Our very own Iron Lady
Politics — By Rachel Motte on September 30, 2008 at 4:15 pmSarah Palin is the first woman to run in this Presidential election cycle.
That is, she’s the first major candidate to run as a woman.
Some female candidates are successful in spite of their femininity. Others, like Hilary Clinton, are successful at the expense of it. Sarah Palin is successful because of it. She’s one of those rare women who knows how to be a wife and mother while also excelling in the public sphere–without forsaking any of the unique strengths granted to womankind.
She’s exactly the sort of role model my generation needs: living proof that a woman can be smart, savvy, formidable, and womanly all at once. Proof that our place need not be only in the home, but also proof that we can and should be happy there. We’ve been told too many times that motherhood will restrict us, that the home will swallow us whole. Hilary Clinton tried to show us that women can wield power in the public square. Good–but that success has too often come with a price. Too many women have paid for it with empty wombs, empty homes, and a loss of those unfathomable qualities that separate us from men. We have entered the public arena at the expense of our womanhood. Sarah Palin shows us that we can have the best of both worlds in abundance. Motherhood and statesmanship need not collide. The home does not have to crumble to give way to the state.
Many women have been politicians, but not many of these politicians have been Ladies. Women should certainly strive to be just as successful as men in the public square, but they should do so while retaining the best of their womanhood–they should be Ladies, in the old sense of the word. Success by any other means is more costly than it is worth. Too many women have realized this too late.
Sarah Palin is nothing if not a Lady. And she’ll burst through the glass ceiling without so much as breaking a nail.
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81 Comments
God knowing everything about us implies existence, the act of being; we are meant to be; God intends us to be; so therefore we are a being before the flesh is formed.
Sorry, but that’s utter nonsense. The bible verse in question merely says that God, being God and all, knows everything about everything, before it happens. There’s nothing here about anything or anyone existing before it exists. That’s like saying my novel is already written just because I’ve imagined writing it.
Here’s my question about Sarah Palin: of all the MILLIONS of Republicans in this huge country of ours, is she really the best running-mate John McCain could have picked?
Who could John McCain have picked that would have enticed you to vote for him? Che Guevara, maybe?
If what makes someone the “best running-mate” is having spent several decades in Washington, warming a chair in a government office, then no, she is not the best qualified, but if the purpose of a running mate is to excite some constituency that the top of the ticket is having trouble attracting, then it’s hard to imagine a better pick. That said, it’s kind of silly for leftists to criticize Palin for a lack of resume when her’s looks like a Manhattan phone book (Yellow and White Pages) compared to Obama’s. I mean really, can you point to one significant accomplishment or a place where he has shown any leadership at all?
Reagan merely held down the fort while his country continued the task of outlasting and outperforming the USSR, which we had been doing since 1945.
It’s really hard to debate someone who is so ignorant of history, or willing to lie about it. Those of us who actually lived through the Reagan years and the decade preceding it have different memories of those years.
And Truman built on the accomplishments — and was assisted by the appointees — of Ivy-Leaguer Franklin Roosevelt.
Funny you should mention this, a couple of UCLA economists just published an article purporting to show that FDR and his Ivy-league advisers implemented policies that likely prolonged the Great Depression by as many as 7 years. Maybe Truman succeeded in spite of FDR’s Ivy-League appointees, not because of them.
ucfengr,
If your passage is proof that God is definitely against abortion, then why did God not explicitly forbid it in the Bible? God forbade many things. Or why not forbid it in the New Testament? As abortion was a well known medical practice hundreds (if not thousands) of years before the birth of Christ. It was well known to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese… everyone. It is not a recent invention. It is not a modern thing at all. It is not some new menace that has just appeared to test our Christian values.
So why would God say that a person is not alive until he takes his first breath, if that is not true? And why would God not forbid abortion explicitly if it was, as it seems to be among Christians today, THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE we face. Why not? God forbade a lot of things. So why not something so important? And why would God contradict Himself, if the meaning you ascribe to the passage is really the correct one? God is behaving very strangely in your view indeed!
