Will the Real Pro-life Party Please Stand Up?
Joel Hunter is a conservative, Republican megachurch pastor in Central Florida. He's giving the Democrats some free advice, if they care to hear it: Even if you stick with Roe V. Wade, you can show evangelicals that you are the pro-life party by showing us how you will actually reduce abortions--and how you will support "life" in other areas besides abortion. From Steve Waldman's Beliefnet column today:
Hunter makes a practical argument: providing women with economic help in carrying babies to term can actually reduce the number of abortions more, and more quickly, than focusing on overturning Roe v. Wade. "With eight years of Bush the abortion rates have not declined. Every indication is that with financial support and different forms of supporting pregnant mother and then some post birth help also we could come close to 50% reduction in abortions. That's huge. That's huge."
Continuing with the same culture war paradigm is therefore morally dubious. "If we insist on keeping this an ideological war we're literally not saving the babies we could save. The Democrats have a huge opportunity here to really steal the thunder from those who are seen as traditionally pro life."
Keep a look out for other Christian leaders popping up with the same message. What's causing this is the failure of the Republicans to significantly reduce abortions, even with 20 years of Republican presidency since the rise of the Christian right. Many Christians are finally getting fed up.
In my opinion, the Republican line on abortion--the singular focus on banning it--was just a cynical ploy. I know that many GOP leaders were sincere, but overall the strategy was simply to oppose abortion symbolically while doing nothing to reduce abortions in real life. Moreover, there is evidence from history and from around the world that banning abortion would not even reduce abortions (have we ever banned anything successfully?).
Pro-life Christians are finally getting this. If the Democrats take Joel Hunter's advice, and stand up as the real "pro-life party," they will not find formerly Republican Christians falling into lock step with them. Many of these Christians are so burned by their experience with the GOP that they will not join another party. However, in their pro-life calculations at the voting booth, many will choose the Democrat.
But how many? That depends on Obama, and if he will take Joel Hunter's advice. If Obama can boldly articulate a pro-life platform to reduce abortion, care for children and families, reduce arms and prevent war then he could bring about a seismic shift in electoral politics that makes the "Reagan Democrat" phenomenon look like nothing.
For many pro-choice advocates, that will feel like a concession. But has the status quo stand off worked any better for them over the past few decades? Abortion is still legal, but access to safe abortions for women who choose them has all but disappeared for many working class and rural women--right alongside other medical and social services. For sure, embracing a politics of "life" is a risk for pro-choice advocates. But Christian leaders who reject the status quo are taken an arguably greater risk: with their own congregations, with their national reputations and with anti-abortion extremists.
Only one thing is certain: It's going to be fascinating to watch how change and risk will be embraced or rejected by various advocates on both sides of the debate through this election and an Obama presidency.
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FOXYLADY expressed my sentiments exactly !
Just LEAVE WOMEN (and men) ALONE...se
I don't want Obama patronizing the 'pro-life' phonies.
THANK YOU AMAGOOD!! HOPEFULLY THEY ALLOWED AND YOU READ MORE OF MY POSTS ON THAT SUBJECT...
There is no way Obama can articulate a pro-life platform, he has historically been so pro-abortion that it would be a flip-flop of epic proportions. You don't earn a 100% rating by NARAL for being a moderate. I mean, NRLC is as we speak highlighting on the top of their website "Obama Cover-up Revealed On Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Bill."
Nobody would believe he was genuine if he did, nobody that knows his history anyway. There can be no electoral shift toward the Democrats on this issue with Obama at the helm.
Did you even read this blog? He's not suggesting Obama flip his position on abortion rights, he's making the case that being "pro life" goes beyond someone's position on that one issue.
True, but I suppose the idea (on abortion at least) doesn't make any sense to me philosophically. If you think abortion is murder, you want to end it and reduce it as much as possible. Obama clearly doesn't think that, so what would be his motivation to reduce it? Mainly to get votes. To tell people that they can forget about banning abortions, but that they should vote for him because he will at least try to reduce them. To abandon a principle for some practical gain. But Republicans have been trying to reduce them, as well as end them - parental notifications, prohibiting the crossing of state lines to get an abortion, etc. These strategies have been opposed by the Democrats.
Actually, I think this does get at a deeper issue, which is that lack of a real understanding of people by Democrats. They tend to live on the surface of issues. I don't doubt that they have good intentions most of the time, but a lot of their solutions just end up making the situation worse. The best example of this in modern times is probably pre-reform welfare, which did terrible things to poor families in America.
If Obama can boldly articulate a pro-life platform to reduce abortion, care for children and families, reduce arms and prevent war then he could bring about a seismic shift in electoral politics that makes the "Reagan Democrat" phenomenon look like nothing.
to the list above add measures to begin to control population growth. Being that the U.S. consumes a majority of the worlds carbon fuels our ever expanding population is putting enormous pressure on the environment.
