Amount of Taxpayers' Money Going To Abortion

FRC.org reports:

This morning, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) answered that question for the first time in a number of years with a staggering report on U.S. funding for abortion advocates . In just eight years, more than a billion of your hard-earned dollars have been funneled to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, International Planned Parenthood Federation, Population Council of the United States, Guttmacher Institute, Advocates for Youth and Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States . Each and every one of these organizations make it their mission to slaughter unborn babies by dismemberment, decapitation, and deadly chemicals. Planned Parenthood, the biggest beneficiary of your dollars, averaged over $90 million a year -- the largest portion of federal funds in the report.

NPR (or what I call “National Propaganda Radio”)

Another example of the media bias in the mainstream media can be found in NPR’s 5/13/10 Fresh Air show. There they cite supply and demand as the main reason why so many American couples are opting at leaving their long lines here in the US and going overseas to adopt. It is true that it is due to supply and demand, that is, that demand outstrips supply here in the US. But they fail to offer an adequate explanation for why this is. The only explanation NPR gives is to suggest it is due to difficult adoption procedures. The fact is there’s something else going on for which NPR does not tell us.

The problem here in the US why the supply does not meet demand is because the vast majority of unwanted children that could be put up for adoption have been aborted.

The irony is tragic: The young female populations who can conceive children and do, but don’t want their children, are often persuaded that abortion is the best option, whereas the older female populations who are now looking to settle down and have children are finding themselves unable to conceive. Then, when they desperately look to adopt someone else’s child here in the U.S., the supply of children is low because so many unwanted children are killed by their mothers.

An Urgent Message on Health Care

Example of a friendly conversation about politics

I thought I’d share a conversation I had recently with an old friend on facebook. I’ll call him “John”.

Me:

You said: "Republican, Democrat ... you can be a chimp for all I care .. just be able to LEAD a country!"

It sounds like you voted for McCain. Because we all know (at least those who voted for McCain) that Obama doesn't have the experience to lead. ...which we are now finding out the hard way. (hope this doesn't offend you. : )

John:

I did vote for McCain, and no you didn’t offend me. Exactly ... Obama doesn’t have a clue. and I meant what I said. I don’t care about political parties. I think we should do away with them all together. We need to ONE in order to move forward and make progress. This bickering back and forth has gotten us nowhere. Meanwhile, we are just treading water as more and more illegal immigrants and terrorists enter our country, and we continue to spend over 300 BILLION $ a year to support them! WTF is up with that?!!! We are a mess and I’m really not that political in nature, until just recently when I starting being effected directly. It’s sad to see how corrupt and what a mess our political system is.

Me:

I’m glad, John, that you can discern Obama’s inability to lead our country correctly. I would encourage you, though, to reevaluate your advocacy of doing away with political parties. Politics with no partisanship means we are left with two (if I’m not mistaken) options: either we have no politics at all – which is called anarchy; or we have a one party system – which is called communism. (And I doubt that you are an anarchist or a communist.) Despite what we hear in the mainstream media (MSM), partisanship is actually a good thing. For instance, it prevents a radical president from enacting radical laws by having the opposition party (and others who are not radical) in the legislature stop him by filibustering or other obstructionist means. The MSM is trying to help him anyway. That’s why you hear of the press complaining of “gridlock” right now. Their guy is in the White House, and they don’t want less liberal and more conservative legislators stopping his agenda. So they simply blame the Republicans for the problem. What’s new? You would never hear of “gridlock” when Congress is more liberal and the White House is more conservative. The interesting thing is, it’s not actually the Republicans that represent the main opposition to Obama – its Democrats! – non-leftists, non-radical “blue dog” Democrats, to be exact. We see this, for instance, with the Stupak amendment in the House on health care. The American people, both Democrats and Republicans, don’t want the American taxpayer funding abortions. The Republicans are too small of a minority to prevent an Obama health care system that includes taxpayer-funding of abortions. It’s actually Obama’s less liberal, more conservative *fellow-Democrats* that are the ones who are successfully slowing down the Obama Express. But you’re not going to hear about that much in the MSM (minus maybe FOX).

