Moral Accountability.com – Pro-Lifer’s Review of President Obama

Abortion — By Dustin R. Steeve on January 23, 2009 at 12:21 pm

Yesterday Rachel posted a great essay to help rally pro-life hope in the face of the Freedom of Choice Act. In response to her essay, several readers claimed that President Obama was not “staunchly pro-abortion” and one even posited that Rachel’s opinion of the President’s abortion stance was due to Rachel’s not wanting to join in on the Obama party that has swept the nation.

If you claim that President Obama is not staunchly pro-abortion, then you are either uninformed or willfully ignorant.

I make this strong statement because the evidence stands overwhelmingly in opposition to anyone who would make the above claim. It is unfair to the integrity of public discourse that one should continue to make this claim in public debates. The evidence I speak of has been centralized in one place by a number of prominent, pro-life intellectuals. Robert George, Hadley Arkes, and Francis Beckwith have begun a new website, MoralAccountability.com, in order to shine the light on the new President’s record on abortion.

We are in a time of economic crisis. According to the press and popular belief, many people are losing jobs, losing homes, and losing retirement investments. Nonetheless, tax day is quickly approaching and each of us will have to open our wallets to pay the government its due. And what will President Obama do with that money? He will fund overseas abortions.

In response to the economic crisis in this country, President Obama plans to repeal the Mexico-City Policy in order to use our tax burden to fund private organizations that give abortions in other countries. In the face of an economic crisis on the homefront, is this really a good use of our money, to be sending it abroad to private organizations to fund abortions?  Given that the Mexico-City Policy and FOCA are among the first things he has put his Presidential attention to in his first days in office, doesn’t it seem reasonable to conclude that President Obama’s priorities are such that promoting abortion is at the top of his list?

Let me be clear. It is fine to debate and disagree about the morality and constitutionality of abortion. Such debates are good and ought to be had. But do not, for one moment, pretend that President Barack Obama is anything but staunchly pro-abortion. Not only does he want to kill babies in this country, he wants private organizations to kill babies in other countries using your and my hard-earned money. To claim that President Obama is anything but pro-abortion is untrue and insulting to the intellectual integrity of your fellow citizen. I’m pro-life. I do not hide the fact that I am pro-life and I will debate the merits of my side of the argument. President Barack Obama is pro-abortion. His followers should have the integrity to admit that he is pro-abortion and debate his position on the merits of his arguments if they so choose.

A Brief Pro-Life Reading List:

Justin Taylor at Between Two Worlds has written a number of excellent posts regarding the pro-life side of the abortion debate. I encourage you to read them here, here, here, here, and here. Hugh Hewitt has also posted a few pro-life posts featuring his interviews with Robert George. See them here and here. Finally, our very own Joe Carter wrote an open letter to fetal humans. I encourage you to read it.

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  • http://reelartsy.blogspot.com SolShine7

    I’m praying that God will soften President Obama’s heart in this regard. God knew that he would be elected to the oval office so hopefully something will touch him so deeply that he will have to change his views on abortion.

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    A crafty slight of hand:
    Step 1
    In response to the economic crisis in this country, President Obama plans to repeal the Mexico-City Policy in order to use our tax burden to fund private organizations that give abortions in other countries.
    Step 2
    In the face of an economic crisis on the homefront, is this really a good use of our money, to be sending it abroad to private organizations to fund abortions?
    Two different animals. The Mexico city policy forbids any organization that gets funds to provide or advocate abortion. It doesn’t follow that repealing it would ‘fund abortions’. You could still maintain a ban on funding abortions but allow all organizations to apply for funds for non-abortion activities.

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    Challenge question:
    The Policy was rescinded once before. During the Clinton administration it was also abolished. 8 years is a pretty good stretch of time for policy analysis.
    Please produce one example of US taxpayer funded abortion that happened anywhere in the world due to that decision by Clinton?

  • Dustin Steeve

    Boonton,
    Google pro-life and pro-abortionists responses to President Obama’s lifting of the Mexico-City Policy and take notes. The one thing both groups agree on is that federal funds will now be used to fund abortions. For the record, here is a quick review of federal funds flowing into the hands of Planned Parenthood (an international partner of USAID): http://www.prolifealliance.com/taxpayer%20funding%20of%20abortion.htm.
    Regarding your point about “two different animals,” I am unclear to what two things you are referring.
    Dustin

  • John M.