In the Illinois senate, Obama succeeded in blocking, on 3 occasions, a bill that would have forbidden medical personnel from killing babaies who had managed to survive abortion procedures and were living outside the womb, in other words infanticide. This was a bill that passed the U.S. senate 98-0--in other words with the support of every pro-choicer on the Hill. The Right is making this known and it will, I promise you, thwart any chamces Obama has of picking up the kind of significant pro-life support this author envisions.
Well, from the view of many in the Religious Right, there is to be no quick fix for abortion. Why?
Because its all about Roe v. Wade.
The Religious Right's principle strategy is to keep voting in Republicans who stand a chance of placing conservative judges to the Supreme Court. Once there is a majority of conservatives there, you can bet there will be a huge rush on to bring cases before the court that will force a reexamination of Roe.
So the hope is to get that overturned and to thereby make abortion federally illegal in the United States. Arguments about short term gains in exchange for the possibility of lining the Supreme Court with conservative judges will very likely fall on deaf ears.
I hate to bear this news.
Then it just goes back to the states.I live in mass. so well be fine and will become a magnet for those states who outlaw.So what changes?
Books..., there already is a conservative majority of supreme court justices and there has been for years. The "rush" has yet to materialize. Just like war and terror are the fear tactics of the right, Roe V. Wade is one of the fear tactics of the left.
And it wouldn't make it "federally illegal". The federal government would simply remove itself from the discussion and allow each state to decide on it's own.
So in your view people's rights depend on what state they live in? How pre civil war of you.
The Democratic Party has always been and will always be the pro-life party. They're not as anti-war as I am, but that's life.
Who gave you, a man, or evem if you were a woman, the authority to tell a woman what to do with her body? It is none of your business! Your religion is not the religion of millions of Americans. Why should those millions of people of other faiths abide by decrees issued by your church leaders? Perhaps the Jews should decree that everyone in the U.S. must not eat pork. Perhaps the Muslims should decree that all women must be veiled in public. There is supposed to be a separation of Church & State. That includes rulings by the church for its own parishioners. Keep it in YOUR church, not mine, nor in my country!
To many (myself included) it becomes my business when it gets funded with tax dollars. Women should be able to chose abortion, but it shouldn't be funded by any government in any way.
So, would you be willing to federally fund sex education and birth control?
Viagra is already federally funded - via Medicare - as pointed out by no other than Carly Fiorino. Birth control is not.
Don’t you see though that you’re going to have to pay for it either way. And an abortion is a lot cheaper than paying for her pregnancy (blood tests, ultra sounds, vitamins, etc.), delivery, and for the healthcare and schooling of that child until its 18. And then you’ll be paying for its college until it’s old enough to give back. In the meantime, most women who have abortions are low-income or will be so after having a child. A lot of them are single mothers or will end up that way. A single mother can’t work and watch a child at the same time. So she will have to rely on public assistance at least for the first few years of the child’s.
And in the meantime, she most likely won’t become educated because she doesn’t have the time, money, or resources to go to school and advance her career. Not to mention that employers would rather not hire mothers, especially single ones, and if she became pregnant while working, chances are she will be let go and/or won’t be able to reenter the workforce at the same position she once had. Women still earn only 77cents for each dollar a man makes so that sets her back and she will probably end up with a low-paying job where she doesn’t contribute much to society and where she won’t have much power, respect, or opportunity for advancement.
And even if things are “good” - the father is present and she has health insurance, you would still have to pay for her care since insurance is shared risk; god knows that whatever premiums she’s paying come nowhere close to the cost of covering her pregnancy and delivery and then the healthcare for that child. That money will come from everyone else who shares her insurance.
And we shouldn't ignore the social cost of unwanted children who are raised in a low-income environment where the parents often don't have enough time to watch them and where they're influenced by the community around them. These children often end up in jail, which will cost you as well.
Prevention is key and prevention is cheaper. Our resources should go into providing birth control, child support enforcement, making sure that women get equal pay, etc.
Really, aren't all people "pro-life"? Who isn't pro-life? People have had access to excellent birth control methods for over 40 years, abortion should be rare. But that's asking people to think beyond the next orgasm, and that's just too much to ask.
Hey RROnin, birth control is not 100% effective. I have experienced myself or had female friends who have experienced failures with the diaphram, condom (it broke), and birth control pills (1-2% of the time they fail). Just because someone's birth control method fails when they have used it properly doesn't mean they are irresponsible. I would counter that it is irresponsible of you not to lobby the pharmaceutical companies to come up with a method that is 100% effective. The United States' research and development of contraception ranks last globally, and we are in a tie with Iran on that status.
I would posit that it is men who cannot see beyond the next orgasm. Out of curiousity, are you a man or a woman?
Sounds like the usual knee-jerk man-hating bigotry so typical of certain feminist circles.
Out of curiosity do you think the state should have the power to force young people to become parents against their will? Or do you think it should have the power to force young men to become parents but that young women should have the right to make a choice and make the decision for their own lives?
You sound like a "choice" hypocrite to me. Do you really believe in choice? I doubt it.
"By their fruits you'll know them."
After seeing the fruits of eight years of GW Bush's stewardship, no one has an excuse to vote for Bush's 3rd term.
