http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18647

“In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions. That same year a similar federal law, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was signed by President Bush. Only 15 members of the U.S. House opposed it, and it passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote.”....

When the federal bill was being debated, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a statement that said, “Consistent with our position last year, NARAL does not oppose passage of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act ... floor debate served to clarify the bill’s intent and assure us that it is not targeted at Roe v. Wade or a woman’s right to choose.”

"But Obama voted against this bill in the Illinois senate and killed it in committee. Twice, the Induced Infant Liability Act came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served. At its first reading he voted “present.” At the second he voted “no..."

“As a senator, Obama has opposed measures to criminalize those who transport minors across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.”


Obama is more extreme than NARAL.

I wonder how much Obama’s extreme position on Abortion will hurt him in the general election.

It won't because the only people this really matters to are the 23 percenters.

The "nothing else matters" crowd that would vote a turd into office if they thought it would get them their law.

Good for him. Keep your hands off my body DD.

Many who oppose abortion oppose it on all grounds. They don’t support any sort of precondition for it. So to claim Obama is more extreme than NARAL is just another vain attempt to paint a Democrat as anti-choice. Like this is new. The Right to Life crowd won’t be satisfied until Roe V. Wade is overturned. So any position Obama takes on abortion short of overturning the law will be viewed as extreme.

What I find ironic is how the Right to Life crowd can throw its support behind the presidency of George W. Bush and the GOP. Talk about hypocrisy. I guess they'll hitch their wagon to anyone, regardless of how corrupt and lawless. Sounds contrary to most honorable Christians I know and respect. Too, I didn’t realize the sanctity of life ended once the baby is born. His immoral war in Iraq has killed nearly 100,000 people. And his immoral public policy stands on matters of children and families should make all people of goodwill flinch in disgust.

DD, you're so funny!!!! I enjoy the laughs - keep it up.

Andrew

Protecting a child who servives an abortion is funny!

WOW!

When it comes to the sanctity of life, many peoples hearts are hardened.

Very Sad.

DD you will find most of us on this board don't care for abortion. However we do support a woman's choice.

Obama will be able to bridge enough of the younger voters who are pro-life with his overall view of the world in which they live in.

Abortion is important to the younger conservative voter but is way down on the list. It's people like you, Herb, and Broadway, who say abortion is THE ONLY issue. Thankfully you are a minority.

DD, you haven't convinced me that I should make this my top 10 priority in choosing a candidate.

Did anyone actually read the article?

I'll summarize. There are some babies who actually survive late-term abortions. Obama voted against an Illinois Senate bill that would have protected their lives.

You don't find his NO vote objectionable? So a baby who survives an abortion should be allowed to die?

I don't consider Human Events an objective source for much of anything. Any publication that gives Ann Coulter a forum to spew her unrelenting diatribe of hate isn’t worth reading.

Re-read that Skep. He wasn't saying that a baby had the abortion. ( I'm not even sure how you took that away from what Deane posted - but it's not what he said ).

But yes, I disagree with Obama on that one. It's still not on my radar of things I worry about though. Maybe if every other thread wasn't about abortion, I wouldn't be so desensitized to the whole conversation.

Bottom line is that I have my abortion issues solved already. I'm not going to have one.

CJ, you're right. I'm gonna pass on commenting about this topic cuz I don't know what I'm talking about!

>>When it comes to the sanctity of life, many peoples hearts are hardened.

DD...I have been preaching...ah...encouraging life for about a month now on various threads. Most of the people here are choicers and do not think the whole subject is much worth talking about...which I thought life and death were pretty much important issues. The whole crux to them is that the fetus is not a "person" in the mother's womb thus not warranting full human rights and given names such as "proto-person". Man...seems like the days of slavery to me.
What's really interesting is that there are a few of the boarders that are going to get very upset/annimated here soon so strap yourself in...so upset that a mother would be encouraged to bring to this world a life that could probably invent a cure for cancer or be the leader on a great nation or family...or the choice to eliminate the "problem".

Life...what a wonderful choice.

I agree with Obama's vote. A choice to have an abortion shouldn't be aborted (pardon the pun) because of some radical doctor playing god with a patients's decision thanks to a doctor's mistake.

Broadway how would you, a white male in America in the 21st century know anything about slavery?

You, along with myself, are privileged white guys. I can read about slavery but in no uncertain terms will I or can I ever know what slavery really was or is today. I just don't have any experience with it.

Unless you can show somewhere in your personal life where slavery affected you I can't take your comparison seriously.