    “Please produce one example of US taxpayer funded abortion that happened anywhere in the world due to that decision by Clinton”
    What the heck kind of question is that? If we funded organizations that provide abortions, it’s a pretty safe bet that they actually USED the money to provide abortions. Not being able to come up with a name and a date for one negates that????

  • Jp

    “Not only does he want to kill babies in this country”
    This is a flat out lie for Jesus.
    Way to kill off EO. It’s dead put a fork in it.
    Evangelical Outpost…R.I.P.

  • Dustin Steeve

    Jp,
    Are you saying that President Obama does not want abortion?
    I encourage you to read MoralAccountability.com if that is honestly your claim.
    Dustin

  • http://www.the-irn.com Steve

    Excellent post here!!
    Would you like a Link Exchange with our new blog COMMON CENTS where we blog about the issues of the day??
    http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    Dustin,
    Google pro-life and pro-abortionists responses to President Obama’s lifting of the Mexico-City Policy and take notes
    The link you provided appears to be broken. Regardless, it was nonresponsive to the question that I asked. For 8 years the policy you oppose was implemented. Certainly it is not too much to ask that someone who wants to harp on about accountability actually provide even a half-baked accounting of his position rather than give me the back and forth on what spokespeople think may happen.
    John M
    What the heck kind of question is that? If we funded organizations that provide abortions, it’s a pretty safe bet that they actually USED the money to provide abortions.
    Now I’m tempted but I’m not going to buy that born again means born yesterday. I think you’ve forgotten a little debate that the country had when Bush came for office over faith based initiatives. During that debate the line I remember hearing was that if the gov’t supported one thing an organization did (such as, say a soup kitchen or tutoring program), it wasn’t necessarily supporting the entire organization hence there is a difference.
    Now the problem with the policy was not that it prohibited Fed. money to be used for abortions but that it prohibited Fed. money going to any group that advocated or supported abortion regardless of what the actual money was being dedicated too. As with most heated arguments in the abortion debate, there was little actual substance to the debate. An organization that advocated legal abortion could easily qualify for Federal funds by simply taking a half hour of lawyer’s time and combining it with a notary stamp to turn itself into two organizations.
    If you want to offer a compromise I’d go along with a Federal ban on tax dollars being used for actual abortions. I think it would be fair, though, to expect you to demonstrate exactly how that is happening or soon will be happening.

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    By the way, the reason Dusty will not be able to come up with a single abortion performed with Federal money during the Clinton years is because the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 already prohibted the use of Federal assistance to be used for abortions. The law has not been rescinded and remains on the books to this day.
    Dustin’s statement that “he wants private organizations to kill babies in other countries using your and my hard-earned money” is therefore a lie unless he wishes to plead ignorance of what actual abortion policy is….which would be kind of strange considering how much research he claims to have done in his post and how important he claims it is for everyone to be ‘accountable’ on this issue….but then ‘research’ here seems to be the type that many on the right engage in, go out and find a bunch of people who like the say the same stuff you say and link to them as ‘sources’

  • Dustin Steeve

    Boonton,
    The act does not prohibit the funding of abortions currently (thanks to the repeal of the MCP), nor does the act prohibit the funding of abortions writ large. The act prohibited the funding of “coercive abortions” and “involuntary sterilization”. Please note Sec. 104 of the act on page 47:
    “Provided further, That none of the funds made available in this Act nor any unobligated balances from prior appropriations may be made available to any organization or program which, as determined by the President of the United States, supports or participates in the management of a program of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization”
    Furthermore, amendments to the act wherein prohibitions are discussed appeal to the Mexico-City Policy which this post is concerning.
    A second point. Even if you had been correct in what you said about the Foreign Assistance Act, even if by law the money is not supposed to directly fund abortion, in fact the money would be used to fund abortions insomuch as money flows straight into the hands of international abortion clinics like Planned Parenthood. Boonton, do you think that the $700 million dollar federal fund increase to the abortion industry wouldn’t lead to more abortions? Do you think that federal tax dollars would not be directly responsible for this increase?
    Again, do a basic Google search of the pro-life and pro-choice response to Obama’s repeal of this law. Everyone agrees that federal funds will now be used to support abortion. Read the experts Boonton. People smarter and more well versed in case-law than you or I, people who spend their lives debating abortion, people like Robert George, all these people agree that the Mexico-City Policy was the thing stopping federal funds from funding the abortion industry. Why you insist on debating THAT point is entirely beyond me.

