President Obama's Call for Common Ground on Abortion Reduction
I am encouraged that President Obama's first action on abortion was to release a statement supporting a common ground approach to reducing abortion, even as he also reiterated his policy of supporting legal choice. Even more significant was his decision not to issue an executive order rescinding the "Mexico City policy" on the day of the anniversary of the Roe decision and the annual March for Life. For the past two decades, this particular rule has become a back-and-forth of instituting and repealing as administrations have changed -- almost as a partisan tit-for tat.
In breaking the symbolic cycle, President Obama showed respect for both sides in the historically polarized abortion debate, and called for both a new conversation and a new common ground. I hope that this important gesture signals the beginning of a new approach and a new path toward finding some real solutions to decrease the number of abortions in this country and around the world.
In his statement, Obama acknowledged that "this is a sensitive and often divisive issue," but went on to say "no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services."
I support the President's call for a new dialogue on the best ways to achieve abortion reduction while retaining his position on choice. And I hope the discussion can now move beyond the usual politics of abortion, changing the polarized debate, and building a new common ground movement to dramatically reduce abortion. This is a goal to which we can all agree.
Jim Wallis is the author of The Great Awakening
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I remember years ago reading a letter to the editor that basically said that the writer didn't understand why be didn't end the need for abortions by promoting birth control. DUH. It's the same people who are against both!.. The only proven way to limit abortions is to promote birth control. So, stop being so anti-sex and do what really works.
hrm, guess I'll piss all the men off. Since sperms causes an egg to be fertilized, let's just take the sperm away. A mandatory law for all males who aren't married rendering the sperms immobile should do the trick. No abortions necessary. Oh, I hear you saying that that will increase teenage sex. Then pass a law to make sex illegal if you're unmarried. lol, I see rapid typing on that last statement. OR we could always bring back chastity belts for women or make some for men. Not going to debate the issue of when live begins. Just a few thoughts. :)
I rather think that the "Old Guard" pro life movement has it's collective nose out of joint.
They've hit a brick wall pretty much and now there are new kids in town with a different way.
The whole anti-contraceptive, anti-abortion movement is transparently about protecting white numbers. The Pope, John Gibson, and others have talked about the need for Westerners to have more kids. We can see that the lives of the world's children aren't all viewed as being "sanctified", by the Christian Right. Just look at the evidence, it's all around us; it's all around the world.
"I hope that this important gesture signals the beginning of a new approach and a new path toward finding some real solutions to decrease the number of abortions in this country and around the world."
Only a man would make this statement.
There are PLENTY of tools available to women to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
THEY ARE NOT AVAILABLE to our citizens because of the idiotic IDEOLOGICAL views of our "politician of the day".
MEN - where's YOUR PILL....th
MEN - where's YOUR RESPONSIBI
FUNDAMENTA
There is NO REASON a woman should not have ready access for prevention of unwanted pregnancies.
It's ALWAYS on the woman's shoulders.
That needs to change now.
Now, THAT would be real CHANGE.
The fundamental tool that a woman always has is the abiltiy to say...
NO.
And I'm a guy saying this ok?
And it has to do with respect for oneself and for another not just men respecting women but women respecting men too.
Works both ways...
Right now, men have the upper hand...
They don't have to pay the price, the woman does.
When will this change?
Fulminate away, anti-choicers. You have lost the fight.
The "pro-aborts" equivalent of nyanyanyanyanyana!
No such thing as a pro-abort.
prevent pregnancies and forget the rest of the crap sir. You can't tell someone what to do, and you can't pretend your choice of god has anything to say other than to your own mind.
If we do the first thing, help to prevent, the rest will have to take care of itself. Women don't give a damn about why if it was accidental or worse, and this planet needs no more children born to parents that can't help them.
Once the delusional realize this is biology and not "theology" (one of the more lame excuses for ignorance in history) we might have a chance of helping those that replace their children due to their dying. Perhaps we can keep them from dying and make overbreeding unnecessary?
Let's have a biological debate then: At 22 days after conception, the heart of the fetus (child) begins to beat. Abortion stops this beating heart. Is this not murder?
The argument that the " pro-aborts" use ad nauseum is that the unborn human being is just a conglomeration of cells-as if organic life were merely a matter of one day springing forth from the uterus much as Athena from the forehead of Zeus.
Unlike biological life, (for the radical pro-abortionists) human life is portrayed as kind of a Schroedinger's cat experiment, where the female's choice replaces the fundamental particle's behaviour, with a dead or undead unborn human resulting therefrom.
"Choice" has been politically appropriated to refer to only one or two issues-abortion and gay marriage, by the socially radical Jacobins masquerading as liberals-since, if liberalism implies compassion, then there would at least be a modicum of compassion for the unborn-perhaps not to the same degree as for the "life and health of the mother", but compassion nonetheless.
Instead, the radical " pro-aborts" (in contrast to those who may oppose abortion restrictions on privacy grounds, yet consider abortion to be a very tragic option in any case) seek to dehumanize incipient human life as parasitic, protoplasmic or other such idiocies.
Ever eat a fertilized egg?
You are guilty if murder of a life.
Ever eat veal?
You are guilty of murder of an innocent.
See?
ALL LIFE IS SACRED OR NO LIFE IS SACRED.