The answer to all these questions is simple: God simply does not see a fetus as alive. It is a soul-less shell. Yes I find abortion repellent. But this is not a Christian fight. It is a societal fight. Do not justify it with Christian teachings. You make us sound crazy, and you make the words of God sound confusing and contradictory.
God Bless,
Daniel
“I mean really, can you point to one significant accomplishment or a place where Obama has shown any leadership at all?”
Easy! It began in about early 1995 when Barack Obama became the chairman of the board of an education foundation that had ultimately more than $100 million dollars to dispense. Barack Obama became chairman of the board of something called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a foundation that was essentially founded by Bill Ayers. Now this foundation had two operating bodies, the board, which Obama chaired, and something called the collaborative, which Bill Ayers chaired. And so the two were effectively working together at this foundation, and what’s more, the foundation was giving a lot of money to Bill Ayers’ personal education projects, and the projects of his allies. And as, since the board was in charge of giving out that money, Obama effectively was funding Bill Ayers’ very education projects for years on end. These were not educational grants dealing with math and science, but focused on political awareness, so that together they could spawn a whole new generation of little Ayers.
If you wish to understand the greatest influences of Obama during that period where he used his executive experience, think (WARP) Wright Ayers, Resko, Pflueger.
ucfengr,
If your passage is proof that God is definitely against abortion, then why did God not explicitly forbid it in the Bible?
That wasn’t my quote, but God does explicitly forbid murder; does he really have to specify each possible method of murder?
So why would God say that a person is not alive until he takes his first breath, if that is not true?
None of the Bible verses you quote support that assertion, nor do any I can think of.
Daniel asks:
“So why would God say that a person is not alive until he takes his first breath, if that is not true?”
I challenge you Daniel to cite one Bible verse that states the above proposition. Not inferences and conjecture– but proof chapter and verse.
I challenge you Daniel to explain how Job could wish he had “given up the ghost” while still in his mother’s womb, if he was not even alive in his mothers womb.
Job 10:18, “Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me. ”
No, I didn’t think so . . .
The Presidential debate is long but boring. How can it even be called a debate when there is no rebutal time allowed? Brokaw interupts the allocated 1 minute rebutal time with more pedestrian questions.
Obama finally insisted on a follow up and McCain said, “If he gets to, I get to.” Call it a joint press conference, not a debate. They repeated almost exactly what they said last debate and there was even less chance for them to respond to one another.
These shows principally benefit the Democrat. The candidate has to pass himself off as something other than what his record would suggest – tough on foreign policy issues, deeply personally passionately personally anguished on abortion, etc. (That comes 3rd debate) These non-debates assist the Dem in getting away with it. Direct challenges between candidates would not only make for better viewing, but diminish this liberal from passing himself off as a moderate centrist chomping at the bit to “kill” bin Laden and “destroy” al-Qaeda and defend Israel.
This debate was a horrible travesty.
Wormtongue wins.
Raging Bee, you don’t have that power. God does.
If what makes someone the “best running-mate” is having spent several decades in Washington, warming a chair in a government office, then no, she is not the best qualified…
So you’re saying that all the Republicans I’ve mentioned, by name, did nothing but warm their chairs? That’s all the more reason not to vote Republican, isn’t it?
It’s really hard to debate someone who is so ignorant of history, or willing to lie about it.
So I’m lying when I say the US outperformed and outlasted the USSR?
Funny you should mention this, a couple of UCLA economists just published an article purporting to show that FDR and his Ivy-league advisers implemented policies that likely prolonged the Great Depression by as many as 7 years.
I wasn’t talking about the Depression, which was during Roosevelt’s term, but our postwar foreign policy, in which Truman had more of a hand. We’re talking about Truman, remember?
I challenge you Daniel to cite one Bible verse that states the above proposition. Not inferences and conjecture– but proof chapter and verse.