  • Dustin Steeve

    Boonton,
    Note this comment from one of the experts I pointed people to in the original post. Robert George posted this at MoralAccountability.com:
    “Without the Mexico City Policy it would still be illegal for recipients of USAID funding to use such aid in the performance of abortion”
    According to George, the funding cannot be used for the performance of abortions. However, this does not mean that abortions will not be funded. Notice the rest of his sentence: “but aid would defray the non-abortion costs of abortion providers, freeing those funds for the performance of abortion. Furthermore, abortion providers in the developing world (like the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Mary Stopes International) have a storied history of using their Western funding to promote the legalization or liberalization of abortion laws. By restricting the funding of such groups, the Mexico City Policy is invaluable in protecting the profound and inherent dignity of human life and rule of law in the developing world.”
    In practice, the money can be fairly said to fund abortions. The claim that money does not “directly” fund abortions is technically true though not true in practice. Again, it is more than reasonable conclude that President Barack Obama is for the promotion of abortion worldwide, he is pro-abortion.

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    The act does not prohibit the funding of abortions currently (thanks to the repeal of the MCP),
    The MCP is/was an Executive Order. Executive Orders either instituting a policy or repealing one cannot supercede an Act which is a law passed by Congress and signed by the President (or passed over his veto).
    See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/22/2151b.html

    (1) None of the funds made available to carry out subchapter I of this chapter may be used to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions.

    Provision f has 3 points. #1 is about abortion above which covers both abortion as family planning and coercive abortions. #2 is about involuntary sterilizations and #3 prohibits biomedical research related to either abortions or involuntary sterilization.
    Again, do a basic Google search of the pro-life and pro-choice response to Obama’s repeal of this law.
    Again Executive Order != law. Since the actual law prohibits the funding of abortions there’s an easy answer for pro-lifers. Find an example of abortion being funded and make a motion in the courts to block it just as pro-choicers made a motion to block the original MCP when it was first implemented. But we go back to my original question. The MCP was repealed for a full 8 years! When I asked you for an example of funded abortion during that time an easy place for you to have looked would have been any such motions filed by pro-life groups. Even a motion that failed could have been mined for the facts that would have brought down my point. It’s interesting that instead you would rather look at what public relations people say. Why? Because you don’t have the facts.
    Boonton, do you think that the $700 million dollar federal fund increase to the abortion industry wouldn’t lead to more abortions..
    As you loose the argument you get more and more wild with the accusation. Has Plannedparenthood applied for a $700m grant? Or are you giving me the entire budget of international family planning aid and assuming it all goes or will go to Planned Parenthood? You are aware how grants work aren’t you? Grants are usually given for specific programs and those programs have specific requirements and the money must be spent there. If PP applies for a grant to prescribe birth control pills or give out condoms the money must be spent there. I suppose you never worked with anyone who had to deal with GAO auditors did you?
    Anyway, the question of whether abortions would increase, decrease or stay the same as a result of the MCP is probably almost impossible to answer. You are free to present any evidence at all that the lack of the MCP during the Clinton years lead to any change in international abortion rates. If I had to guess I would say they would probably decrease in some statistically undetectably small amount. Why? I think there’s very few people in the world who want an abortion but can’t get one because of the MCP. On the other hand, there probably are some people who would use birth control if organizations that are good at dispensing it (and like it or not PP is good at it, probably more so than abortion) were not hampered by the MCP.
    What I’m about to say may blow your mind. People who want birth control generally are people who don’t want to get pregnant. People who want abortion are generally people who are pregnant and don’t want to be. People who don’t want to be pregnant AND hold onto your socks here….don’t get pregnant typically don’t get abortions. (Actually can’t get abortions technically).