This IS the 21st Century...
Not holding my breath.
This is what I think of "Reproductive Rights"...
Every single time a woman finds herself pregnant and or decides to have an abortion,
IT ONLY VALIDATES A MAN'S RIGHT TO RUN AWAY...
When will women wake up?
You don't get pregnant on your own!
I am encouraged that he did not naively encourage the adoption of newborns. Maybe he really gets it that encouraging adoption can be coercive and leave women with lifelong suffering for their lost child.
So you would rather kill an unborn child rather than to give it to parents that are more able to take care of and raise the child?
It is a person's right to decide whether to have an abortion or not. There are many children in foster care, I don't see people rushing to adopt them, as a matter fact the TRENDY thing to do is go overseas and adopt there instead of the US. Now why is that? So bring more children into the world for no one to take care of. May not taste good but get this nature has checks and balances.
I understand "safe" and "legal," but can someone please explain to me why anyone would want abortion to be "rare."
I guess you don't value human life perhaps?
I value human life. The question is designed to point out that there is only one possible reason for wanting abortion to be rare. Abortion takes a human life.
So based on that reason, how could someone want that to be safe and legal?
Funny how people can argue about the value of human life but when it comes to wa.rs you have not problem with it. If you valued human life you would have had all Congressmen and the President arrested for mur(der) for allowing the invasion to go on as long as it did when in fact they admitted Iraq has nothing to do with 9/11.
The argument for human life is only done for convenience and only to push one's agenda. If you value human life period you fight on all fronts. The hypocrisy of this is truly ridiculous. A woman can chose to end her life or the fetus its her choice and in either case she has to live with it and so do you.
Guarntee Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, not a child's story, but the LAW
yet he just undid a law, so that now federal funds will be paid to abortion groups.
really sounds like he's trying to "find common ground" by "limiting abortions".
the first place of "common ground" we should find is that, ok, let's agree to disagree on abortion, but can't we at least agree that taxpayer money shouldn't go to perform abortions?
They go to fund wa.rs so what is he difference? So what is the complaint here. The woman is not mass mur(dering) for any cause or delusions there of. Tax payers dollars are funding Genetically modifiy crops, ki!!ling people in the long run, funding these ki!!er pharmecutical companies, now what.
It seems like getting rid of the abstinence only programs and actually teaching sex education is the first step. Condoms help reduce pregnancy and so help reduce abortions.
Tell us all that you're not really serious.
And high school kids don't need to hear a teacher talk about sex to be thinking about it or to be having it. Education is always a good thing.
J
What amazes me in this continual discussion is that anyone out there thinks that this decision is not one of the most difficult decisions a woman will ever have to make. No woman comes to the conclusion of abortion easily. No woman.
Yeah, but we'd better shame those irresponsible tramps anyway, just to be sure.
I know I'm supposed to be happy about the emergence of a religious left, but as far as I can tell, they're the same judgmental busybodies, just with less warmongering and gaybashing. Not that those aren't substantial improvements, mind you, but guys like Wallis still think their religious beliefs should have implications for all of us.
Yah, but every man and women who get there are the only ones in the beginning and end that can solve the problem only they create. Before, During and After. Self Responsiblity start and finish is not a law.
Herod's Abortion Policy, "kill the first born". We could go further Kill all the males (over 12 and under 70) to stop teenage.
I wonder if there are any doctors out there going "Um. When do I get a say on this?"
Musings aside, abortion is a valid medical response to pregnancy. I'd rather a woman abort a baby than not be able to raise it properly. So, say the government starts an assistance program to help with raising the child - It doesn't guarantee that the parent(s) are equipped to handle the child - Some people just are not ready to have a baby when they get pregnant. Hell, some grown women in their thirties aren't ready to have babies and get abortions; they have their jobs and life in order and oops!
What's the point in birthing a child if it's going to live through hell for the formative years? That's not "celebrating" or "choosing life," that's torture.
Want to "reduce abortions?" Start with the source - not "safe sex," but "smart sex."
But we're not supposed to talk about "S.E.X." It's dirty and bad. Shame shame.
Yes, but population is the problem and planning and prevention are the solutions. Abortions should be seldom and infrequent because pregnancy is preventable. Population is the problem and we need to work on that, preventing spread of STDs at the same time.
there is no reason to decrease the number of abortions. An abortion is just another medical procedure that should be free and immediately available to any woman that requests it.
If you want to decrease abortions through birth control and contraception, then that's fine, but it should be about universal access to those things, not about reducing the occurrence of a basic and routine medical procudure.
Yes.
What you suggest is not practiced in western european nations. They restrict abortion much more than the US does. Why should the abortion rate be higher in the US than in those countries? Unfortunately it is that way because the pro-life movement insisted on a total ban on all abortions - with the result that they got no restrictions at all, since that stance is always rejected by the cours on constitutional grounds. For the pro-life movmeent, the perfect became the enemy of the good. If the pro-life folks had been willing to settled for a greater degree of compromise, perhaps 90% of the abortions that have been performed in the US would not have been performed.
With no regard to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Yah, not one scientist can tell you when life began and why so let's kill Pakistanis and the unborn.
Self responsibility will be the answer in the end, but it should be the beginning too. Obama is right we must give the knowledge and ability to make the choice. Not deny either
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