It's a false issue. The Illinois law was intended to advance the abortion battle by getting a law to declare a fetus a "person." It had no practical purpose.

Late term abortions (contrary to the belief of right-wing pro-lifers) are not performed because a healthy mother suddenly decides she doesn't want to carry the healthy fetus in her womb to term. Instead, late term abortions are performed to save the life of the mother or because the fetus is severely deformed, etc. These are heart-wrenching decisions made by doctors and mothers. Doctors perform them only reluctantly.

And any healthy fetus that could be delivered early to save the mother's life, would be. This is exactly what happened recently to a friend of mine. She was eight months pregnant and her life really was in danger due to the pregnancy. The doctor induced labor early and the baby was born prematurely (now doing fine along with the mother). That's what any doctor or mother would do. They would try to deliver a healthy baby, not abort the fetus. Babies are born premature all the time and doctors do whatever they can to save them. No law is needed.

Andrew

Now the pro-choice crowd is being compared to slave holding plantation owners. Nobody should take the Right to Life crowd seriously because they preach out of both sides of their mouths. Life is a wonderful thing, but as soon as that baby is born, compassion goes straight out the window. Then the anti-choice crowd has the gall to join forces with some of the most morally corrupt politicians in modern history. They want to take the moral high ground, but they sleep with some of the sleaziest degenerates in Washington DC and support political positions which are clearly anti-family. Like I've said before, the hypocrisy of their movement speaks for itself.

Missing_kskd>The "nothing else matters" crowd that would vote a turd into office if they thought it would get them their law.

Pardon me, but they already voted for the 'turd' and he will be out of office Jan 20,2009.

When it comes to the sanctity of life, many peoples hearts are hardened.


But it's okay for THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of Iraqi women and CHILDREN and UNborn babies to die NEEDLESSLY in Iraq???

HYPOCRITE you are DD's......

Well, being the author of "proto-person" --as in not yet a person, I think the issue is important. Broadway, if that term bothered you, I am sorry for that.


My big beef with all of this is:

1. We have no common, ACCEPTED definition of when a person exists, as opposed to something that is not yet a person, but is alive.

This matters because the self is an important consideration where pain, murder, and all those other emotional things surrounding this issue are concerned.

No self = no person. There is no self in a few cells. There is a self after, say a number of weeks. During this time, I've heard nothing that supports the idea that choice is not viable.

After the self is established, I believe there is considerable room for discussion as to how things should go, provided that all women are given access to the best preventative technology we have as part of that discussion.

None of this no sex before marriage crap. For some it's gonna work. For others it isn't and that's a life choice too.

Like it or not, we go through states in life.

2. This issue is being used to hold us hostage on a lot of other things that ARE important.

It's not ok to let the world burn while we debate this and improve on our handling of this.

3. It is the privy of women period. It's their body, their life, and their risk.

This does not get the consideration it needs to when the matter comes up.

4. The most adamant pro-lifers often make the assumption that their higher authority, or personal authority (semantics, IMHO), is the default "truth" and that others, if they would reach acceptance on that "truth", would then fall in line with the rest of the pro-life line.

These are false assumptions.

Further, these assumptions are not necessary to virtually ELIMINATE this problem over the course of as little as 10 years.

That means, those that say it's the most important, are actually LIARS, for if it were, they would step up and make that effort so that the pain they see in the world was at it's minimum, then work from there to completely eliminate it.

To do otherwise, is a lie and a manipulation and with those things all credence with me is lost.

"What's really interesting is that there are a few of the boarders that are going to get very upset/annimated here soon so strap yourself in..."

Well, I've strapped something on and am waiting. It's been over an hour. So far, nothing.

I'm bored.




(Speaking of male genitalia, I just finished watching 'Spinal Tap' on TV! BIG fun!)

....Well, I've strapped something on and am waiting......

Some kind of visual........

I gladly stand duly corrected!

Who voted a turd in to office! I'm slipping! Nice catch.



Better revisit the toy store Mrs_M! Size matters.

LOL. Not only is he a turd, but he calls his chief strategist Turd Blossom.

True THAT!

Though I do think it's the other way around, with Bush being the blossom.

Whatever, Rove at least should be in prison and maybe after an investigation of the Don Siegelman case he might just land there.

Here's to hoping!

