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Why Christians Should Not Vote for George W. Bush

I. George W. Bush on Abortion

On the campaign trail, President Bush professed to be "pro-life," but with exceptions – he believes abortion to be justified in cases of rape and incest.^1,2 The New York Times reported, "It was the same tempered language that George W. Bush typically uses to discuss abortion, which he opposes except in cases of rape, incest or risk to a pregnant woman's life."³ As Alan Keyes pointed out in the Presidential debates and in various speeches, such pro-life exceptions that allow the innocent to be killed in some circumstances disqualify President Bush from being pro-life at all.⁴ If President Bush would justify the killing of one innocent person under his jurisdiction, he is disqualified from being a good person, much less a good leader. Having a rapist for a dad is not a capital crime, and for President Bush to state that innocent children can justly be killed because of the tragic circumstances of their conception reveals that he doesn’t comprehend the basic principle of the inalienable, inviolable, God-given right to life acknowledged in our nation’s founding documents.

Also, on the campaign trail, George Bush and his wife both admitted that they don’t think Roe v. Wade should be overturned: "I don’t think the culture has changed to the extent that the American people or the Congress would totally ban abortions," President Bush professed.⁵ His wife reiterated her husband’s sentiments on a prime-time television interview on January 18, 2001. G. W. Bush has the power as the President of the United States to overturn this legal child-killing,⁶ but refuses to exercise this power, and so is responsible for all the child-killing he is allowing.

During the Presidential debates, President Bush was asked what he would say to a raped and pregnant family member. He said that he would tell her that the decision whether or not to kill the child was up to her. That is not pro-life. That’s classic pro-abortion rhetoric. If his daughter wanted to kill her grandmother to get the inheritance early, would he counsel her: "Sweetie, if you want to kill my mom, that’s completely up to you!?" Commenting on abortion on the campaign trail, President Bush stated, "good people can disagree on that issue."⁷ Oh really? This is manifestly absurd. Can good people disagree on whether or not innocent people should be murdered? I beg to differ: Good people cannot accept the murder of one single innocent human being.

Many conservatives have tried to overlook President Bush’s liberal tendencies in hopes that at the least G. W. Bush will appoint a pro-lifer to the Supreme Court, and in so doing, help overturn Roe v. Wade. Their hope is not only without evidence, it is plainly contrary to evidence. In his prime-time television debates with Gore, George Bush flatly denied that he had a pro-life litmus test for Court appointees.⁸ If a judicial candidate deemed it just and constitutional to execute innocent people, that did not exclude him from a possible appointment to the Supreme Court according to President Bush. President Bush has insisted that he will only appoint "strict constructionists" to the Court, or people who will interpret and apply the Constitution as the founders intended and not as an evolving, "living document," but according to President Bush they need not be pro-life ‘strict constructionists.’ His record as Governor of Texas shows that he does indeed appoint pro-abortion judges, so we should not be surprised if President Bush were to appoint pro-abortion judges to the Supreme Court.

Frequently displayed as evidence of President Bush’s pro-life views is his signing of legislation when he was Texas’ Governor that forbade underage girls from getting abortions without parental consent. The pro-life community roared their approval: a 13-year-old girl can’t get an aspirin without parental consent, why should she be allowed to undergo a surgical or chemical abortion without parental consent?! That’s sound pro-life legislation, right? George Bush must be pro-life, huh? Wrong! Did you realize that this piece of legislation was nullified by a Texas Supreme Court decision that ruled 6-3 that an unexceptional 17-year-old could get an abortion without telling her parents?⁹ The New York Times reported, "It was, after all, appointees of Gov. George W. Bush who took the lead on the issue…" You see, it was G.W. Bush who appointed four of the court’s nine justices and has been a political patron for a fifth, Harriet O’Neill, who wrote the majority opinion in the parental notification case. If this is what President Bush means by "strict constructionists," then any hope that he will appoint a pro-lifer to the Federal bench is baseless.

Also displayed as evidence that President Bush is pro-life was his reinstitution of Reagan’s Mexico City policy in the first days of his Presidency, which forbade taxpayer dollars from being given to organizations that perform abortions overseas.¹⁰ However, the pro-life façade soon came down. In a major policy shift, President Bush has decided to allow social service agencies in Africa and the Caribbean to receive funds from the U.S. treasury under his $15 billion emergency AIDS relief plan even if they promote family planning and provide abortions.^{11, 12} The New York Times confirmed, "Ignoring objections from his conservative base, President Bush is to make a Rose Garden speech on Tuesday in support of a $15 billion bill to fight A.I.D.S. internationally that will direct some money to groups that promote abortion," and that will do very little to actually prevent AIDS.¹³

Conservative groups also hold forth President Bush’s support of the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban" as evidence that he is indeed pro-life. Really? Does that make Tom Daschle pro-life, since he supports the Ban too? Don’t be so gullible, friend. The Partial Birth Abortion Ban won’t save a single life!¹⁴ Not one! Millions of rare pro-life dollars and countless hours of precious pro-life energy has been wasted over the course of a decade on a bill that won’t save a single life! The same babies that would perish through the "Dilation and Extraction Procedure" will die through arguably more painful "procedures" such as the "Dilation and Evacuation Procedure," where instead of being instantly killed with a stab to the head, the baby will be slowly ripped limb from limb. Furthermore, the very language of the ban encourages the killing of the baby before extraction. If an abortionist injects poison into the full-term baby’s heart, for instance, and then performs the "D & X Procedure," then the Ban would not apply.¹⁵ Thoughtful pro-lifers should oppose this counterfeit pro-life bill, this colossal waste of paper that perpetuates the Abortion Holocaust.

Thanks to G.W. Bush’s leadership, companies such as Planned Parenthood, the largest baby-killing conglomerate in the world, will get taxpayer funding. Planned Parenthood was responsible for the deaths of 227,385 Americans in 2002 alone. Planned Parenthood's 2002-2003 Annual Report shows that 33 % of its income came from federal government grants and contracts totaling $254.4 million in the fiscal year ending in June 2003, thanks to Medicaid disbursements and President Bush’s Title X of the Public Health Service Act in 2001. Under Bush, this baby-killing organization has received more tax-funds than under Clinton! Thanks in large part due to government handouts under President Bush, Planned Parenthood raked in a hefty $36.6 million profit in its last fiscal year.¹⁶

It is no exaggeration to say that President Bush kills babies. He uses his influence and power to perpetuate the Abortion Holocaust. Abortion abolitionists need to look beyond the Republican Party to find friends for the preborn. Those of us who supported George W. Bush and elected him to office may be responsible for the bloodshed that he perpetuated, either by way of our willful ignorance or our intentional refusal to judge righteous judgment, to judge President Bush by its fruit.