Daniel already did that.
I challenge you Daniel to explain how Job could wish he had “given up the ghost” while still in his mother’s womb, if he was not even alive in his mothers womb.
That was Job, in a moment of hardship and despair, wishing (rhetorically, not literally) that he had never been born. Lots of people say things they don’t LITERALLY mean when they’re under stress or despair. It is NOT a specific statement of when life begins, just an expression of emotion.
But thanks for clarifying how thin and sparse the Biblical case against abortion really is — I really had no idea. Hell, it’s even thinner than the Biblical case against homosexuality.
It is only so thin for those who believe that mamas ought to be able to kill their babies.
I really don’t want to bang my head against a wall here on this. I am happy to agree to disagree. I just wish my fellow Christians would stop twisting the words of God for their own purposes. It hurts my heart, and brings shame to our faith.
So one last thing… I’d like to present to you an “ethical dilemma”. At Duke divinity school, our professors used these to help us tackle ethical problems. The answer to an “ethical dilemna” will really come down to your gut feeling, which I believe is God’s little nudge in the right direction.
So here it is:
You are driving a van, and in the back of this van is a cooler containing 100 frozen, fertilized, human embryos. These embryos are smaller than the dot over an i, but if implanted into a suitable womb, they all have the potential to develop into a baby and be born. You are bringing them to a fertility clinic so that they can be used for this very purpose.
Now, here is the dilemma… you round a corner and are horrified to see that a baby girl is lying in the middle of the road ahead of you, crying and flailing. You are going too fast to stop, so you must make a choice, and quick:
You can either run over the baby and kill it, OR you can swerve to avoid it… BUT, if you swerve, you know the cooler will tip over and all 100 embryos will spill out and thaw and become unusable.
So, what do you do? Destroy one hundred “potential” babies, or splatter one “actual” baby?
My opponents here would, if I’m understanding them, run over the baby, since according to them it is better to kill one baby than 100 embryos (fetuses), as they are all equivalent and all living beings. One murder is less evil than one hundred murders. They are very confident in this, and have bible qoutes that back them up without question, and they would be eager to get to heaven and recieve their pats on the back from God for doing the right thing and saving those embryos. They are confident that God thinks those embryos are just as valuable as that living baby girl.
But I just don’t feel that that is right, in my heart I really don’t.
I would swerve. No question about it.
God Bless,
Daniel
It is only so thin for those who believe that mamas ought to be able to kill their babies.
So there’s parts of the Bible that support your opinion, but they’re only visible to people who oppose abortion? And you’ve quoted them here, but because I’m pro-choice, the text is invisible to me? Sorry, but that fish don’t hunt — if there’s a strong Biblical case against abortion, then you have yet to describe it here. That’s not my fault for being pro-choice, it’s yours for not being able to back up your opinions using Bible verses.
I did not say that the text is invisible to you, Raging Bee. You can see it, but you often reject it. One of the Ten Commandments is Thou Shalt Not Kill, and yet you obviously reject the fact that abortion is killing.
I could spend days and days laying out the biblical and theological case against abortion as the Catholic Church has since its inception and you would still not be satisfied and would reject it. You have embraced the Culture of Death and pretend that it is not your fault.
So you’re saying that all the Republicans I’ve mentioned, by name, did nothing but warm their chairs?
Well, of the people you mentioned, only one (George Allen) spent a lot of time in Washington, and even he had a real job (Governor of Virginia) before going there. Actually, I was contrasting Palin with Biden, you know, her actual opponent. I assume you think he is the most qualified person Obama could have picked (otherwise, why focus on Palin), but for the life of me, I can’t think of anything really significant he has done in his 30+ years in Washington.
So I’m lying when I say the US outperformed and outlasted the USSR?
No; you’re lying when you imply that the victory of the West was anything close to inevitable. If Carter had won the 1980 election, the likelihood is that the 1980s would have looked a lot like the 1970s. The Communist East in the ascendant, and the West in a slow decline.