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    Read the experts Boonton. People smarter and more well versed in case-law than you or I,
    Ahhh appeal to expert opinion is a fallacy. In debate we do have to often rely on experts but it is our obligation to understand what the expert is saying. I see you did this and by providing us his reasoning we can see his error:
    but aid would defray the non-abortion costs of abortion providers, freeing those funds for the performance of abortion. Furthermore, abortion providers in the developing world (like the International Planned Parenthood Federation and Mary Stopes International) have a storied history of using their Western funding to promote the legalization or liberalization of abortion laws. By restricting the funding of such groups, the Mexico City Policy is invaluable in protecting the profound and inherent dignity of human life and rule of law in the developing world.”
    1. I refer you to my previous point about Faith Based Initiatives. The ‘defray the cost’ or ‘money is fungible’ argument is nonsense.
    To see why imagine a very simple case. Let’s say a local Rabbi in your town happens to run a fantastic program for battered women. You want to donate to this but at the same time you’re a Christian so you don’t want to donate the teaching of any non-Christian faith. So (and let’s assume the women’s program is non-denominational) you make a $100 donation dedicated to the program but not the Rabbi’s Synagogue.
    Let’s say someone else is a faithful Jew who donates $100 to the Synagogue without condition. As the budget is being set, the Temple finds it has plenty of money to cover its expenses so it allocates the $200 in unexpected donations to the women’s program.
    Now say the expenses dramatically climb so the unrestricted $100 is allocated only to the Temple to defray its cost and you get a letter in the mail asking you to donate $200 instead of $100 to the women’s program and you do so.
    The argument your expert is trying to use would say that you are actually donating to the Synagogue’s religious programs. By providing $200 you are allowing someone else to give $100 to the religious programs hence it is as if you are funding it.
    The problem, and since you’re interested in moral accountability this should be something you’re alert too, is that you are responsible for your $200 only. Unless the Rabbi is spending less than $200 on the program, your funding is only for the program. Yes if you denied the program your funding the Synagogue would have to face a choice of either cutting back on the religious programs or the women’s program but that is not your choice. If they decide their religious programs are more important that is their choice and whatever moral accountability that holds falls on them and not you.
    So to bring it full circle, say PP is running a battered woman’s shelter. Say by pulling back funding to that shelter you force them to choose between abortion services or the shelter and they choose the shelter. Your denial of funding has done nothing regarding abortion. Say, though, that the shelter is so important to them that they cut back on abortion. Your denial of funding has likewise earned you no moral credit. You’ve denied funding to a worthy cause, that someone ELSE stepped in is their business and their credit, not yours. To see it in a different way, maybe if you cut back on your church donations you’ll generate a small financial crises which will cause some other member who is spending his money in strip clubs to cut back on that and give more to the church. Do you get the pat yourself on the back? No the other guy is the one that did something moral, you’re just a cheap SOB.
    2. The problem with the use of funding to promote legalizing abortion is that it puts the cart before the horse. If you have evidence of groups misusing the funds they are granted then present it. Otherwise it is disingenuous to say on the one hand you are open to debate but on the other hand will demand policies that impose bans on groups that take the other side of the debate because you will de facto assume they will misuse the money. Two can play this game. A pro-life group might use funds to commit terrorism in some country that is voting on whether to legalize abortion. Perhaps any group that opposes legal abortion should be prohibited from getting any funds regardless of what they want to do with them.
    Happily, though, we also have a way to test the truth value of your expert’s assertion. Not only can a group that misuses a gov’t grant be hit with criminal sanctions, they can be forced to pay the money back (which is easier on the lawyers than mounting a full blown criminal case). Since the MCP was off the books for 8 years under Clinton certainly you can show that the Bush administration not only reinstated the MCP but also went after some of that misspent money. Since you failed to establish a single case of abortion during the Clinton non-MCP years certainly you can redeem yourself by showing us some established cases of misuse of funds during those years!

