Why conservatives love abortion

Here's your October surprise, people. The GOP has finally found a way to win this election, and all it's going to take is the speedy invention of time travel. Wait, let me explain.

In the National Review Online, Ed Whelan writes that Barack Obama's mother, pregnant at 18 and living at a time before Roe v. Wade, was forced by circumstances to have her child and marry the baby's father. Had abortion been legal, Whelan speculates, Baby Barack would have wound up as nothing more than a twinkle in his father's eye and a stain on a Honolulu clinic's bedsheet.

Charming.

Whelan, who lovingly refers to the candidate as "former fetus Barack Obama," not-too-subtly uses this baseless theory as evidence of Obama's hypocrisy, implying that the senator ought to thank his lucky stars he was born at a time when America cared nothing for female reproductive rights. How could Obama believe that Roe v. Wade was "rightly decided" when he himself was a beneficiary of those freewheeling, birth-'em-if-you-got-'em pro-life days? After all, had Barack Obama been aborted, it's likely that at this point he'd only be up in the national polls by five points, tops.

But let's put aside, just for a moment, the sheer repugnance of Whelan's argument and his wild assumptions about the moral character of Barack Obama's long-dead mother. What Whelan fails to consider is that the young Ann Dunham did deliver her baby, and that baby grew up to pose a serious threat to the future of the modern Republican party. In essence, Barack Obama is the John Connor to the GOP's Skynet. Wouldn't John McCain and the Republicans be much better off if Barack Obama had been aborted? Ed Whelan, you may have just articulated the strongest, most persuasive pro-choice argument ever to come out of the conservative movement.

That's not even taking into account women who had legal abortions under Roe v. Wade. Had that case never been decided, it's not inconceivable to imagine that some of those women would have carried their children to term, and that subsequently some of those children would have grown up and gone into politics, and that perhaps one of those politicians would rise to become an inspirational Democratic presidential candidate, and that, furthermore, he might actually be white! Against such a foe, the GOP wouldn't have a chance. Even if John McCain does manage to squeak out a victory, Republicans should be down on their knees every day, thanking abortion doctors for preventing the early downfall of their party.

Hence, the new Republican strategy. Find a way to get Roe v. Wade decided a mere twelve years earlier than it actually was, thereby ensuring Barack Obama never makes it out of the womb. In the meantime, please don't forget to pass along Ed Whelan's convincing pro-choice argument to every registered voter you know. Americans need to be made aware of the GOP's newfound respect for abortion rights. Otherwise, we're forced to wonder: Why the hell couldn't Roe v. Wade be on the books when Ed Whelan's mother was pregnant?

Wait a minute...to the time machine!

"Former Fetus Barack Obama" - National Review Online