I wasn’t talking about the Depression, which was during Roosevelt’s term, but our postwar foreign policy, in which Truman had more of a hand. We’re talking about Truman, remember?
Silly me, I thought if was George Marshall who helped Truman design his postwar foreign policy. When did VMI become part of the Ivy League?
You are driving a van, and in the back of this van is a cooler containing 100 frozen, fertilized, human embryos….You can either run over the baby and kill it, OR you can swerve to avoid it… BUT, if you swerve, you know the cooler will tip over and all 100 embryos will spill out and thaw and become unusable.
Let’s change that thought experiment a little. Suppose I am a firefighter going to a fire at a hospital. At the hospital I come into room that holds 100 end stage cancer patients and one newborn baby. Now because of some dues ex machina, I am able to save either the 100 cancer patients or the baby, but not both. If I choose to save the baby, does that mean that I don’t think the cancer patients are humans?
Daniel states: “According to the word of God, a fetus is not a living being and does not have life until God has given it it’s first breath.”
To support this nonsense, he used three Bible verses. One had to do with life being breathed into a grown man, Adam, who never was a child (Genesis). The other was the dry bones prophecy regarding the restoration of the nation of Israel (Ezekiel) The third was again refering to a grown man (Job) None of the verses had anything to do with unborn babies.
I then quoted a specific reference to life in the womb : Job 10:18, “Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye had seen me. ”
The challenge was to to explain how Job could wish he had “given up the ghost” while still in his mother’s womb, if he was not even alive in his mothers womb.
This hurt Daniel’s heart, so Raging Bee took up the challenge saying that Job was speaking “rhetorically” about wishing that he had never been born.
This is the mother of all strawmen and completely misses the point. The point is that the unborn in the womb is referred to as having a SPIRIT. That has nothing to do with Job’s state of mind at the time. You don’t have to believe him, but if words have meaning, then you can not deny that according to scripture the unborn has a spirit, hence life.
You people who call yourselves Christians and become apologists for baby killers, should be ashamed. Not only is your understanding of Bible hermenutics as weak as ex-preacher’s, you don’t even have the guts to admit it when you are proven wrong.
Daniel, the ethical dilemma you propose is a poor example of an ethical delimma. It makes assumptions, such as that the cooler and cooler lid is not secured in anticipation of just such a common occurence such as a sudden swerve, that I would actually be participating in such an immoral activity as in-vitro fertilization in the first place, and lastly that I would be morally culpable for the outcome of an accident not of my own making.
Additionally, I’d like to point out that you’ve made some assumptions about your opponent’s mindset with respect to ethical dilemmas, such as whether it would be ‘better’ to do one thing or the other as opposed to which is the lesser evil, and whether or not they would be congratulating themselves on performing the lesser evil.
Be all that as it may. If I were unethical enough to be participating in in-vitro fertilization in the first place, and if I were unethical enough to not have secured the cooler of embryos in case of accidental movement, and if were unethical enough to be driving around a corner too fast to be able to stop upon seeing the baby in the road, and if I were absolutely sure that the vehicle could not pass over the baby without harming it, then I would of course swerve to avoid the baby in the road.
And after all that, I would still recognize that abortion is killing.
Thank you, smmtheory, for your answer. Anyone else?
I don’t know why you are thanking me Daniel. My answer did not in any way support your contention that there is no Biblical case against abortion. Nor did it help your contention that your opponents here view a hundred or so embryos as more important than one living breathing baby. If the choice had been between plowing down 100 pregnant women verses the one child, the child would be on the losing end. My answer also did not explain why I would have swerved (it would have been more automatic reaction than actual moral calculation), nor even that it would have been an underlying urge from God in the correct direction.