I agree our political system is not perfect, but history shows that our partisan politics form of government has been the most workable system in this current broken age east of Eden. While speaking on the subject of democracies (as opposed to say communism), Winston Churchill once said: “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

While our political system is not perfect, I believe the bigger problem is that our societal systems are systematically being subverted, and in many cases, *have been* subverted, by historically non-American and untenable worldviews: our economic system of capitalism is being replaced with socialism; our legal system of constitutional law is being replaced with activist adjudication; our country’s moral compass (philosophy/ethics) of moral objectivism, *has* been replaced with moral relativism; our political system of a representative republic/democracy may eventually be replaced by a ONE-party system of communism.

I’m glad, John, you’ve gotten more politically active and informed. I would just encourage you to continue on that trek armed with good information and analysis. (BTW, John, have you ever heard of townhall.com? It's a good place to go to get informed.) Indeed, as you said, politics does matter, because it always affects us – whether directly or indirectly, whether we are aware of it or not.

This year is critical for the American people to really learn what’s up, and then vote correctly. As Biden admitted recently, this year’s congregational elections will be the last chance the American people have to stop the Obama Express from becoming a full and irreversible reality.

"When the people fear government, that's tyranny; when the government fears the people, that's liberty." – Thomas Jefferson

Too Persuasive of a P.S.A.

We're not going to see this Public Service Announcement during the Super Bowl. Evidently, NBC changed their minds and canned it.

Hummmm . . . I wonder why?

See for yourself.





HT: OneNewsNow.com

Change Begins Taking Shape

As change begins to occur under the new administration – some in pretty substantial ways, I’m sure it will not be as most sincere and well-intentioned Obama supporters expected, nor wanted. Obama may be good with words; but it is true: actions speak louder than words.

Matt Barber adds in a OneNewsNow column:

Obama said in an August 19, 2008 speech: "Change doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington." Well, radical change in the form of Barack Obama has certainly come to Washington. Not just in terms of the man's skin color – which is historic and most encouraging – but in terms of his exceptionally extreme and demonstrably dangerous liberal policies (not so encouraging).

So it would seem that change does in fact "come from Washington." Change more radical than our nation has ever seen. Change our founders could have never imagined.

People of faith, conservatives, and those of you with traditional values: hold on to your hats – it's going to be a bumpy four years.

Read More:

• Obama rescinds Mexico City Policy link

• What is the Mexico City Policy? link
  

Reflections

Over the last few months (especially the last 2 weeks), I've done a lot of thinking about the current political scene. There are a loooot of complex, confusing issues out there. The economic crisis, for example, is one of them. All three popular answers that have been given (dems--deregulation. Repubs--government control mandating foolish loaning stretegies. Both--greed) strike me as true *in certain places and certain ways,* though some certainly overstate their case.

There are a lot of issues out there that I can discuss with you, and we can disagree vigorously on them, but at the end of the day, we can still call each other brothers and sisters and go have a drink together.


I've come back to one issue time and time again, though: pro-lifers, Catholics, and Evangelicals supporting Obama. I've shown my cards quite explicitly on what I think about that. What keeps vexing me, though, is why the pro-life, pro-Obama line of thinking is so popular, especially among young voters.

There's a couple of reasons why I think there was an upswell of that kind of thinking this election:

1) Political fatigue. Many are disappointed with traditional politics, especially of the Republican party. Neither candidate seems wholly satisfactory, and perhaps a lot of pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals can't find a home with either party.

2) As to the young, abortion has been identified as the fight of our parents, and we'd rather not engage in the same fight they did. Its just uncool.

3) You've really thought the issue through and you side with Obama. You've seen the information and arguments that I present, and you are unmoved.

Let me work backwards. First, if you are in group 3, you know where I stand on that. I think you're delusional. I have no more to say to you.

