I'm troubled by President Obama’s decision yesterday to allow federal funding of stem cell research on embryos created after the Bush cut off.
I'm glad that federal funds are not being used to create these embryos, but won't federal funding for such research create a huge demand for new embryos?
I was OK with Obama's position not to pursue overturning Roe vs Wade because he was going to approach the problem of abortion through social and economic policies. But it seems that Obama's decision yesterday will increase dramatically the number of embryos deliberately created and then destroyed. At least with a conventional abortion the couple doesn't set out to deliberately create a child just to abort it.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
I had regained some of my trust in politicians during the election and inauguration, only to have it be trampled once again by low-life politicians.
I watch those who are being very vocal against the stimulus bills, looking for signs that they are truly concerned about the welfare of their constituents and their nation, only to be repeatedly disappointed. I get the sense that most of them are playing to a camera - that they know the bill will eventually pass, but they want their day to day their say. They surely couldn't say what they're saying if they didn't think the Stimulus Bill will pass - how could they face the reality of a bankrupt nation, with people out of work and out on the street! They are playing to the cameras, and getting their fifteen minutes.
But don't they realize that so many people are hearing them and are believing them - that we will be OK if we just get $600 like last year. Yeah, that really solved the problem, didn't it? They are talking out of the other side of their mouth for their own private gain and glory, assuming that the Bill that MUST be passed, will be passed, and this gives them permission to act up like 5 year old children!
The wages of selfishness have led us too close to disaster. When we our leaders, on the right side of the aisle, remember their promises to work "across the aisle" for the good of the nation. I think I heard that. Didn't any body else.
I will pray and I will hope, but I have lost such respect for the small minded, biddies on the Republican party. Only 3 in the Senate and NONE in the House that could try to work out something that would be in the best interest of our nation. God save us from this type of hypocracy!
Situation - President Obama's Inauguration. Jesus has said "I am the Vine and you are the branches. Without me you can do nothing." This holds true for all Christians including President Obama and the HHH community. If we think that we've done something on our own, we better think again.
Prayer - Dear Lord, it is with renewed faith in our country and a hopeful heart that many or us watched the festivities yesterday. We know that without You no lasting positive change can happen. We know that without You great harm can be done to our country and our world. Help President Obama to pray to You every day for wisdom. Help every Christian to pray for our leaders and Christians everywhere. Help us to work together for good, not give in to fear, and speak the truth to each other in Love.
In Jesus holy name,Amen
It is beyond me that the party of the downtrodden, the poor, those without a voice; would be the ones who are associated with such an inhumane and barabaric practice as abortion. A party who believes in Government intervention, especially when it affects human rights.
The democratic party needs to wake up on this issue, and wake up fast!. I love the President-Elect, I believe in my heart that he is a good man with good intentions and a warm, general concern for the well being of others, especially those forgotten and exploited by the rich. Which is why I am both frustrated and amazed that he doesn't defend the rights of the unborn.
In the race for the Illinois Senate, President-Elect Barack Obama debated Alan Keyes, and Alan Keyes tore him to pieces when it came to abortion. He brought to life the biggest misconceptions that are historically used in the greatest of human catastrophes, including slavery and the holocaust. He noted that during slavery, the white slaveowner was able to justify his behavior with two false misconceptions; the first is that the slave is less than human, and the second being that the slave was his rightful property and he could do with him as he wished. Obama could not offer a substantive rebuttal to Mr. Keyes, he just accused him of using "unhelpful" and harmful rhetoric.
Something tells me that a man of such great moral character as Barack Obama is uneasy about the issue of abortion, and when you watch him debate Mr. Keyes or in the interview with Rick Warren, you will notice what I percieve to be a quiet sadness. He seems to begrudgingly have to cater to Pro-Choice ideology in order not to alienate his party, which in all other respects, fits his agenda quite well.
I am often perturbed at the bemoaning I hear from evangelicals regarding the results of the recent presidential election. Of course most evangelicals are pro life, understandably so, but the Christian agenda stops there on the republican platform. If you’ve had the pleasure of listening to your local pastor, or heard the plethora of political harangues from your local Christian broadcast, you can’t help but notice that most of these Evangelicals are willing to justify the most outrageous sort of nonsense to convince the layman, as well as themselves, that Jesus is a republican. Ironically, the Democratic Party, in particular, President-Elect Obama, is much more aligned with a Christian world view.
The idea that amnesty is not part of the Christian agenda is absolute foolishness. There are no certain terms in which to say, given that it was not predicated on an absolute lie, that God would have advised the invasion of Iraq. The climate of corporate greed that has plagued the White House for the past eight years should be reason enough for a full-fledged skepticism of any republican administration.