But if you choose to count it as a victory anyway, then by all means enjoy your somewhat Pyrrhic victory, and I’ll thank you for conceding the point that abortion is killing, and there is Biblical evidence that supports that view.
smmtheory,
I was thanking you for taking the time to answer my question. I can appreciate an answer to a question I ask, regardless of whether the answer agrees with my own feelings. That is all it was, a simple thank you. Yeesh.
God Bless,
Daniel
The more I think about it though, if I carry your little thought experiment or ethical dilemma out to a conclusion based on the string of unethical decisions that would have brought me to such a precarious choice as you have proposed, perhaps instead I would have remained inclined toward an unethical conclusion and simply run over the kid hoping that nobody had seen me do it. Furthermore, having demonstrated such a rash of continuous unethical behaviour, maybe I wouldn’t even stop and just pretend that I didn’t even see the hapless brat and didn’t even feel the slightest bump in the road. If perchance somebody did happen to see the unfortunate occurance and if eventually the police came beckoning at my door, I would stand there with a perplexed expression on my face and utter, “Say what?”
“Any one else?”
Here is a situational ethic for you, Daniel:
A man makes the indefensible claim that “the Bible gives no more life to a fetus than it gives to an inflamed appendi.” And anyone who dissagrees with him is “blaspheming” God.
He is then challenged with one simple question:
“How is it that Job could wish that he had “given up the ghost” while still in his mother’s womb, if he was not even alive in his mothers womb?” (See Job 10:18)
He quickly changes the subject
claiming this discussion “hurts” his “heart, and brings shame” to his “faith.” He then recycles an old ethics canard involving fertilized eggs, a baby, and a car wreck in the making. The listener is expected to decide if “one murder is less evil than one hundred murders,” notwithstanding the fact that this supposidly involves an accident.
The question is what does one do with such a man who claims to be a brother in Christ? Do you attack him like a pitbull on a poodle, or do you engage him in an absurd case of situational ethics, whose sole purpose is entrapment and compromise?
Like the dilemma you posed, Daniel, I find neither option
satisfactory.
That said, my flesh favors the pitbull. Remember Jesus’ warning to those who would bring harm to a child?
Smmtheory, you have navigated well. And even though I am not an RC, I have always admired their
stalwart defense of the least among us.
Are you threatening violence against me, qwqe4rtyui? How terribly sad.
God Bless,
Daniel
“Are you threatening violence against me, qwqe4rtyui? How terribly sad.”
That is risable!
And you might even make the case that my friend, Jesus, was an accomplice. Didn’t he say:
“Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”
Do you do harm to children when you
dehumanize them in the name of God? If so, a pitbull is the least of your worries.
By the way, Daniel, I was wondering, how is it that Job could wish that he had “given up the ghost” while still in his mother’s womb, if he was not alive in his mothers womb?”
“By the way, Daniel, I was wondering, how is it that Job could wish that he had “given up the ghost” while still in his mother’s womb, if he was not alive in his mothers womb?”
Job is a man. He is not God. He was mistaken. How do Job’s words have any relation to God’s? Is Job speaking for God in this passage? Am I missing something? There are plenty of men and women in the Bible that say things. Some of the things they say are awful awful things. Are all the things they say true and in agreement with God’s words? Please explain.
Daniel asks: “How do Job’s words have any relation to God’s?”
Now I know who I am dealing with.”Hath God said?” Yes, Daniel, God has said. In post #30 you quoted Job 33:4 and
followed it up with these words:
“According to God, it is NOT A PERSON until . . .” i
“To go against God’s words . . .”
You can’t have it both ways. When you quote Job, it is the word of God. When I quote Job, you ask, “Is Job speaking for God in this passage?” Unable to face the reality, you conclude, “He was mistaken.”
Was the prophet Jeremiah also wrong to write:
“Because he slew me not from the womb; or that my mother might have been my grave, and her womb to be always great with me.” (Jer 20:17)
How does one slay someone who isn’t alive?