Karl Rove keeps changing his tune about testifying before Congress regarding his role in the Siegelman case. I'm not sure what the current status of things are now, but he won't talk in an open committee setting. What does this sleaze ball have to hide? If he didn't have a role in the Siegelman matter, why is he so concerned about testifying in an open hearing? I'm sure it has to do with perjury. He's going to lie, and the US Justice Department will be forced to prosecute him for lying under oath. Let us not forget however another Bush lackey, I. Lewis Libby -- perjurer extraordinaire. Found guilty then given a near free walk. George W. Bush, the most honest man in government. Bulls*it.

Anyone who voted to keep partial birth abortion does not deserve any office.

Herb

Well we'll just see about that, won't we?

Sure will. And it doesn't matter who wins or loses.

Mr. Stalin didn't deserve to run Russia, either. Just because it's politically possible doesn't grant righteousness to a cause.

The truth will win out. And the natural law is against the anti-life movement, whether it's euthanasia or abortion.

Herb

Uh huh.

Don't forget The Boy Scouts!

Herb Herb Herb.

Okay lets play it your way. Abortion is now illegal. You got your stacked court. Gay marriage is banned in all states and McCain is President.

But you know what else I think will happen? A revolt. And I think it would get ugly.

And it will be those young conservative evangelicals leading the charge. The very generation you wanted to emulate your causes will have finally been pushed over the edge because you would still have an unpopular war, a sinking economy, poor immigration legislation, and more poor and more hungry within our borders.

As Margaret Mead has said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

"But you know what else I think will happen? A revolt."

Chris, you're probably right. And were that to occur, it would essentially be a revolt against the pro-life, pro-family movement.

Many believe our country is already headed toward becoming the next Sodom or Gommorah. If the Almighty gives our slouching country a pass, then those two now-destroyed cities might have expected an apology.

The fact is, mankind believes his way is smart. It ends up not being wise at all.

Herb

The revolt is happening right now as we speak, and minions like Herb are in denial of it's existence.

So Herb where can we strike a balance? I mean a real balance.

"...minions like Herb are in denial of it's existence."

Hardly. Read my post.

Herb

"So Herb where can we strike a balance? I mean a real balance."

Fair question, Chris. I guess we render unto Caesar what is Caesar's whilst expecting a secular worldly view from this earth. That's nothing new under our sun.

I'm usually an optimist. But if we continue to shake our fist at our Creator and deliberately navigate in directions clearly and diametrically opposed to His Word, why on earth should we expect our nation to go in any other direction but the way of Rome and all the other once-great powers?

Perhaps it's still not too late for our nation. But nations, like individuals, sow what they reap.

Herb

"Sodom or Gommorah"

You are watching waaaay too much Fox 12, Herrbocrite. Get up and change the channel.



P.S. The historical existence of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists" (wiki)

Herb you wax poetically and I am impressed.

The Bible is filled with many who shook their fist at the Creator. God still found a way to work through them. God used several murderers to get things done.

Matthew wasn't exactly the most popular person in Jesus' day and yet he was a Disciple. I think you look at times for a Grand Pubah type of event or moment that will define it all. Where instant change will happen.

I know I hammer the 30,000 children that die daily from preventable starvation as much as you hammer the million abortions that happen annually. But just 10 years ago it was 40,000 children a day.

Let's say in 5 years we get the abortion rate down to under 800,000 a year. Still not acceptable, but it is coming down through various methods.

Another 5 years we have it down to 500,000. Step by step without having one swooping change in the laws. The goal eventually being under 100,000 in 20 years. And maybe by then the medical procedure will be different that isn't so barbaric. Or public education along with great social programs have gotten the word out and this new generation sees things from a better educated perspective.

That's what I mean by balance.

I object to the framing of this issue as either liberal or conservative. As Americans, we cannot be pigeonholed and here is further proof. The idea of a woman having her civil rights protected is supported by Republicans for Choice and the Republican Majority for Choice. Anti-abortion groups like Democrats for Life reflect a completely different point of view. It is an argument without an easy solution. It is exacerbated by political framing, distortion and exploitation. To some, America must stay like the Boston in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. In their world, control of women still begins with a bright red A.

I do not believe that is the thinking of most Americans. If the end goal is stop mothers and children from suffering, than that is a common cause. Spending endless time hashing out what constitutes life is unproductive. Are kids better off now than they were in 1973? Or worse? Every day, kids are born, need immediate action, and attention. They need a good education, healthcare and steady family incomes. Instead, after a first spank and cry, they are ignored by a crowd of adults arguing about the details of a zygote.

If the argument is to continue, can we get every child loving parents, warm beds, good breakfasts, solid schools and baseball mitts -- first?

Chris and Little, hear hear!

I want to cut the numbers. I want to apply technology and education hard to the problem. I want everybody that can provide alternatives to be empowered to do so.