If you are in group two: the good, the true, and the beautiful knows no generational bounds. Just because it was your parents' fight doesn't mean its not a worthy fight for you. Perhaps they *were* right on *some* things, despite what MTV has taught us.

In short; don't be blown about by the winds of popularity. Jesus didn't give a hoot, and neither should you. Let truth and courage be your compass.

If you are in the first group, I sympathize with you. I can see why you feel that way. I agree with you that politics can be and is a somewhat silly enterprise.

But let me offer an encouragement; don't throw in the towel. Don't let the best become the enemy of the good. Just because we haven't scored a total knockout doesn't mean we aren't fighting well.

Plus, sometimes you gotta hang in there and hold the hammer down, b.c the stakes are awfully high. One of the many things I've learned the past few weeks is that many significant pro-life gains *have* been made by pro-lifers in legislation. These bills and such have chipped away at Roe, and have reduced abortions significantly. To let our hands down during this round of the match, to let our feet go flat this late in the fight endangers those significant gains. In a boxing match it doesn't matter how many punches you landed in earlier rounds; if you let your guard down and take a ringer on the chin, the fight is over, even if its the last minute of the twelfth round...you lost.

Heck, even if those gains hadn't been made, the pro-life fight is still a worthy fight, just as a matter of principle. It should always be issue #1, just like slavery was issue #1 in many people's minds in its day.
In all likelihood, on Wednesday, November 5, Barack Obama will be president-elect. Mark my words, pro-lifers, especially those who supported Obama this election: you will need lots more stamina to stay faithful the next four years. You must prepare, as Shakespeare said, to "screw your courage to the sticking place." Stand up, regain your nerve, and carry on.

Our very souls are at stake.

"What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?"

He's the wisest man that ever lived for a reason, folks.

Just Tell Us The Truth!

If you are a Christian, you need to watch this video before you cast your vote! And please send this to all of those you know who also care about what God cares about!

Obama is Radically Pro-Abortion

For more content and information about Roe v. Wade, go to: www.bornalivetruth.com.

Profile of a Radical: Obama supports infanticide

Pro-Life and Pro-War?

Here’s an excellent one-page response when pro-choice advocates accuse pro-lifers of being hypocritical for decrying abortion while at the same supporting the waging of war.

Obama's Abortion Extremism

by Robert George
Member of the President's Council on Bioethics
Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University

read article

listen to article being passionately read

Two links to two totally tubular guys

Read here and here for two professors analysis on Obama's abortion stance.

The first one is by Robert George, Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, and the second is by Doug Geivett, philosophy professor at Biola University.

Both make some very, very salient points that most in the mainstream don't acknowledge (heck, most in the public don't acknowledge them either, which makes the comments all the more needed.).

I've interacted with both (I've read George's books and taken some classes by Geivett). Both are first class intellects.

One Issue Voter?

By Rich Bordner

There's a common thought afoot in evangelical circles when it comes to the current political climate:

"We shouldn't just focus on abortion. We need a more holistic approach to politics and social justice. Poverty, AIDS, etc. are 'life' issues too."

In fact, I just talked with two members of my church recently on this very topic. Both are voting for Obama. Both claim to be pro-life. Both will vote for Obama for economic, environmental, and global (i.e., anti-Iraq war) reasons.

As its stated, the statement is true. Poverty, et al, are things we evangelicals (actually, Christians of all stripes) need to battle. However, the upshot of this has been to put abortion on the back burner, treating it as less important than the other concerns. This has steered many evangelicals towards voting for Obama. This is a problem, for several reasons:

1) This presumes that the Democratic solution (traditionally, it has involved some form of bigger dependence on government) to poverty and such is the best solution. This is far from obvious. Liberals and conservatives alike both care about the poor and the ill. What is up for debate is which has the better solution. Far too often, it is assumed that liberals are the ones who care because they are for a government program dealing with the problem.

2) Imagine we are in Germany around 1940: "Hey, Hitler is doing wonders for this country's economic stability. Yeah, what he's doing with the Jews is sad, but hey, we gotta put food on the table! Our nation's pride and economic stability are important concerns too, not just 6 million Jews being slaughtered." That would be horrendous. Protecting innocent life should ALWAYS be front and center.