Maybe if Job and Jeremiah had the benefit of ultrasound they would have had your more enlightened approach and realized that that child sucking it’s thumb in the mother’s womb was really dead, eh Daniel?
I heard a doctor speak of a maternity patient who said that she could hear her baby crying from the womb. He told her that if she wanted it to stop, “just turn over,” the baby had found an air pocket.
Would you consider that unborn child alive because it had already taken it’s first breath?
Pslam 139 is like a prayer from the womb. It is beautiful beyond description and evicerates any notion that the unborn are anything less than marvelous in God’s sight.
1 O lord, thou hast searched me, and known me.
. . .
13For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb.
14I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!
18If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: when I awake, I am still with thee.
. . .
23Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts:
24And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting
Daniel says . . . “God does not call a fetus a living person. You can disagree with God at your peril, but do not tell me Sarah Palin is a better Christian than Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama because she wants to ban abortion. God will be sure to correct you for your blasphemy when you are at his side.”
Although such weighty matters as to when life begins was “above his pay grade,” Obama, has decided when it should end.
March 31, 2001, the bill protecting babies who survived abortion the came up on the Illinois senate floor. Only one member spoke against it: Obama. The official transcript validates this.
Obama said
“the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was — is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the — the fetus or child, as — as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb.”
Obama made three crucial concessions here: the legislation was about 1) a human being, who was 2) “alive” and 3) “outside the womb.”
He also used an odd redundancy: “temporarily alive.” Is there another type of human?
“And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period.
Here he made another crucial concession: The intention of the legislation was to make sure that 1) a human being, 2) alive and 3) outside the womb was 4) “properly cared for.”
But to these specific temporarily-alive-outside-the-womb-human beings — to these children who had survived a botched abortion, whose hearts were beating, whose muscles were moving, whose lungs were heaving — to these specific children of God, Obama was not willing to concede any constitutional rights at all.
To explain his position, Obama came up with yet another term to describe the human being who would be protected by O’Malley’s bills. The abortion survivor became a “pre-viable fetus.”
By definition, however, a born baby cannot be a “fetus.” Merriam-Webster Online defines “fetus” as an “unborn or unhatched vertebrate” or “a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth.” Obama had already conceded these human beings were “alive outside the womb.”
“No. 1,” said Obama, “whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or other elements of the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term.”
Yes. In other words, a baby born alive at 37 weeks is just as much a human “person” as a baby born alive at 22 weeks.
Obama, however, saw a problem with calling abortion survivors “persons.” “I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions,” said Obama, “because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an antiabortion statute.”
For Obama, whether or not a temporarily-alive-outside-the-womb little girl is a “person” entitled to constitutional rights is not determined by her humanity, her age or even her place in space relative to her mother’s uterus. It is determined by a whether a doctor has been trying to kill her.
At least Obama is consistant in his determination to kill babies. Just don’t expect me to believe him when he speaks of love, compassion, and concern for the “least of us.”
Campare Obama with Palin who said:
“In this same spirit, as defenders of the culture of life, John McCain and I believe in the goodness and potential of every innocent life. I believe the truest measure of any society is how it treats those who are least able to defend and speak for themselves. And who is more vulnerable, or more innocent, than a child?
When I learned that my son Trig would have special needs, I had to prepare my heart for the challenges to come. At first I was scared, and Todd and I had to ask for strength and understanding. But I can tell you a few things I’ve learned already.
Yes, every innocent life matters. Everyone belongs in the circle of protection. Every child has something to contribute to the world, if we give them that chance. There are the world’s standards of perfection … and then there are God’s, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake.
As for our beautiful baby boy, for Todd and me, he is only more precious because he is vulnerable. In some ways, I think we stand to learn more from him than he does from us. When we hold Trig and care for him, we don’t feel scared anymore. We feel blessed.
It’s hard to think of many issues that could possibly be more important than who is protected in law and who isn’t – who is granted life and who is denied it. So when our opponent, Senator Obama, speaks about questions of life, I listen very carefully.