It's a nasty problem and it needs work.

You don't legislate these things away. Again, regulating human behavior involves law, norms, money and physics. Good solutions embody all 4 of these, not just one or two.

That's balance, and probably the most compelling rationale for working together on this incrementally.

Go look those up too. Didn't just pull them out of my ass. That's known established fact that every legislator and advocate should know cold, lest they risk promoting bone headed solutions.

And Little, we need WAY more discussion of that kind! Nobody owns faith, nobody owns abortion. that's an old school Republican tactic designed to leverage concerned people for power and their own ends, without really giving them the same consideration in return.

That's got to stop. The cost is just too high. Perhaps this, more than anything, is what is driving the up and coming generations away from old school, hard ball politics.

If you are a single issue voter, you are a tool, period end of story. That's not a personal attack on anyone here, just a statement of a greater realization I've obtained from our many great discussions here.

Didn't know this until after a coupla years of debate here. The process works, and it's working for all of us right now.

Having our house in order makes this stuff cake, IMHO.

Chris, I think we can eliminate it for all but those few cases where it's just horrible --those actual choice cases where there are no easy outs.

I believe most of the abortions performed today can be avoided through better life choices, education and alternatives. Having an economy that can tolerate some unplanned family members doesn't hurt either.

That 18 year old, with good life prospects, is going to be a lot more inclined to not do this, if there is a future they can see their way to.

With hard work, I also believe your numbers are conservative.

My theological beliefs on this do not impact the need to get this matter worked on solid. Really, I only articulate them to check the false assumption that faith based arguments are the only way forward, or that those same arguments justify law.

The truth will win out. And the natural law is against the anti-life movement, whether it's euthanasia or abortion.

But yet YOU allow THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of women and CHILDREN and UNborn children to DIE in Iraq everyday!
HYPOCRITE you are Herb and YOU shall be judged. Our father is NOT very happy with YOU!

>>THOUSANDS of women and CHILDREN and UNborn children to DIE in Iraq everyday!

Totally bogus...no truth to the statement...unproven and false, plus intellectually dishonest. Daily KOS/Huffington Post/MSNBC/CNN would be all over it with just a spit of truth.

BULLSHIT!
Broadway you need to sit down and look in the mirror at who YOU are.
WOW!
So NOBODY is dying in Iraq?

Just disputing your initial statement.

>>So NOBODY is dying in Iraq?

not that one.

"The Bible is filled with many who shook their fist at the Creator. God still found a way to work through them. God used several murderers to get things done."

Yeah, that's right and it always amazes me. King David and Saul, later Paul.

Herb

http://johnankerberg.org/Articles/apologetics/AP0504W3.htm

http://www.ankerberg.org/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC3W0903.pdf

http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/science/SC3W1003.pdf

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a007.html

Blah, blah, blah. Same crap, new day. You can post a thousand links to prove your point, but the bottom line is that there really is no solid proof to back up your beliefs no matter how many links you provide. That's why they call it faith, not fact. If it was fact, there'd be no debate and no need for your links.

"...there really is no solid proof to back up your beliefs..."

It takes far more faith to deny God's existence, whilst buying into evolutionary theory.

Herb

So Herb how do we move forward to bringing down the abortion rate without going totally radical one way or another?

Can you work with an incremental method? Slow but methodical. Can you have the patience to work through the speed bumps that will come along?

I want some real concrete stuff not the same "make it illegal." That's simply not in play at this time. So work with me here.

"It takes far more faith to deny God's existence, whilst buying into evolutionary theory."

No. It takes far more faith to deny scientific fact and instead believe in a crazy story to explain the unexplainable.

I love the Creation story in Genesis and I love how evolution helps to explain it.

Whacky eh?

"...believe in a crazy story to explain the unexplainable...."

Ah, you mean the crazy story that nothing rebelled and suddenly became something.

And that's just to create the first atom.

Naw, evolution doesn't even pass the laugh test.

Herb

Evolution has a better chance of explaining things than the bible does. No statistician would disagree with that. I tend to side with the percentages.

"No statistician would disagree with that."

So, Mr. Einstein.

If you're going to take creation off the table, then let's hear you explain how the first atom came into being.

We start with nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

So, walk us through it.

Herb

"Naw, evolution doesn't even pass the laugh test."

Funny though how the Catholic church position is that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict.
By Herbologic, therefore, the Catholic church doesn't pass the laugh test, either.