  • Just Asking

    Not only does he want to kill babies in this country, he wants private organizations to kill babies in other countries using your and my hard-earned money.
    What a strange thing to post on a blog. If I knew that someone was engaged in a baby-killing conspiracy but nobody was going to do anything about it, the last thing I’d do was post something about it on a blog.
    Instead, I’d run to the police and let them know. And if they didn’t do anything to help, I’d get the FBI involved.
    And if they didn’t do anything and I was 100% sure that this person was a baby killer, I’d just get together with some of my friends and we’d make the baby killer “disappear”, if you know what I mean. Frankly, I don’t understand how any decent human being could act any differently.
    It’s funny that so many people voted for this baby killer, though. I didn’t hear anything about Obama’s baby killing tendencies during the campaign. How many babies do you suppose Obama has killed or caused to be killed to date? And why don’t you provide any evidence of his baby killing efforts to date to back up your claim?
    I suppose it’s possible that when you say “baby killing” you could mean something different, like “pizza eating.” That would be pretty weird, but then a lot of religious fundamentalists have weird beliefs and rituals.

  • Dustin Steeve

    Boonton,
    I was under the impression that an executive order carried the weight of law. It turns out that calling an executive order law is overstating the case. Like I said before, I am not a lawyer and do not fully understand the legalities involved with executive orders. Let me also grant your point that we are talking about the same situation right now as was discussed when the issue of faith-based initiatives came up. Federal money was used to fund religious work. If the distinction was made as you say it was made (I am taking you at your word), then I do not buy the distinction that was made then and I do not buy it now. I do not think any reasonable person should.
    We are getting far off of the original point that President Obama is in favor of promoting abortion. I have taken notice that you are not interested in debating that point. However, to finish off our side discussion, I think that though the executive order is not law, it certainly makes possible the funding of organizations whose goal is, in part, to fund abortions worldwide as a method of “family planning.” I am concerned about the funding implications following the executive order (unless you see the order as a meaningless gesture, without implications, by President Barack Obama).
    Regarding your point about an appeal to authority, I agree that it is a fallacy to use appeals to authority as the sole basis for truth claims. I escape the fallacy, though, because I am not basing the truth of my claims on the authority of my experts (in this case, Robert George). I have buttressed my claims with expert testimony and also cited sources which cited other sources as evidence for the truth of my claims. This is perfectly acceptable in the kind of informal discussion we are having.
    However, let’s be real for a moment and talk about the use of expert opinion in a conversation like ours – I think it is an easy way out to dismiss what I am saying simply because I will point you to expert opinion. You and I have a limited amount of time that we can dedicate to any one thing in a day, 16 hours if you detract 8 hours of sleep. This already limited amount of time is even more limited by our busy work and personal schedules. In order to stay informed, we need to rely on trusted experts to keep us abreast of important information. If all the experts in a particular field seem to agree on one point, then there is good reason to think the point accurate. If experts in a field who disagree on everything else but that one point agree on the one point, then the reason one might think the point valid is amplified.
    All the experts in the abortion discussion on both sides of the issue seem to agree that the implications of the Mexico City Policy repeal mean that funding will now be directed to organizations that promote and perform abortions. Therefore, can you really say my point, insomuch as all the experts agree on the point, is without merit? If so, than short of being immersed in case-law, I am not sure how you, I, or any one of EO’s readers could hold a meaningful opinion on any matter but that one which they were immersed in.
    Now, as to your critique of Robert George’s “defray the cost” argument, I simply disagree. Auditors or not, we all know that at some point the money flow becomes a shell game. Do you really expect that Planned Parenthood will not take their private funds out of things like counseling and put them towards abortion and abortion lobbying once the federal government subsidizes their counseling work? Do you also think it reasonable to assume that simply because a counselor is not supposed to discuss abortion that they will not, in fact, discuss abortion? Even though their organization is a leading abortion provider? It sounds to me more like a wishful thought that a reasonable conclusion to expect that money from the federal government will not result in increase cash going to global abortion performance and promotion.

