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October 24, 2008
Flipping a pro-lifer to Obama
Posted by: Andoni
As those of you who have been reading Citizen Crain for a while know, I have lots of relatives who do not see things the way I do. I have racist relatives and evangelical Christian relatives. I even have one who works for Pat Robertson.
Here is the story of how I convinced a radical pro life cousin to vote for Barack Obama. She lives in Pennsylvania and has been pro life as long as I can remember. I constantly get forwarded emails from her espousing Christian messages, many dealing with abortion. I usually ignore or delete, but a few months ago I decided to engage her on abortion.
She supported John McCain because he vowed to overturn Roe v Wade. Since I am a physician and was in medical school before abortion became legal, I remember the days of self induced abortions and back alley abortions. I described to her several cases of women showing up in the emergency room with botched abortions, where it ended up that both the mother and baby died. This was not atypical in the days before Roe.
We had an email dialogue for two months discussing abortions and "unborn babies" (her language - which during the discussion I used in the dialogue). I started by arguing that in the days before Roe, it was not uncommon for two lives to be lost, both the mother and child, because the procedure was botched when a doctor did not officiate. (Thankfully my cousin is not that radical to think that a mother should die as punishment if she tries to abort her fetus.)
Then I developed the argument that if Roe is overturned and abortions become illegal in many states, that that will not stop abortions. The analogy I made was the drug laws. Drugs are illegal. Does that stop people from using drugs? Absolutely not. The fact that drugs are illegal does not stop people from using drugs. The same would be true with repealing Roe. People who want or need abortions will continue to have them in spite of the law.
I told her if her only goal was to overturn Roe v Wade (as purely a political victory), then she should vote for McCain. However, that will not save the babies and might actually cause more deaths when mothers die too. If all she wants is that political victory, she should vote McCain. But if her goal is really to decrease the number of "unborn babies" that are "killed" (her language) she should consider Obama.
First Obama believes in education so young women will be have the knowledge to avoid pregnancy in the first place. Fewer pregnanices, fewer abortions ....a la some of the European countries. The Republicans do not believe in sex education as a way to tackle pregnancy. Secondly, Obama believes that whatever the young woman decides to do about her pregnancy, she should be supported. If it is keep the "unborn baby" she would receive the social, financial and medical support to bring the baby into the world. This would most likely help some more young women to decide to choose to continue with the pregnancy.
My cousin's turning point was in the final presidential debate when McCain attacked Obama over abortion and Obama answered that no one is pro abortion. When she heard those words from Obama's lips and combined them with my prior arguments, she pretty much concluded that the best way to decrease the number of abortions (save the most babies) was not to overturn Roe, but to pass a saner, more intelligent and more effective government policy on sex education and pregnancy in this country.
This makes good sense to me.......and finally, now to my evangelical cousin.
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Comments
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Mhm....which is, of course, why Obama co-sponsored and has stated publicly that as President, the first bill he would sign is the Freedom of Choice Act -- which systematically abolishes any restrictions whatsoever on abortion in all states and fully legalizes partial-birth, last-trimester, and every other form of abortion.
Even the restrictions that the Supreme Court has found to be perfectly valid, as well as the restriction on Federal funding of abortions.
That dovetails nicely with the letter Michelle Obama wrote in 2004 as part of Obama's Senate campaign arguing against the partial-birth abortion ban and making it clear that Obama supports partial-birth abortions.
So Andoni, the more truthful argument is that Barack Obama endorses and supports partial-birth abortions, Federal funding and promotion of abortions, minors being able to have abortions without parental consent, and blocking the right of voters to impose any restrictions on abortion.
In analogue, Barack Obama says he's going to decrease drug use by legalizing drugs, striking down any laws related to drug enforcement, promoting drugs, and spending Federal dollars to subsidize the use of drugs.
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Here comes the professional slime and lie-merchant WD40. How sadly predictable.
Freedom of Choice Act. If you oppose the FOCA, that means you are in favor of nationalizing the uterus of every fertile woman and putting it under government control.
"No provision for the health of the mother" is the operative term in Michelle's letter, and of course you know that. I can now safely say of WD40 that he believes women must die rather than have a medically necessary abortion, leaving their other children motherless and their husbands widowers.
Now please provide citations for your calumnious lies about Obama's drug policy so that we can point you out how you are deliberately misleading others in your pathetic and failing attempt to prevent the election of Barack Obama.
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If you oppose the FOCA, that means you are in favor of nationalizing the uterus of every fertile woman and putting it under government control.
Oh, there's an easy way to avoid that problem, Allan; women can simply be responsible and avoid having unprotected sex, and men can simply be responsible and avoid having unprotected sex.
The question is whether or not a woman, which includes underage minors, should be allowed to kill a baby at any time by any method with government funding and encouragement and no notification to either her parents or her spouse simply because she finds it inconvenient.
What I find amusing is that Barack Obama supports laws that make it a crime to kill an endangered animal in utero or in the egg simply because a person wants to do so, but fully supports killing a human being in utero when a person wants to do so.
"No provision for the health of the mother" is the operative term in Michelle's letter, and of course you know that. I can now safely say of WD40 that he believes women must die rather than have a medically necessary abortion, leaving their other children motherless and their husbands widowers.Obviously you and Michelle Obama have never read the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003.
Sec. 1531. Partial-birth abortions prohibited
``(a) Any physician who, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce, knowingly performs a partial-birth abortion and thereby kills a human fetus shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both. This subsection does not apply to a partial-birth
abortion that is necessary to save the life of a mother whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness, or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself.
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Again, WD40's worldview is predicated on the prerequisite that everyone else change their behaviors in ways that meet with his approval.
How's that been working out for you, buddy?
WD40 also fails to recognize when someone is pulling his leg by engaging in the kind of over-the-top, pushed-to-its-most-outrageous conclusion rhetoric for which he is known and so widely hated.
Just as he deliberately and willfully distorts and misrepresents the stated positions of Democratic politicians into fun-house mirror reflections, I thought everyone here would enjoy reading how ridiculous the same things sound when spoken from the progressive side of the aisle.
In reality, you know, that place where the rest of us dwell, Obama has articulated a thoughtful middle ground on reproductive freedoms and responsibilities that is acceptable to the vast American middle. And it is this ability to find and maintain consensus, to be so pragmatically practical, that infuriates WD40 most of all. And forces WD40 to desperately spin a straw man, or should I say tar baby, stick an Obama label on it and proceed to demonize it.
I keep waiting for WD40 to announce that his disgust with liberalism and progressivism forces him to abandon his adoptive home of San Francisco and move instead to the real America which he and Sarah Palin both love.
An America where he can be discriminated against because of his sexual orientation, where he cannot expect simple justice in the workplace, school, or even in his home. An America where others will decide for him what he is to think, to read, to believe, to worship and to value, and risk public shame or even death for deviating from their norm. Only then can WD40 truly know happiness.
I'll help you pack, mkay?
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Evangelical Is A Code Word For Fat, Uneducated, And Racist from Prose Before Hos on Oct 24, 2008 6:36:42 PM
Get er done America! Maybe God can help you with your economic misery! Cuz John McCain is white and white is right!!!!!!!!!!!!! See Also: Flipping a pro-lifer to Obama, Beware the Scary Black Man Who Wants to Take Your Guns!, He Isn’t Called A Big, ... [Read More]