Herb, I personally don't dislike you, but you are prone to idiotic statements that fly in the face of your alignment socially and religiously and politically. You are a most inconsistent and not well thought out being.

Evolution is a theory supported by so much evidence that only a fool would discard it in total. Clearly the Catholic church doesn't feel the way you do. The truth probably is you have never studied science nor religion, and that all that you believe is probably just hand me down rhetoric from a small consortium of extremists whether it be family or church rooted.

To deny the reality of carbon dating and similar technologies also means your opinion on many matters of environment and health is founded in nothing. NOTHING. When you finally wake up and realize what a fool you appear to be with your statements that you think are bold and true, we will all be better served.

Who says that something had to be created? Maybe things have ALWAYS been in place with no beginning? The possibilities are infinite, so the chances of you being 100% correct is nil.

From someone smarter than all of us (combined):

"During the youthful period of mankind's spiritual evolution, human fantasy created gods in man's own image who, by the operations of their will were supposed to determine, or at any rate influence, the phenomenal world."

- Albert Einstein, quoted in: 2000 Years of Disbelief, James Haught

"Funny though how the Catholic church position is that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict."

You forget.
Herb does not carry water for the Pope.

Hard to argue with Einstein. Very interesting quote.

Sometimes I think we get a notch smarter, just trying to untangle some of what he has to say --and he's dead and gone, still making an impact.

Vitalogy: Thank you for that! It's one of my favorites too. The whole deal could be cyclic, a big loop that plays out over a long time, over and over...

Nobody knows.

It is sure as hell not a binary proposition, like we hear it framed so often.

All of you...intelligent fools...I'm not saying this...The almighty Creator God is...

Psalm 51 The fool says in his heart, "There is no God. They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity; there is none who does good.

Actually you are saying what another guy said another guy said.

That's called hear say, and it's not admissible in a modern court of law, because it's not possible to establish it as fact.

This is why we call it faith, and claiming other wise doesn't look good when calling others "Intelligent Fools."

Here are two relevant quotes from Albert Einstein.

." He is reported to have said in a conversation with Hubertus, Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

In his book The World as I See It, he wrote: "A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms—it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."

Abortion question. What about the effects not only on the person who would have become most often, a fine man, or woman, and always worthy of life, as in "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but for the infanticide; on the psyche, the soul, spirit, or mind of the person who bears ultimate responsibility for their death?

The Holy Bible, written and rewritten so many times how is it to be taken literally -- and what version do I take to heart? Books removed that didn’t comport with the theology of the era. The Bible sounds more like a soap opera than divine inspiration. I can appreciate using it as a guidepost, but putting all your eggs in one basket seems ludicrous. And if we were to follow it literally, wouldn’t we all be heretics on one level or another?

I love the intelligent fools remark. Sounds akin to what the Khmer Rouge did to the educated class in Cambodia in the mid to late 1970’s. If you could read or think for yourself, you were murdered. Today, the evangelicals and born-again Christians have it all worked out – it’s either their way or you’re going to hell. What about the billions of people on this planet who are not Christian, they going to hell? What about all the unbaptized babies, they going to hell? Did all the Jewish people who died in concentration camps end up with front row seats to an afterlife concert of hell and eternal damnation?

And then of course why do serial killers with deathbed conversions to Christianity get a first class ticket to heaven while sweet old ladies from some remote island in the South Pacific who never took the plunge into Christianity go directly to hell?

It's as absurd as the 9/11 hijackers doing their evil deeds then arriving in heaven with a multitude of virgins at their disposal. Where do you come up with this s*it?

>>I can appreciate using it as a guidepost,

the only words of truth in the most previous post.

Again, the Emperor, or Broadway in this case, has no clothes. He refuses to answer any of the questions because it makes his religion look, what, empty?

I can't begin to imagine being a party to a theology which condemns billions to an afterlife of misery and yet refuses to explain why. You interpretation of God is not only twisted, but thoroughly insincere. It speaks of a faith which is not of love, but abject hatred of those who don’t follow its path. Using your own model, Christians have every right to hasten the deaths of non-believers, ala the Inquisition. Why do Christians go to heaven regardless of crimes against humanity while defenseless non-Christians go to hell?

If you’re so confident in your interpretation of the Christian faith, why then don’t you answer the questions? By no means are they complex. I’d like to understand the logic of your position, because quite frankly, it doesn’t make any sense and puts your faith in a truly evil light.

I take great comfort in knowing that you represent an extreme element of the Christian faith, and that many Christians of goodwill find your position morally loathsome.

Broadway...
Nobody is dying in Iraq???