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    Dustin,
    I’m not claiming expertise on the matter but Executive Orders are basically what they sound like. Orders of the Executive and the Executive executes the law. Inasmuch as that is what an EO is doing it is a law but it is law within the perogrative of the executive. An analogy might be a cop looking for a speeder. He or his commander may decide to patrol certain areas at certain times. But he can only order patrols within the context of the law. If the state abolishes speed limits the cop can’t reinstitute them by EO.
    The MCP seems kind of questionable to me because there’s no such provision in the law, only a prohibition on funds being used for abortion. If the President decides that no organization that didn’t endorse him in the last election can get grants I don’t think that would stand for a moment. As I pointed out a pro-choice President could use the same flimsy reasoning to ban any pro-life organization from getting a grant under this program. But the MCP was tested in the courts and they let it stand so I’ll leave the issue there unless others want to research that more.
    Federal money was used to fund religious work. If the distinction was made as you say it was made (I am taking you at your word), then I do not buy the distinction that was made then and I do not buy it now. I do not think any reasonable person should.
    Well yes and no. Yes religious organizations considered it their work to do various good things but the actual work itself was secular. When people give money to the Salvation Army they are usually giving money towards their work with the poor. You can do that and not endorse or fund the SA’s theological stances (which I suspect most people, including me, don’t really know much about). Yes it is possible for an organization to mix up their secular activities and religious ones so much that it is impossible to fund one without the other. If you had, say, a Catholic soup kitchen where every bowl was delievered with a surmon that all Protestants were going to burn in hell I don’t think the gov’t could opt to fund ‘just the soup’.
    We are getting far off of the original point that President Obama is in favor of promoting abortion. I have taken notice that you are not interested in debating that point.
    The total destruction of your evidence in support of that thesis kind of makes it an unfair debate. I’m not that mean of a guy.
    I think that though the executive order is not law, it certainly makes possible the funding of organizations whose goal is, in part, to fund abortions worldwide as a method of “family planning.”
    Now why should I debate you when you’re doing a good job of it yourself? You went from Obama is promoting baby killing to a policy might make it a possibility (assuming the law is either broken or modified). I also notice your use of language is getting very suspect. It’s possible that an organization that supports abortion may get a grant? OK, well so what. An organization that believes you’re going to hell can get a grant. If they get a grant to give you soup don’t bother me. If they get a grant to print tracts telling you you’re going to hell I’ll get angry with you.
    You’re advocating a strange type of socialism. If gov’t gives the Catholic Church 1% of its budget on soup kitchens it suddenly owns the other 99%?! No if you buy 1% you get 1%.
    All the experts in the abortion discussion on both sides of the issue seem to agree that the implications of the Mexico City Policy repeal mean that funding will now be directed to organizations that promote and perform abortions.
    All the experts? What makes one an expert in what here, exactly? Abortion? Abortion law? Abortion policy? I seriously doubt you can speak about what ‘all the experts’ think unless you’ve defined the population of experts to be a handful of people who agree with you.
    Do you really expect that Planned Parenthood will not take their private funds out of things like counseling and put them towards abortion and abortion lobbying once the federal government subsidizes their counseling work?
    See the 1% versus 99% argument above. You are responsible for what you put in, not what others put in. Your efforts to keep your Church out of financial crises makes it easier for some other member to slack off, even use their money for things that are destructive or wrong. They are responsible for what they do with their money and you are with yours. As you saw with the earlier hypothetical your reasoning leads to absurd accountabilities. Your refusal to buy drugs with your money makes it easier for other people to do so. Your buying drugs becomes a moral virtue because it makes it that much harder for others. Keep thinking along these lines and you’ll end up funding all the abortions in the world in a quest to not be responsible for any!
    Auditors or not, we all know that at some point the money flow becomes a shell game.
    Ok so the Act was put into place in the 60′s. The MCP wasn’t added until Reagan, rescinded under Clinton, put in place under Bush again, now gone again. So you have like 20 years of no MCP (but even though ’61 was pre-Roe there was a diverse array of abortion law around the world so it was enough of a concern to write a ban into the law even then). Then you have 12 years with one and then you have 8 years without then 8 years with.
    This it would seem is a policy maker’s dream. Look at all the data, as far as social policy goes this is almost a double-blind study! You have MCP and no MCP both during and after the Cold War, under Republicans and Democrats, in recession and expansions…. Yet what is amazing about this is you are unable to produce any evidence about abortion with and without the MCP. Yet you do claim you ‘know’ what will happen with no MCP and will hold Obama morally accountable for what will happen….
    Rarely do we see people who are so disconnected from reality talk about it with such sureness. Actually, scratch that, if you decide to ignore reality it’s really easy to drop dogmatic assertions like snowflakes.