Perhaps the most irrational criticism Evangelicals have on the President-Elect is that his ideas on wealth redistribution are somehow anti-Christian. This claim is so ludicrous to anyone who is familiar with the New Testament that I would be flummoxed to believe it requires any further explanation. C.S. Lewis, the great Oxford Theologian and renowned Christian apologist gives us some insight into how preposterous this critique of President-Elect Obama really is. In his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis offers his opinion on the fiscal policy of a perfectly Christian society, “…there will be no manufacture of silly luxuries and then of sillier advertisements to persuade us to buy them. To that extent, a Christian society would be what we now call Leftist.” He goes on further to say, “If there was such a society and you or I visited it, I think we should come away with a curious impression. We should feel that its economic life was very socialistic and, in that sense, ‘advanced’.” Of course I bring up this point not to say that Obama is or should be a communist; in fact he claims to strongly believe in free enterprise, competition and entrepreneurship. It is a simple recognition that his fiscal policy should not be misconstrued in any way as inhumane or unhelpful.
Evangelicals should rejoice in the fact that we have this opportunity for a leader that cares about people for a change. Someone who speaks out against corporate malfeasance, and snarls at the assumption that the deficit should be carried “on the backs of the poor”.
From Steven Waldeman at Beliefnet.com:
Sunday November 9, 2008 The new Beliefnet survey offers some fascinating insight into how voters are looking at abortion.In the Beliefnet survey, about 20% of overall Obama voters and 35% of the most religious Obama voters (those who attend church weekly or more) were pro-life. If national results track Beliefnet users -- we'll have to wait for some more national surveys to be sure -- then that would mean pro-lifers made up a bigger portion of the Obama vote than African Americans and Latino's combined.So what do they believe? They are fundamentally different from McCain Pro Lifers because they simply don't believe that criminalizing abortion is the most effective means of reducing the numbers. Here's the key:11% believe the best way to reduce the number of abortions is through legal restrictions 87% believe the best way is "by preventing unintended pregnancies (through education and birth control) or providing financial assistance to pregnant mothers."Just as surprising, is that a third of McCain pro-lifers, and 42% of McCain voters, agreed that the second approach was more effective.This is striking. For years, the abortion debate has revolved around Roe v. Wade and legal restrictions, yet the majority of Obama pro-lifers and a sizable minority of McCain voters say that another approach would be more effective at reducing the number of abortions.The good news for Obama is that his argument during the fall campaign -- that we should seek common ground ways of reducing abortion -- tapped into a real public desire. The bad news is that he now has to deliver on that promise, or risk alienating millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him.
Sunday November 9, 2008
The new Beliefnet survey offers some fascinating insight into how voters are looking at abortion.
In the Beliefnet survey, about 20% of overall Obama voters and 35% of the most religious Obama voters (those who attend church weekly or more) were pro-life. If national results track Beliefnet users -- we'll have to wait for some more national surveys to be sure -- then that would mean pro-lifers made up a bigger portion of the Obama vote than African Americans and Latino's combined.
So what do they believe? They are fundamentally different from McCain Pro Lifers because they simply don't believe that criminalizing abortion is the most effective means of reducing the numbers. Here's the key:
11% believe the best way to reduce the number of abortions is through legal restrictions 87% believe the best way is "by preventing unintended pregnancies (through education and birth control) or providing financial assistance to pregnant mothers."
Just as surprising, is that a third of McCain pro-lifers, and 42% of McCain voters, agreed that the second approach was more effective.
This is striking. For years, the abortion debate has revolved around Roe v. Wade and legal restrictions, yet the majority of Obama pro-lifers and a sizable minority of McCain voters say that another approach would be more effective at reducing the number of abortions.
The good news for Obama is that his argument during the fall campaign -- that we should seek common ground ways of reducing abortion -- tapped into a real public desire. The bad news is that he now has to deliver on that promise, or risk alienating millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him.
As of 1:30am EST, it looks like every pro-life ballot initiative up for a vote this year will fail (according to CNN):
The pro-life argument, as articulated by conservatives as merely a series of legal penalties without a compensating sense of true social justice, doesn't seem to be catching on any more now than it did 35 years ago.
We need an alternative vision of what it means to be pro-life.
Today, I campaigned in Virginia in places where my slave ancestors died no doubt, my grandparents and others fought for our civil rights. I walked and drove on streets we only used to drive by and passed by the school where I was one of only 7 Black children. It was there I truly experienced the ugliness of racism, when a 7 year old girl that I wanted to play with spit on me. It is a moment I will never forget. I only wanted to play with the little girls who were my classmates but what they had been taught about my skin color prompted their hateful behavior. I stood there as a 7 year old child not understanding, the rejection and isolation.