3) Similarly, around 40 million babies have died from abortions ever since Roe v. Wade. Given this, putting abortion on the backburner is the least compassionate thing we can do; it will show that we really don't care about "the least of these."

4) Obama is crazy when it comes to abortion. Not only has he pledged that he will do everything in his power to uphold and solidify Roe v. Wade, but his voting record is about as extreme as it gets. In fact, in Illinois, he led the opposition to the Infant Born Alive Protection Act, which would have secured medical care to babies born alive after botched abortions. He swears that the reason why he voted against it was because it lacked "neutrality language" in regards to Roe V. Wade, but he shot down the attempt to put such language in the bill!

5) Some prefer to talk of "reducing the number of abortions" through caring for women in crisis pregnancies (mostly through some form of government funding) rather than attacking the law head on. This eases their conscience in voting for Obama. Of course, reducing the number of abortions is a laudable goal, but that shouldn't be the only thing we do. As Melinda Penner at Stand to Reason has pointed out in a recent blog, this leaves a very odious doctrine ensconced in our law: that the unborn are not fully human and are not worthy of protection under the law. That, my friends, needs to be shown for the evil it is. Therefore, if we do not relentlessly attack that plank of our law with everything we have (including our vote), we must ask ourselves just how pro-life we really are.

6) Strictly speaking, it doesn't matter if McCain is likely or not to completely topple Roe v. Wade. Most likely, he will not, given that he will probably be working with a Democratic legislature. What matters is: who is likely to make progress, any progress, towards outlawing abortion. McCain: certainly yes. His voting record alone speaks to that truth. At the very least, he will keep us from moving the other way, towards entrenching Roe further in our law and societal soul. Obama: certainly not. He will move us in the other way, both through perhaps vetoing anything that remotely smells pro-life, through funding the industry of abortion, and through appointing judges that play fast and loose with the Constitution. That's how the problem started in the first place, after all.

Therefore, if this was the only issue/reason I had for not voting for Obama (in actuality, the reasons are many), I wouldn't think twice about it. Despite the public chiding one issue voters get, my conscience would be clean.

Obama’s empty rhetoric

At the recent Saddleback civil forum, Obama says he wants to see a reduction in abortions. There are so many interesting things to point out about this statement. For one, these comments reflect a typical all-talk and no action track record of the Democrats. David O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, expanded on this point recently during an interview with Newsweek:

"I think saying they want to reduce abortions is empty rhetoric…I have not seen the pro-abortion side agree with the pro-life side on anything that would actually reduce the number of abortions."

O'Steen explains how pro-choice politicians constantly obstruct legislation that would actually reduce the numbers, such as bills that would require that a women get an ultrasound before undergoing an abortion.

The fact is, Obama – like the other Democrats – have done absolutely nothing to reduce abortions.

Democrats' Moral Confusion

I know I've posted a lot about abortion lately, but I just keep finding good articles. It is a pretty big political issue and it is a presidential election year, so I guess that explains it. Anyway, Newsweek actually posted a web article that is a pretty solid presentation of the pro-life side of the debate, and how this issue affects the Democratic party. It's a good read:

Throughout this lengthy campaign, the Democratic Party has worked hard to present itself as the party of intellect, competence and moral seriousness. Yet it's off to a very rocky start in addressing the substance of the abortion issue—which remains, 35 years after Roe v. Wade, one of the most volatile in our public life. Talk this week by Democratic leaders about lowering the incidence of abortion in America will rightly be welcomed by pro-life Democrats, including the large number of pro-life African-American Democrats. But the recent public record has to make committed pro-lifers of both parties wonder just how serious the Democratic leadership is about engaging the abortion debate.

