old-fashioned, but I think abortion is still a relevant issue.
Many Christians today say it’s politically impossible to elect a pro-life candidate. They’ve changed the channel. Opposing abortion is, like, so 1980s. Many young Christian voters love to quote the line that says, “There are other issues that are just as important”— listing the environment, food programs and ending the war in Iraq as the trendy new evangelical agenda.
At the risk of seeming out of touch with our Sex in the City culture, I’d like to mention three things to those Christians who are already plastering their cars with Obama bumper stickers:
1. Maintaining the current policy on abortion is not “change.” Obama promises change every time he makes a speech. He’s out to change our economy, our health care system and our foreign policy. He’s a one-man change agent. Yet whenever he has voted on the abortion issue, all he’s done is protect the right to kill our most vulnerable citizens. No innovation here. All he offers is the same old same old.
Everyone on Capitol Hill knows Obama is a radical when it comes to abortion policy. He opposed a ban on partial-birth abortion (a clinical term for stabbing a baby in the neck when his arms, legs and torso are already outside the mother); then he criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold that ban. While an Illinois lawmaker, Obama opposed a bill that would have prevented the killing of an infant born alive during an abortion.
To top that off, Obama said in April that if his young daughters got pregnant out of wedlock, he didn’t want them to be “punished with a baby.” In other words, he wants the abortion industry to thrive.
2. Abortion is racist. African-American pastor Wellington Boone pointed out in an article in Charisma last month that 36 percent of all abortions in the United States are performed on black women—even though they make up only 12 percent of the population. And Obama is OK with that?
It baffles me that liberals who pride themselves on being racially sensitive can get away with supporting a practice that destroys black families. It’s equally baffling that when pro-life African-American politicians enter the political arena they are ignored rather than cheered with Obamaesque fervor. So not only do we kill black babies; we also silence black leaders who don’t worship at the altar of Molech.
3. Abortion contradicts the essence of Christianity. I have dialogued with young Christian voters who say they are supporting Obama because they believe he will bring justice to poor people who’ve never achieved the American dream. Who are we fooling with this empty talk about justice? Hello? The God of justice abhors the slaughter of unborn babies!
Many Christians who support Obama do so because he opposes the Iraq war. I respect their position about a muddled conflict that has lasted too long. But has anybody done the math?
The number of U.S. soldiers who have been killed in Iraq since 2002 currently stands at 4,092. Yet a slightly smaller number of unborn babies, approximately 3,900, die every day in this country because of abortion. Currently we kill 1.4 million babies a year. Since abortion was legalized we’ve snuffed out more babies than the entire populations of Iraq, Israel and Jordan.
That’s more than 40 million people. It’s a holocaust we deny ever happened.
The mantra of the 2008 Democratic contest has been “every vote counts.” Yet no one, including Obama, is talking about the rights of an unborn infant whose skull is about to be stabbed with scissors or whose brains are about to be sucked out with a vacuum tube. His tiny hands—complete with fingernails by 14 weeks—will certainly never be allowed to press a button in a ballot booth. That gives me goose bumps.
I get what u r saying, and I’m all for pro-life J…but as I see it, there is no lesser evils of the two parties. One is pro-choice, the other well…to go there would require a great deal of patience on my part to actually take the time to list them…so I’ll just say I’d rather have a leader who practices what he professes. You should research some other party (aside from the democrats and the rebpublicans) and endorse a party that seem to fit the true bill of Chrisitianity. Or better yet, instead of pointing out what is so wrong with the presidential candidates, find a candidate u support and talk about what is right about him or her.
Thank you for your comment Dee. I hear, and can appreciate your frustration with the Republican party. By no means am I in agreement with all the Republican party has done (Or hasn’t done for that matter).
Being from Canada, I don’t envy your position as an American voter (assuming that is your home country).
As for the perspective that there is no lesser evils per party…did you read the numbers? Currently 1.4 Million babies a year are being brutally murdered. I think we as a society have become de-sensitized to the travesty of that reality. I know I still don’t have the urgency that I should regarding the subject.
Is either the Democratic party or the Republican party even close to ideal? No. Is one of those two parties going to be leading the country for the next 4 years? Yes. So if there is really only two valid candidates, does it make much sense to spend your vote on a party that is not even in the race?
Is abortion an important enough issue to base your vote upon? While, what if I told you that a group of scientists were conducting an experiment with the city of New York, that was causing the death of over 1 million city residents each year, and that in 10 years the entire city of New York will have been wiped out?
If one party were in full support of that experiment continuing and flourishing, while another party was interested in having the experiment stopped, who would you vote for?
How is the murder of innocent children any different from the murder of people who are living outside the womb? Isn’t the issue of their right to live more important than corruption in other areas? I mean, even looking at the issue of other lives being unjustly taken through corrupt foreign policy, etc. and compare it to the amount of lives snuffed out through abortion-based on numbers, there is no comparison.
Food for thought…and other comments are welcome! =)
On point Joel…on point…that’s all I gotta say. I hear what your saying Dee however dare I say, we pushed so long and hard to get the right to vote…If I were in America, I wouldn’t be voting period.
I am pro-choice, but I completely understand why people feel that abortion is abhorrant. Let me things in persepective for you. Abortions have been occuring for centuries. Women who became pregnant have always needed abortions because of the stigmas attached to unwed mothers, victims of rape or incest, or poverty. In many societies throughout history, women have been outcast from society if they had a child out of wedlock. It is these social problems that cause women to feel the need for abortions. That being said, abortion has also been illegal for centuries in many places throughout the world. The result was that desperate women turned to illegal doctors who performed back-alley operations or tried to create their own miscarriages by throwing themselves down flights of stairs, or sticking coathangers into their wombs. These practices caused infections, death, and permanant injuries along with the death of the fetus. The reality is that if abortion is illegal, that does not mean they will stop. It just means that women will have to resort to dangerous methods again, as they have been doing for centuries. The solution to abortion is not to outlaw it. Republicans and Democrats both want abortions to decrease. But unfortunatly Republicans want policies that allow only for abstinance-only education, instead of policies that Democrats support that includes real sex-education, access to birth-control and health care for everyone. It seems to me that in order to decrease the number of abortions, we need to increase the accessability to birth control for young women, rather than turning a blind eye to the fact that teens do actually have sex and just wagging our fingers and telling them they shouldn’t do it isn’t really an effective way to prevent unwanted pregnancies. Moreover, rape victims everywhere need to have access to the Plan B pill (this is not the abortion pill, which is RU-486) within 72 hours of their rape, regardless if they are reporting or not or if they can afford it. Health care companies that refuse to cover prescriptions for birth control, but happily pay for Viagra, also need to be regulated and required to provide equal care for women’s reproductive health. When women have true control over their reproductive health, we will start to see the numbers of abortions go down. Until then, we need to value women enough to keep abortion safe and legal so that they will not be subjected to dangerous procedures out of desperation, If you really want to see abortions reduced, then throw your support towards policies and programs that support women living in poverty, rape victims, and other women at risk for unwanted pregnancies instead of passing moral judgements upon them without offering any real help. Barack Obama has never said he wanted the abortion industry to “flourish”. He has said that he wants abortion to be safe, legal, and rare, and to protect women’s right to make decisions about their own bodies, and does not support legislation that lays the ground work to take those hard fought rights away from women. We are not baby-making factories, and I appreciate that Senetor Obama respects that.
(See September 5th 08 post)