Well today, I watched that awful moment in history disappear in the face of the hope of tomorrow where Martin Luther King and my grandparents' dreams were realized for me and this country. I celebrate that in my lifetime, some of those same classmates may vote as I do tomorrow. Praise God Almighty....we have gotten to the Promised Land.
YES...WE CAN and YES...WE WILL --- VOTE & ELECT BARACK OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT
I am almost 60 and have seen many changes in my life. I remember JFK, RFK, and King. I remember their death's and wondering why..... I remember working as a white person in the poor sections of Cleveland and hoping for a better future for the Afro-American Children I worked with.
I do not remember since JFK or King someone who has inspired me as much as Obama. I applaud his inclusiveness, his vision, his HOPE. It is with great anticipation that my husband and I got to vote tommorrow. And I will rejoice in Obama becoming our next POTUS..
It is the eve of a historical vote, and we all need to make sure that we get out and vote. No matter how long the lines, no matter how dak the night, and no matter the weather; it is essential that we all get out and vote. The latest polls show Senator McCain closing the gap in some key states and we must all work to ensure that the gap does not evaporate before our eyes.
VOTE SMART, VOTE CHANGE, VOTE OBAMA!!!
Recently, I have noticed my Christian friends are very upset and nervous about this upcoming election. If it is true that the signs point to the second coming, (although I am not confident that scripture supportis this) then we need to get our focus off of the election and start spreading the Good News of Jesus. But if this is another corrective political response to the last 8 years, then Christians should wonder what went wrong. Briefly, what went wrong for Christians, is that we failed to recognized that we are a strong minority in America. And if we want to influence politics and culture we cannot align ourselves with such highly offensive people as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Christians voted for President Bush, but it appears to me he aligned himself with some fellars who are not inclined to seeking God's will. Instead, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney seem to have used the blessings of Christian followers to their own poltical goals. And now our minority culture is viewed in historical bad light. Jesus wanted us to live out our lives in such a manner that the fruits of the spirit exhibited in us would attract more to him. Under Karl Rove's leadership and influence, we have failed to maintain this way of life.
Consequently, the Christian world view grew gradually offensive to the larger population of people. Our world view is seen as hypocritical, as our President misled the world into a war with Iraq. What should we do from now on? We should lead more people to Christ instead of trying to recruit people to be conservatives or republicans. We should be objectively critical in the pure judicial and journalistic sense towards any politician who wants to court the Christian vote. We should be prayerful in disclosing motives of our preachers to gain political power, instead of spreading the gospel. Some preachers in their desire to maximize their influence are tempted by the glitter of politics as an appropriate forum. We should expect our preachers to biblically scrutinize candidates in a seriously bipartisan manner. And we should expect our preachers to be even handed in their scrutiny. Surely, Republicans have not been so innocent of biblical scrutiny during the last 8 years. We should fight the cultural war for modesty and purety in our entertainment, education, language, music, by persistently pushing back against any offensive material. We should remain objectively and sincerely prayerful that all of our leaders will be favorably disposed to those of us trying to live out our Christian lives in America. At the end of the day we must rely on the message of Christ to change the world not our politicians. We can rest assured that there will be more opportunities to share what Christ accomplished on the Cross. And if God uses an election to inspire us to do that, then we are better for it.
I have been a member of the romancatholicsforobama Listserv since early February, and consider myself one of the founding members of the www.romancatholicsforobama.com website. So, when I heard this comment from Denver, Colorado's Bishop Chapot, who has been very critical of our thinking and our efforts, I had to respond
I quote: "You also have to have a reason for voting for a “pro-choice” candidate that is proportionate to the issue of abortion. We have had 40 million abortions in the U.S. since Roe v Wade. That’s nearly 4,000 unborn children killed each day. There’s not much proportionate to this."
Yes, truly staggering figures. Makes about 1,000,000 a year, according to the statistics I have found.
We also have approximately 900,000 unborn babies annually due to miscarriage and still births.
My heart goes out to those almost 2,000,000 unborn babies each year, and to those mothers and families that grieve them. As far as I know, little is done to bless them and commend them into God's kingdom, and I feel we, as Church, need to respond to this lack. "From the moment of conception" is our belief, and this calls on US to make sure that unborn babies are not done away with like other "body parts."
2nd, we need to consider how many babies were being aborted illegally before Roe v Wade, as well as how many will again be aborted illegally by back alley butchers and other unsafe methods after a repeal. The problem will NOT go away by simply repealing the court finding.
The problem is women without options - women who, for so many different reasons, are unable to provide for new life, and take the worse way out. Women who have to live with those decisions for the rest of their lives.