The part of the article that caught my eye is about Nancy Pelosi:

Then there are the multiple confusions of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In her "Meet the Press" appearance Aug. 24, Pelosi was asked by Tom Brokaw whether she agreed with Senator Obama's statements on abortion at Saddleback. Pelosi, declaring herself an "ardent, practicing Catholic," told Brokaw that "this is an issue that I have studied for a long time"—and then got herself into a deep muddle, in which she seemed to confuse St. Augustine with St. Thomas Aquinas (neither of whom, in any case, knew anything about modern embryology); misrepresented the settled (and scientifically informed) judgment of the Catholic Church on when life begins by declaring it an open question, and concluded by suggesting that none of this really makes a difference, because what the scientists, theologians, and philosophers say "... shouldn't have an impact on a the woman's right to choose." The Speaker then misrepresented the legal impact of Roe v. Wade, arguing that the Supreme Court hadn't created a right to "abortion on demand"—which will come as news to those on both sides of the ongoing debates over partial-birth abortion and other late-term abortion procedures, parental- and spousal-notifications laws and regulatory oversight of abortion clinics.

Democrats who had hoped to persuade a good number of evangelicals and Catholics to return to their traditional 20th-century political home in November 2008 cannot be very encouraged by such intellectual disarray on the part of their party's senior federal official. For more than three decades, the abortion license created by the high court in Roe v. Wade has been an important factor in determining American voting behavior—in more than a few instances, the decisive factor. Yet, judging by her performance on "Meet The Press" (which seemed to surprise the usually unflappable Tom Brokaw), the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives is as ill-informed on the scientific and legal facts involved in the abortion debate as she is of the teaching of the Catholic Church. Speaker Pelosi is, like most "ardent, practicing" Catholics, a great admirer of the late Pope John Paul II. Was John Paul wrong, one wants to ask Speaker Pelosi, when he wrote in the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae [The Gospel of Life] that "abortion ... always constitutes a grave moral disorder, since it is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being"? Was he wrong when he further stated that this moral truth could be known by reason, and was thus a matter of grave concern to public policy?

Obviously I understand that not everyone in this country is a practicing Christian and so not everyone will have the same moral stance on abortion that I do. But I find it beyond comprehension that someone like Nancy Pelosi (or Joe Biden) could claim to be an ardent, practicing Catholic and still support abortion. I guess it just demonstrates how confused and twisted their worldviews have become.

Obama/Biden: Biden on Abortion

So Obama announced his pick for VP: Senator Joe Biden of Delaware. It's not all that clear that the VP selection matters a whole lot, but informed voters should still probably do a little research on the VP's opinions. Biden might influence Obama's policies should he win the presidency, so you should know what he believes.

In that spirit, here's a few links with some information:

Biden, a Catholic, is a fairly strong supporter of abortion and stem cell research, although he did vote to ban partial-birth abortion. Here's an interesting article from a Catholic perspective about how his abortion views are in conflict with his faith.

Amanda Carpenter quotes NARAL's approval of Biden's record on Supreme Court confirmations:

"Most notably, Sen. Biden has a strong record of opposing judicial nominees with hostile anti-choice records. He voted against George W. Bush's two anti-choice nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, and he opposed anti-choice Justice Clarence Thomas' nomination to the Court as well as multiple anti-choice nominees to lower federal courts."- NARAL statement

Biden has served as the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was involved in the confirmation hearings of Bork, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito, among others. He voted against all four and was a big factor in the ugliness of the Bork and Thomas hearings. If he has any influence on Obama's Supreme Court nominations, it obviously won't be good for conservatives.

Obama: Lying about Abortion

I wrote here about Barack Obama's position and actions with respect to abortion. Frankly, I don't understand how any evangelical Christian could vote for him on this issue alone, but of course that is my opinion. Anyway, there is some controversy about the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and his position on that bill. Here's what Obama told CBN (video at the link):

And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying. I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported - which was to say --that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born - even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade. By the way, we also had a bill, a law already in place in Illinois that insured life saving treatment was given to infants.