  • Just Asking

    We are getting far off of the original point that President Obama is in favor of promoting abortion.
    Still waiting for you to point out where Obama has indicated that he wants to see abortion rates increase.
    Otherwise you’re just lying for Jesus, it seems.
    It’s as if Obama said he would support a bill that would make it easier for poor women to get education about preventing breast cancer and which included funds to provide women with chemotherapy or a masectomy. Then would you say that “Obama is promoting drugs and breast mutilation”?
    I suppose you would if some TV preacher you worshipped told you that breast mutilation was murder. Because that’s basically what you’re doing with your “Obama promotes abortion” horseshxt.

  • Dustin Steeve

    Boonton,
    Regarding Executive Orders, I think we ought to just agree that, barring an act by the Supreme Court, executive orders ought to be followed and if they are not followed than one would find themselves in trouble, legal or otherwise. Honestly, I am not going to niggle on this point any further since I do not believe it to be ultimately relevant. I will simply grant the point to you.
    Regarding the discussion about the funding “shell game,” the best that either of us can hope to do is speculate. I think that federal funding will free up Planned Parenthood’s donor money to be used for abortion advocacy and performance. You disagree and want me to find an undetermined number of cases or some sort of cash flow chart that proves my suspicions to be the case. I’m not going to do so since I doubt that such a project can be done effectively to prove the point. If I find one piece of evidence for my suspicion, will you really concede the point? Two pieces of evidence? In fact, I think that there is a larger point to be made which supports the project I originally began in the post.
    Regarding the point about President Obama’s repeal of MCP making it possible to fund organizations that promote abortions, I think that we have lost sight of the more relevant issue. We agree that MCP only prohibited funding to organizations that promoted abortion as a method of “family planning.” Organizations that simply promote contraception, abstinence, etc. did not seem to be affected by MCP. The exact wording from the policy states: “Moreover, the United States will no longer contribute to separate non-governmental organizations which perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.” Regardless of whatever other good one of these organizations may do, it is the abortion issue that is preventing federal funds from flowing into their coffers. I do not think you disagree with this point.
    If abortion in fact kills human babies, unjustly depriving people of their basic human rights, then doesn’t it seem as though prohibiting funds to an organization that performs abortions is just? Would you want the government to fund a scientific organization if one of their methods of “scientific research and progress” involved the unjust killing and examining of human persons? I should hope that the organization’s unjust killing of human persons would be enough to disincline you from wanting to use federal tax dollars to fund their other projects, even if the organization was able to produce excellent medicine.
    Ultimately, I think that the question of abortion is what this debate comes down to. Do you promote abortion or don’t you. President Obama, I am assuming, does not believe that abortion is the unjust killing of human babies. He supports abortion and seems to agree that women ought to have the choice of abortion made available to them in their family planning. Insomuch as these two points are true, I think that it is true to say that he is pro-abortion. In light of the above, I think it is fair to use the MCP as evidence to the claim that he is pro-abortion. President Obama is pro-abortion and did not see it as an issue meriting the quitting of federal funds.

