Great questions!
Posted on 09/06/2009 11:26:14 AM PDT by wagglebee
Barack Obama’s health care initiative is under fire. And the President is firing back, preparing a prime-time speech before Congress, and attacking opponents—apparently believing that the best defense is a good offense.
Take, for example, the issue of abortion.
Critics say that the health care reform versions being proposed in the House and Senate allow federal funding of abortion on a massive scale. Obama calls this charge “not true” and a “fabrication.” During a conference call with friendly religious leaders, the President accused the critics of “bearing false witness.”
And yet the independent FactCheck.org says otherwise: “Despite what Obama said, the House bill would allow abortions to be covered by a federal plan and by federally subsidized private plans.”
The Associated Press reports, “Health care legislation before Congress would allow a new government-sponsored insurance plan to cover abortions, a decision that would affect millions of women and recast federal policy on the divisive issue.”
Former Presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson notes, “The House bill would result in federal funding for abortion on an unprecedented scale.”
Chuck Colson warns that “it’s very clear that, the President’s statements to the contrary, that you and I will see our tax dollars pay for abortions under the current health care reform bills.”
And yet our President sticks to his “Abortion? What abortion?” line. A little context is in order. Before the election, the senator from Chicago responded to questions from Christianity Today about his abortion-friendly legislative record with the moderate-sounding words, “I don’t know anybody who is pro-abortion.”
During the campaign Obama attempted to reassure Christians who were concerned about supporting a pro-choice candidate by talking about his commitment to seek “abortion reduction” once in office. Surely, he said, pro-lifers and pro-choicers can agree on this goal, set aside their differences, and work together. We all want to reduce abortion, right? Many Christians, the Rev. Jim Wallis prominent among them, took him at his word.
But to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, Obama also pledged, “The first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act,” a piece of legislation that would wipe out many state laws that have been instrumental in actually reducing the national abortion rate. He promised Planned Parenthood that abortion would be a part of any health care reform.
When interviewed by Katie Couric, the President later backtracked a bit, saying, “We also have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care.”
Wallis, for his part, now seemingly accepts the fact that a verbal nod to “abortion reduction” is no guarantee that pro-life and pro-choice groups will actually work together. “You might see a Planned Parenthood focusing much more on unwanted pregnancy prevention,” Wallis told Newsweek. “Down the street you might see a pregnancy crisis center, which is talking about other options like adoption. I think both of those can be part of the solution … abstinence is one element; education about birth control is another. How do you balance them? That’s the conversation we need to talk out.”
So far, unfortunately, there’s been a lot more talk about abortion reduction than action. We pro-lifers remain ready to work with this President, or any President, for that matter, to protect human life. The kinds of things Wallis mentions, however, have been going on since Roe v. Wade. What Wallis envisions is not abortion reduction, but the status quo.
Of course, I’m not sure how pro-lifers and pro-choicers will find that balance, because “abortion reduction” means very different things to each group. Pro-choice people may sometimes view legal abortion as a “tragic choice,” but they nonetheless will fight tooth and nail to preserve that choice—and even to make you and me pay for it. Why? Because they seek, at rock bottom, an impossibility—separating the sexual act from any responsibility arising from that act, such as pregnancy, childbirth, and parenthood.
By contrast, pro-life people, like most of humanity down through the ages, generally have a more holistic understanding of sexuality, seeing children as a natural part of the beautiful act of sex.
That’s why expanding access to contraceptives appeals to the pro-choice community in the whole “abortion reduction” discussion. As long as “a woman’s right to choose” is not restricted in any way, sure, why not? These folks may not like abortion—and after all, who does?—but the sine qua non for them is sexual choice without restraint or responsibility.
“It won’t be easy,” writes Dinesh D’Souza for Christianity Today, “but somehow the case against abortion must include a case against sexual libertinism.”
For pro-lifers, being more holistic on this issue, abortion is about much more than simply an unwanted pregnancy that can be prevented or dealt with by popping a pill. Abstinence and adoption appeal to us because they help us, as God’s image-bearers, to take responsibility for our choices while respecting the rights of yet-to-be-born image-bearers.
Abortion reduction is intertwined with our views of sexuality, healthy relationships, and what brings happiness. It is ultimately a matter of worldview.
Are we animals merely seeking to satisfy our urges in our short time on this earth, or are we something godlike, with a higher destiny ahead? Getting the answer to this question right will focus the abortion reduction discussion considerably.
It will also yield choices that we all—born and unborn—can live with.
Stan Guthrie is freelance writer, editor, speaker, and teacher, and a Christianity Today editor at large. He and his wife, Christine, and their three children live near Chicago.
And this is why the only acceptable agenda is abortion ELIMINATION.
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/johnny
Great questions!
"Reduce the number of abortions" has become the primary euphemism used to mean "keep abortion 100% legal under all circumstances while spouting lots of platitudes".
All babies deserve protection.
This is a protect innocent life issue, not a race issue.
In the entire abortion debate, “abortion reduction” is the most logically untenable.
If there is nothing wrong with abortion (e.g. it’s not a baby, it’s not murder) and it’s a “harmless” procedure, then there is NO REASON to reduce the number of abortions.
If it is a baby and it is murder and it’s not harmless, then the ONLY ACCEPTABLE solution is TOTAL ELIMINATION.
As much as some people resist the idea, the fact remains that there are moral issues that have NO GRAY AREAS, just right and wrong and sooner or later these issues must be confronted.
America spent half a century trying to “reduce” slavery and many believed that this would allow America to avoid confronting the issue, all it did was make the issue worse and it caused a war which resulted in the deaths of over 600,000 Americans and untold real and emotional damage.
I don’t think JRandomFreeper meant it that way at all.
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