Posted on 01/11/2002 6:31:43 AM PST by truthandlife
On Thursday, January 10, 2002, the White House reported President Bush signed the ominous $15.4 billion foreign appropriations bill, H.R. 2506, for fiscal-year 2002. The bill authorizes $446.5 million U.S. tax dollars to be given to other countries for abortion-family planning activities throughout the world. The abortion-family planning funds approved by Bush represents an increase of $21.5 million over last year for international family planning. Also on Thursday, Bush signed the labor, education and health spending bill, and a defense spending bill that was widely reported by The Associated Press (Bush Signs Defense Spending Bill).
Look, its like handing a serial killer a gun and saying "Now, you understand Mr. Serial Killer, that you can't use this gun to kill anyone else, right? (wink, wink)."
Isn't that the very argument gun-rights proponents have been arguing against?
So you get juvenile and start with the "wacko, kook, etc." tactic. Good going. You lose more.
You folks truly believe your 'words' can overcome anything, don't you? Not Working! And will 'Not Work' even more in the near future. Folks are fed up with all of your alibis and methods.
That's been official U.S. policy for thirty years now.
Here's how it goes: if Kenyans reproduce then there will be more Kenyans. If there are more Kenyans then there are more agricultural workers. If there are more agricultural workers, then Kenya can produce much more than it can consume. If Kenya can produce much more than it can consume, then it will export agricultural products. If Kenya exports agricultural products, then they will compete with U.S. agricultural corporations, who already set internal quotas to maintain the price of agricultural products. So, if you want to make sure that U.S. agricultural corporations can turn a profit without competing with Kenya, then you make a relatively small investment and have U.S. sponsored groups drive down the Kenyan birthrate.
That's good U.S. policy only if you abandon the very principles on which our nation was founded. But it's the same ol' same ol': business is easy if you have guns and no ethics. You just have to convince people that something affects national security, and run with it.
Browse around Population Research Institute and www.africa2000.com a little. Be sure to read NSSM-200.
Sorry--i didn't make myself very clear there...
Doesn't it amaze you that folks like bayourod and the rest of the Bushbots don't ever ask themselves, "Hey, if Bush is so conservative, why am I always having to apologize and alibi Bush against charges that he's not?"
Exactly right. You nailed it there.
Those statements are mutually exclusive.
I would disagree with you here. As my good friend Torie reminds me now and again when I get a bit too strident, the abortion issue is a continuum from your absolutist pro life position to the Clinton pro abortion position of a baby being a fetus whose mother could "choose" to kill it even after birth.
Not only is it a continuum but people shift along that continuum through out there lives. Whereas at one point in my life I weakly supported the pro choice view, I am now pro life with the understanding that even children conceived from rape and incest are not guilty of anything and therefore should not be the recipient of a death penalty for somebody elses crimes.
But I also understand that there are many views along that continuum and the way to keep the flow moving from pro choice to pro life is incrementally. I know lots of folks who would vote to ban PBA but would not vote to ban first trimester abortion. Should my position towards them be, well OK, go away you're no friend of mine? How does that do any good for the thousands of near full term babies who will be killed this year while they are almost born? All or none?
President Bush is a politician, he does what is possible. The Catholic church on the other hand is the pro life rock and can never compromise. I understand both those things and support them both as well.
Well in point of fact, you are right of course, though it wasn't always so. Once we conservatives get onto the soggy ground of "people of goodwill may disagree" on an issue like this, we usually find ourselves being incrementally marginalized out of the debate.
Nevertheless, I hope you are right. I hope we can somehow reverse engineer the Gramscian incrementalist technique and use it to our advantage on this issue.
I'm not suggesting anything like that. Like you, I'll take a PBA ban (a "real" one without mother's health loopholes anyway) and am more than willing to move on to the next battle. Bush's stated positions, from his coy dodge on the Supreme Court to his flat refusal to do anything about RU486, to his support for Planned Parenthood and international family planning, reveal that he's a liar when he says he's pro-life.
He can't have it both ways -- either he's a pro-lifer or he supports abortion. Which is it going to be? (That's a purely rhetorical question of course.)
Truer words were never spoken. This is the big mistake of the pro-life movement: pretending that reasonable people can disagree about murder. Until we recover the moral high ground, we will not win this issue.
Okay, there seems to be some confusion regarding the accuracuy of this article and whether or not Bush has been strong enough on abortion. This article is obviously inaccurate. See this article from World Magainze posted in the last hour or so for more information: Holding the line: Whatever happened to the abortion issue?
While clearly no fan of Bush on the baortion issue, the article specifically states: "In the foreign operations bill, abortion foes fought off pro-abortion efforts in both the House and Senate to eliminate the president's reinstatement of the Mexico City policy. So for another year, taxpayer dollars will not be promoting abortion services or advocacy abroad."
As to the question of why more hasn't been done, conservatives need to provide the Presidnet with a GOP led Senate (over and above the wishy-washy swing votes).
That is one of the great diabolical achievements of the 20th century.
This is a typical problem within political movements. The abolitionist movement had similar internal dynamics.
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