Continued:
- It is being pro-education since it allows individuals to live better lives and to climb out of poverty, which lessens the burden on the state.
- It is being pro-affordable healthcare since everyone deserves medical care and not at the outrageous prices charged now.
- It is being pro- reduction of the gap in rich and poor since those that have so much don’t need it as much as those with so little. No one needs to earn 500 times their lowest employee.
Barack Obama has been fighting for all the points above as his life’s work and pushing in his campaign for president now except the top one. On the one issue we disagree on, he does want to fight to reduce the causes and number of them. For too long, Pro-life has only meant about abortion and neglecting the other important issues that effect life, especially the already living. Most ‘Pro-life’ do not even deal with the issue of capital punishment so they are really just ‘anti-abortion’, not Pro-Life. Obama has always stated that we will not always agree 100% on everything but that he would always listen and try to work to make things better.
Some of the most stridently active anti-abortionists are pro-capital punishment. How they call themselves "pro-life" is beyond me. They just mean "pro-life-
Realize the irony goes both ways. My strident pro-abortion actvitsts are also anti-capital punishment. There is no end to seeming contradictions in position by either party.
First let me say that I am a woman looking 60 in the face and I have always supported a woman's right to choose. Some years ago there was some nonsense going on in my area called "spring of life" in which anti choice groups imported "outside agitators" to protest at places they believed abortions were taking place. It turned out to be not the big deal they hoped it would be but it did cause a lot of discussion. I had asked an elderly neighbor, who was evangelical, lived strictly by Bible principles and was a preaching deacon in his church, what he thought figuring I already knew the answer. Well, I didn't. His response amazed me: "It's not the government's business to make people righteous. The government can't make people righteous. Scripture doesn't tell us to get our morals from the government
On another note, as mentioned by others earlier in the comments, I too wonder why life is only sacred in utero. Seems like once your born you don't matter anymore and can be killed by war, disease, capital punishment or starvation for all the these ill-named pro-lifers care.
Continues # 2
The Count:
Agreed points: 8.5 Disagreed: 1.5
85% agreed is a lot better than most “pro-life” candidates. He will be able to do more than most since he is willing to work together with all parties to fix the problems, while in the past if those that did not agree, the issues were blocked or stalled from ever being resolved. Many of these issues have been neglected as of late and not the issues have worsened. How many times have pro-life candidate campaigned on the “one issue” but where has that gotten us? No where, I feel we have been used to get elected. Is it not better to solve 8.5 issues, instead of 1? Please help me take back the “Pro-Life” word, back to its true meaning: respect for all life. I always go by the old saying: “Treat others as you would like to be treated”.
For those who are “True Pro-Life” individuals, is it not clear where individuals like us should turn to fix many of the issues we hold dear to? In my view, it is clearly Barack Obama.
Why can a “Pro-Life” individual Support Barack Obama for President?
I am a “True Pro-life” individual. The Pro-Life word has been hijacked into meaning only anti-abortion, but it much more than that. In the way I see the word and term, it is much more encompassing and far reaching.
- It is being against abortion (not for a Constitutional ban anymore, we need to find ways to reduce the reasons for abortions)
- It is being against the death penalty, which many forget about and many are not against. Obama has a very complex view on and thought out view.
- It is being against war, especially unjust wars, where diplomatic means are not exhausted. Many innocent people die and are injured as collateral damage in war, which is unacceptable.
- It is being pro- helping the poor since without help they could perish and it is our duty as humans to help those in need.
- It is being pro-living wage, since if you work full time, you should not be poor, homeless, or hungry
- It is being pro-protecting the environment since it effects how others live and life on this planet as a whole
- It is being pro- safe and fair working conditions since no one should suffer through life to make a living in this country or the world
Good post.
This was a fascinating article and very enlightened perspective.
Judging from many of the comments accompanying the article - it was thought provoking and very worthwhile. So, thanks not only for the thoughtful piece, but thanks for eliciting so many thoughtful comments.
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"...but access to safe abortions for women who choose them has all but disappeared for many working class and rural women..."
You can't be serious. Isn't it poorer women who get most abortions? Aren't most abortion offices in low-income areas?
And rural women??? Is there anyone in America who is more than a couple hours away from an urban area any more? When was the last time a woman couldn't get from her farm to the city when she wanted a set of work boots or a new skirt, let alone something so monumentous as an abortion?
Most abortion offices may be in low income areas, but that does not mean that most low income areas have one.
The number of clinics that provide abortions is actually quite small. The nearest city may not have one.
If you don't have the free time and income to be able to get to one, then you are out of luck.
Do you think someone that is so busy that they can't pencil in an abortion procedure (even if it is a day or two) is going to just give up and have a baby? If their time is really so scarce, they'll manage to find a way to keep from having to spend their time raising a child.
Obviously you haven't been in the south and rural west recently. There are several states which have ONLY ONE location which is allowed to perform abortions, and as often as not those same states require a 24 waiting period after they walk into the door, meaning that many who would be better served by getting abortions are unable to do so since they aren't able to take two days off of work!
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