The numbers of babies being aborted is almost equal to the numbers of unborn babies due to other causes. The travesty of all of these unborn and uncared for ones screams out to us to provide a more compassionate and humane society where women can have what they need to be the loving mothers God created them to be.
The numbers are even more staggering if you look at them in this light: 1,000,000 abortions, 900,000 miscarriages and still births, = 1,900,000 women with empty arms and broken hearts.
So, for a start, let's get rid of the white crosses, and reach out to these families with other options. Let’s replace those white crosses with red hearts, full with love and compassion for all the unborn and all their grieving family members, remembering the maxim: "1 dead, 2 wounded."
Peace,
I consider myself a liberal, pro-life Democrat.
To many, such a label will appear to be a contradiction in terms.To many, to be pro-life is to be supportive of life at the beginning and the end,and as such is usually considered to be a position of conservative Republicans. But for those of us who see life as a “Seamless Garment,”to be consistently pro-life is to affirm and support life at the beginning at the end,and everywhere in between.
To be pro-life is to support the rights of the unborn, to support the needs of mothers and children through adequate prenatal care, adoptive services, and childcare; to support social and economic justice and access to adequate health care for all; to support education and job creation; to support care of the environment; to support humane treatment of all life forms; to oppose the death penalty; to oppose war and military action as the solution to international conflict; to oppose euthanasia; in short, to support LIFE in every conceivable way we can
To be sure, many so-called “liberals,” while supporting most of these positions,do not share the pro-life position on abortion.But the heart of the liberal position has always been to protect and care for those least able to care for themselves. And certainly the most helpless of all human life is the unborn child. Historically, this has been widely recognized.In the 19th and early 20th centuries, to be a feminist was also to be anti-abortion. Suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Gage, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton,were all strongly opposed to be abortion, even seeing it as a form of exploitation of women. In a letter to Julia Ward Howe in 1868, Stanton wrote, “When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit.” Alice Paul, author of the original Equal Rights Amendment, agreed, insistied that“abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” In our own day, Feminists for Life (which, despite Sarah Palin’s membership, is NOT a right-wing organization), and Pro-Lifers for Survival, have linked opposition to abortion with feminism and opposition to war.And while many see the anti-abortion stance as a position of the religious right, a book published in 2006, The Liberal Case Against Abortion, is written by a non-believer who is a card-carrying member of ACLU, Feminists for, Life, Amnesty International, and PETA - hardly a group of conservative organizations!
In short, I am pro-life, in the broadest sense, not in spite of being a liberalbut because I am a liberal.
And I am a liberal pro-life Democrat for the same reason.While the Democratic Party has tended to be “pro-choice,”Democrats have usually supported most of the other positions I’ve mentioned, positions which are actually more likely to reduce the perceived “need” for abortionthan a more narrowly defined pro-life position. I also see a shift in the position of the Democratic Party,as evidenced in the growth of the “Democrats for Life” organization,in the granting of a prime-time speaking slot for pro-life Democrat Bob Casey at the Democratic Convention, and in the more inclusive pro-life language in the party platform (language similar to language I successfully sought in our County platform).
And though I may disagree with him on the abortion issue, the attitude of Barak Obama also gives me hope. As on so many other issues, Obama respects the views of othersand seeks middle ground by pursuing ways people with different opinions can still work toward common goals.For example, to a woman who questioned his position on abortion, he acknowledged their differences, but then“suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of women who felt the need to have abortions in the first place.” (The Audacity of Hope, p.197-8 ) Certainly, we can all agree on the need and desire to reduce abortion, and this common goal was also emphasized by Obama in the final debate.To that end, Obama has affirmed “taking a comprehensive approach where we focus on abstinence, where we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children,” providing adequate health care, age appropriate sex-education, and supporting and providing adoption as an option. Personally, I also believe that pursuing social and economic justice, rather than treating abortion as an isolated issue, is essential to reaching that common goal. At the same time, Obama also affirms that “those who are opposed to abortion… should continue to be able to lawfully object and try to change the laws.” (2008 Democratic Compassion Forum at Messiah College Apr 13, 2008),He also continues to be open to the opinions of others, and even acknowledges that he could be wrong and that his own “pro-choice” position may need to change.“I cannot claim infallibility in my support of abortion rights. I must admit that I may have been infected with society's prejudices and predilections and attributed them to God; that Jesus' call to love one another might demand a different conclusion; and that in years hence I may be seen as someone who was on the wrong side of history.”(The Audacity of Hope, p. 223)
So… to call myself a liberal, pro-life Democrat,is not a contradiction in terms.And I encourage others who are pro-lifeto carefully consider what I have shared…and vote for Barak Obama on November 4!