So for people to suggest that I and the Illinois medical society, so Illinois doctors were somehow in favor of withholding life saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies commonsense and it defies imagination and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it's an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond. It's one thing for people to disagree with me about the issue of choice, it's another thing for people to out and out misrepresent my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they're wrong. And that's what's been happening.

To put it bluntly, I believe Obama is the one who's lying here, because he knows that the truth will hurt him with a lot of voters. He voted against a bill protecting infants who survive an abortion while in the Illinois Senate. I don't understand how he thinks he can pretend that didn't happen. Please, check out the facts for yourself and make sure you know what is going on here.

David Freddoso reviews the relevant bills and votes in detail and comes to this conclusion:

Sen. Obama is currently misleading people about what he voted against, specifically claiming that the bill he voted against in his committee lacked “neutrality” language on Roe v. Wade. The bill did contain this language. He even participated in the unanimous vote to put it in.

One more thought--Saturday night, Obama and McCain both appeared at Saddleback Church and answered questions from Rick Warren. I have my differences with Warren's theology, but it sounds like he asked some interesting questions (for example, does evil exist and what should we do about it?). You should definitely read some coverage of the event and the candidates' answers to faith & values questions (including this from Victor Davis Hanson, highlighting Obama's postmodern worldview: "There are no absolutes, just nuances and contexts that preclude certainty."). The question that is relevant to this post is this:

When asked "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?," McCain answered "At the moment of conception." Obama's answer here was flaming-dirigible bad:

Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade.

Transcripts for both candidates at Saddleback church are available here.

John McCain: Right on Life

So it took longer than I thought, but I've finally done the research about John McCain to contrast his positions on abortion with Obama's (see "Obama is Far, Far Left on Abortion"). Here's the good news for conservatives: McCain appears to be solidly pro-life.

Starting with his own website:

John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, "At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level."

There's a lot more at the link, including encouraging views on adoption, marriage, and stem-cell research.

One of the reasons you may not know much about McCain's views on abortion is that many pro-life groups resent his campaign finance bill, which restricted what they could say about candidates in pre-election advertising. So they aren't solidly behind him, and they aren't out there stumping for him. Here's what National Right to Life has to say:

National Right to Life PAC strongly supports Senator John McCain for United States President and we have supported him in all of his U.S. Senate races.

Even while National Right to Life disagreed with Senator McCain on campaign finance reform, Senator McCain did not waver in his votes against abortion.

Senator John McCain has a solid voting record against abortion and has cast 31 pro-life votes since 1997.

Since pro-life groups are a little lukewarm due to the campaign finance issue, some of the best information actually came from NARAL. NARAL, which wholeheartedly endorsed Obama, considers McCain to be "solidly anti-choice" and gives him a 0% score on abortion votes in the past 6 years. If NARAL doesn't like him, that's a pretty good reason to vote for McCain right there.

One last thing--John McCain doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk. From a Karl Rove editorial in the Wall Street Journal (most of the article is a fellow POW, Medal of Honor winner Col. Bud Day, talking about McCain's time in Vietnam, and that's a good read too):

The stories told to me by the Days involve more than wartime valor.

For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

I was aware of this story. What I did not know, and what I learned from Doris, is that there was a second infant Mrs. McCain brought back. She ended up being adopted by a young McCain aide and his wife.

"We were called at midnight by Cindy," Wes Gullett remembers, and "five days later we met our new daughter Nicki at the L.A. airport wearing the only clothing Cindy could find on the trip back, a 7-Up T-shirt she bought in the Bangkok airport." Today, Nicki is a high school sophomore. Mr. Gullett told me, "I never saw a hospital bill" for her care.

Contrast that with Obama:

Obama said the battle for abortion rights should be fought from the offensive, instead of a simple defense of what activists have achieved thus far.

And he reiterated his opposition to the two justices appointed by Bush who sit on the Supreme Court--Roberts and Samuel Alito. Obama voted against both.

“It is important for us, obviously, not only to get a Democratic White House as well as a stronger Congress to protect these rights,” Obama said.