  • http://TheEverwiseBoonton.blogspot.com Boonton

    Dustin,
    “Regarding Executive Orders, I think we ought to just agree that, barring an act by the Supreme Court, executive orders ought to be followed…”
    I’m not sure we are on the same page here. Executive orders is how the executive implements a law. Presidents have a lot of flexibility in implementing a law but that doesn’t change the fact that they are implementing a law, not writing it. An EO cannot violate the underlaying law. If the law says funds can’t be used for abortion then an EO cannot alter that. The prohibition either needs to be voided with a new law from Congress or successfully challenged in the Supreme Court. If you’re saying that then we agree but if you’re saying Exectuive Orders are the law unless the SC says differently…well we’re not.
    You disagree and want me to find an undetermined number of cases or some sort of cash flow chart that proves my suspicions to be the case. I’m not going to do so since I doubt that such a project can be done effectively to prove the point.
    I asked for one case. And this shouldn’t be so hard since your ‘expert’ claimed that there’s a history of this! If there’s a history then the documentation has already been done for you!
    Regardless of whatever other good one of these organizations may do, it is the abortion issue that is preventing federal funds from flowing into their coffers. I do not think you disagree with this point.
    It is their disagreement with you that prevented the flow of funds which makes the policy suspect. In essence you’re saying an organization must either agree with your stance on abortion or stay silent otherwise they maynot get any Federal funds while organizations that agree with you can. So much for respecting debate.
    If you simply demanded a ban on funding abortions or even a ban on the use of funds for lobbying on abortion in a foreign country I’d be happy to go along with you. You’re not, you want to take it to the next level and demand that Federal Funds be used to force ideological acceptance of your side in the abortion debate (or force them to not oppose you.) Again I’ll ask why was it necessary to have the MCP when the law was on the books for 20 years since 1961!
    I think that it is true to say that he is pro-abortion
    You can make silly statements like this because you’ve enjoyed a lot of sheltering. If you ever get a pro-abortion President you’d quickly learn the difference. Imagine an Executive Order prohibiting funds going to any organization that did not go on record supporting abortion rights (or at least was silent on the issue). Imagine offering women cash payments to have abortions if they are in ‘at risk’ categories like drug addicts or have extensive criminal records. Or take it a step up and compare China’s policy of mandatory abortions for violating the one child policy….mandated abortions for people who committ crimes. Mandatory abortions for anyone who is pregnant in jail and so on. The first set of things would be totally permissable under current law. The second set would not under Roe.v.Wade but if you accept as a premise that women have no right to prohibit the gov’t from regulating their reproductive health all would be possible. (You may have once or twice encountered in your life a ‘pro-abortion conservative’ who would ‘solve’ the welfare problem by mandating mass abortions…if you never encountered such a creature then you’ve certainly encountered someone who quips “there ought to be a license to have kids”….ponder what the person is really saying).
    You want to pretend you respect debate but at the end of the day you only seem to respect the right of people to agree with you. Thankfully you live in country where people will not do unto you as you would do unto them.
    I should hope that the organization’s unjust killing of human persons would be enough to disincline you from wanting to use federal tax dollars to fund their other projects, even if the organization was able to produce excellent medicine.
    One irony that you seem to have missed (and you’re hardly alone among pro-lifers) is that if you actually cared about abortion then you’d confront the fact that PP probably prevents five abortions for every one it participates in. Of course this sounds kind of odd if you’re going to use rheotoric about saving lives. After all if someone is going to murder me tomorrow I’d be pretty bummed about it. If this was ‘solved’ by me never being born to begin with I suppose the murder is prevented but I’m not sure I’ve gained all that much. Nonetheless, people who don’t want to get pregnant are the people who tend ot have abortions. If those people don’t get pregnant then by definition they won’t have abortions. Even if PP is as committed to abortion as it is to conctraception the fact remains it’s very easy to prevent multiple unwanted pregnancies with contraception. PP is more pro-life than either you or they want to be!
    Your beloved MCP, at the end of the day, is nothing but PR fluff. That is why you seem to be able to find so many ‘experts’ who speak about it yet are able to produce so little in the way of facts. You have a policy that has more to do with keeping the rent paid in DC office buildings than abortion itself.

  • John Dunklej

    Careful here, George and others, who think more kids will be tortured to death because Obama just got elected. Eight years of Clinton put the engine of death into place. That’s why, during the eight years of Bush that followed, the number of preborn killings actually rose. Dabaya countered Clinton and worked tirelessly in front of and behind the screen to support the prolife cause. Expect, then, that at least for a while fewer babies will be murdered. But please don’t think Obama will be responsible for that. Obama’s fruits will ripen after 2017 unless we can figure out a way to get rid of him in 2014.