I listened when he defended his unconditional support for unlimited abortions. He said that a woman shouldn’t have to be – quote – “punished with a baby.” He said that right here in Johnstown –“punished with a baby” – and it’s about time we called him on it. The more I hear from Senator Obama, the more I understand why he is so vague and evasive on the subject. Americans need to see his record for what it is. It’s not negative or mean-spirited to talk to about his record. Whatever party you belong to, there are facts you need to know.
Senator Obama has voted against bills to end partial-birth abortion. In the Illinois Senate, a bipartisan majority passed legislation against that practice. Senator Obama opposed that bill. He voted against it in committee, and voted “present” on the Senate floor. In that legislature, “present” is how you vote when you’re against something, but don’t want to be held to account.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, described partial-birth abortion as “too close to infanticide.” Barack Obama thinks it’s a constitutional right, but he is wrong.
Most troubling, as a state senator, Barack Obama wouldn’t even stand up for the rights of infants born alive during an abortion. These infants – often babies with special needs – are simply left to die.
In 2002, Congress unanimously passed a federal law to require medical care for those babies who survive an abortion. They’re living, breathing babies, but Senator Obama describes them as “pre-viable.” This merciful law was called the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. Illinois had a version of the same law. Obama voted against it.
Asked about this vote, Senator Obama assured a reporter that he’d have voted “yes” on that bill if it had contained language similar to the federal version of the Born Alive Act. There’s just one little problem with that story: the language of both the state and federal bills was identical.
In short, Senator Obama is a politician who has long since left behind even the middle ground on the issue of life. He has sided with those who won’t even protect a child born alive. And this exposes the emptiness of his promises to move beyond the “old politics.”
In both parties, Americans have many concerns to be weighed in the votes they cast on November fourth. In times like these, with wars and a financial crisis, it’s easy to forget even as deep and abiding a concern as the right to life. And it seems our opponent hopes that you will forget. Like so much else in his agenda, he hopes you won’t notice how radical his ideas and record are until it’s too late.
But let there be no misunderstanding about the stakes.
A vote for Barack Obama is a vote for activist courts that will continue to smother the open and democratic debate we need on this issue, at both the state and federal level. A vote for Barack Obama would give the ultimate power over the issue of life to a politician who has never once done anything to protect the unborn. As Senator Obama told Pastor Rick Warren, it’s above his pay grade.
For a candidate who talks so often about “hope,” he offers no hope at all in meeting this great challenge to the conscience of America. There is a growing consensus in our country that we can overcome narrow partisanship on this issue, and bring all the resources of a generous country to the aid of both women in need and the child waiting to be born. We need more of the compassion and idealism that our opponent’s own party, at its best, once stood for. We need the clarity and conviction of leaders like the late Governor Bob Casey.
He represented a humanity that speaks to all of us – no matter what our party, our background, our faith, or our gender. And no matter your position on this sensitive subject, I hope that spirit will guide you on Election Day. I ask you to vote for McCain-Palin on the November fourth, and help us to bring this country together in the rational discussion of compassion and life.”
Hahaha. What era are we in now? The 50s, still? I am sensing a fan of arranged marriage here.
‘Empty wombs’, ‘empty homes’.
I assume this is automatically associated with liberal feminism. But heed you must, that not all women who prefer to remain single or prefer not to have children are liberal feminists. You can’t paint everybody with the same brush. There are issues that go deeper than liberalism and conservativism. Women are very complex creatures with many emotions, problems, and contingencies. There IS such thing as not being fit to be a mother or even being able to have a child. And there IS such thing as never finding your soulmate, the one to marry. While unfortunate, it is very existent, and not a sin. Why marry and have kids just for the hell of it? You could be endangering your family that way, actually.
I’m glad Palin’s able to do both but don’t criticize women just because they aren’t housewives. That’s just being unnecessarily judgmental. Live and let live, for pete’s sake.
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