I have to admit I'm not thrilled with all of John McCain's policies and proposals. Like a lot of people I know, I wish he was more conservative. But at least he's got this one right. and it's a big one.

Obama is Far, Far Left on Abortion

Every pro-life voter should know about Senator Obama’s positions on abortion. The short version is that he is very, very strongly pro-choice and will fight very hard against any proposal to limit abortion in any way. But here’s some details:

From his own website:

[Obama] has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in that case.

Obama is endorsed by NARAL. If you want to see NARAL’s summary of Obama’s stand on abortion, just follow the link. It's written from a pro-abortion viewpoint, of course, but there's still a lot of good information in there.

What about partial-birth abortion? Well, here's what Obama said last April when the Supreme Court upheld the federal partial birth abortion ban:

I strongly disagree with today's Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman's medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient.

I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women.

It actually gets worse--even if the baby survives an attempted abortion and is alive outside the womb, Obama doesn't think he or she has a right to life. As a state senator, Obama opposed a bill modeled after the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum comments:

That bill was the Born Alive Infants Protection Act. During the partial-birth abortion debate, Congress heard testimony about babies that had survived attempted late-term abortions. Nurses testified that these preterm living, breathing babies were being thrown into medical waste bins to die or being "terminated" outside the womb. With the baby now completely separated from the mother, it was impossible to argue that the health or life of the mother was in jeopardy by giving her baby appropriate medical treatment.

The act simply prohibited the killing of a baby born alive. To address the concerns of pro-choice lawmakers, the bill included language that said nothing "shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand or contract any legal status or legal right" of the baby. In other words, the bill wasn't intruding on Roe v. Wade.

Who would oppose a bill that said you couldn't kill a baby who was born? Not Kennedy, Boxer or Hillary Rodham Clinton. Not even the hard-core National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). Obama, however, is another story. The year after the Born Alive Infants Protection Act became federal law in 2002, identical language was considered in a committee of the Illinois Senate. It was defeated with the committee's chairman, Obama, leading the opposition.

Let's be clear about what Obama did, once in 2003 and twice before that. He effectively voted for infanticide. He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby.

Arguably, one of the ways in which a president can most influence the abortion issue is through the appointment of Supreme Court Justices and lower court judges. It’s quite likely that the next president will appoint 3 or 4 justices to the Supreme Court--and possibly even as many as 6. So, what kind of justices would Obama appoint? Here’s an excerpt from an article by Jennifer Rubin--the first paragraph is Obama himself speaking, the second is some analysis from the article:

Now there’s going to be those 5 percent of cases or 1 percent of cases where the law isn’t clear. And the judge then has to bring in his or her own perspectives, his ethics, his or her moral bearings. And in those
circumstances, what I do want is a judge who is sympathetic enough to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless, those who can’t have access to political power and as a consequence can’t protect themselves from being -- from being dealt with sometimes unfairly. That the courts become a refuge for justice. That’s been its historic role. That was its role in Brown v. Board of Education.

Steven Calabresi, professor of law at Northwestern University and co-founder of the Federalist Society (who also serves on John McCain’s legal advisory committee), says “I think it means he has completely the wrong idea of what a judge is supposed to do.” He notes that since the first Congress all judges have taken an oath to “do equal justice unto the rich and the poor,” but, by asking judges in essence to side with the less well off, Obama is “calling on judges to disregard this.”

If you’re a pro-life conservative, you probably think that unborn children are exactly the kind of vulnerable, powerless people a judge should protect--but you also recognize that the sort of liberal judge being described here doesn’t think that unborn children, even those old enough to survive outside the womb, are people.

By now you should be getting the idea that Obama is, as columnist Amanda Carpenter put it, “more pro-choice than NARAL.” So just one final quote, from an article about an Obama campaign stop during the Pennsylvania primary:

And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis pregnancy -- hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

Granted, virtually no one wants their child to experience a teenage pregnancy. But the phrase “punished with a baby” seems to me to betray a rather negative view of the miracle of life.

Check back in a couple of days for a look at John McCain's pro-life record.