Frank! As A Former Pro-Life Leader How Dare You Support Pro-Choice Obama?

[babylonsister]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/frank-as-a-former-pro-lif_b_119435.html

Frank! As A Former Pro-Life Leader How Dare You Support Pro-Choice Obama?
Frank Schaeffer

Posted August 17, 2008 | 04:43 PM (EST)


Dear Republican and Pro-Life Friends,

Thanks for the spittle-flecked emails as well as for the polite queries. Yes, I am aware Obama is pro-choice. Yes, I'm still pro-life. I also believe that with Obama in the White House that there will be less abortions in America than with the Republicans in power.

As you know I was a lifelong Republican until I reregistered as an Independent in 2006, after I just couldn't take the Rove brigade's dirty tricks, lies and slime any longer. When I worked to get John McCain nominated in 2000 I went on many conservative and religious radio shows to plead his cause. I started edging away from the party after seeing the filth the Bush crew got away with.

snip//

As a born-again Christ-centered believer Obama offers a spiritual vision of life founded on the Sermon On the Mount. It is the freedom of "we." It is the same view of freedom that my Marine son learned in boot camp: that the person standing next to you is more important than you are. That concept of freedom is more in keeping with valuing all human life. It will create a climate more friendly to mothers and children.

As I listen to Senator Obama speak, as I see the selfless altruistic energy he has generated in a whole new generation of young people, as I think about the ethical, caring culture he would like to foster with healthcare for all, a revamped and reenergized educational system that includes the arts, history, poetry and all those things that make life worthwhile, as I think about the wars my son's brothers-in-arms are still mired and dying in because of the hubris of the Republicans, as I think about the crying need to restore our standing in the world, as I think about the scandalous way in which the Republicans have manipulated people, including the most sincere Evangelicals, Orthodox and Roman Catholics, to get their votes, while not actually doing anything about the issues they care most about, yes, I am ready to for a change.

In Obama's America arguments for compassion for the unborn and all the other "least of these" will resonate regardless of Obama's stance on the legality of abortion. Roe is not the point. Our hearts are the point. The unborn like everyone else will do better in a country that puts people, the earth, and our future ahead of greed, oil company profits and jingoistic rule by fear.

I will be voting for Senator Obama and am fighting for his election because I am pro-life.

[Captain Hilts]

1. Obama doesn't completely trust women to make this choice. nt

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. What?

Obama WHAT?

Say more, Mookie..........

[Captain Hilts]

6. I was surprised he went there too. In his discussion of his position on late term abortion...

he said that being depressed about being pregnant was not a good enough reason to have an abortion.

I just don't feel comfortable with a man saying something like that.

I am confident he's pro-choice, but I wish he hadn't gone there in that line of questioning.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

10. He said that?

"... being depressed..." For Christ's sake, there's no such thing as a "late-term abortion." It's a term invented by the anti-choice people strictly to enflame. When a pregnancy needs to be terminated in the third trimester, it's always because of tragic and/or horrendous medical conditions - very often, the fetus has died, or the mother's life is terrifically endangered. It's not because of "depression," and if he'd read the opinion in Roe v. Wade, he'd know that that's not an allowable reason to terminate a pregnancy in the third trimester.

Shit. I'm glad you brought this up. Thank you. Let's hope he was just saying what he had to say in order to keep moving forward.

Let's hope..............

[Captain Hilts]

11. I don't doubt he's pro-choice...

but I don't feel comfortable with a man talking like that.

[Doctor_J]

12. Of course there is such a thing as "late-term abortion"

the term made up by the loony right is "partial birth abortion".

[Tangerine LaBamba]

15. Actually, "late-term abortion" language

is a kind of civilian shorthand that's really meant to describe a dilation and evacuation, or induce labor, or intact dilation and extraction. You won't find many medical people - if any - who use the term "abortion" once you're dealing with problems in the third trimester.

The loony right has preempted the language, you're right, to such an extent that they now really own the caption "pro-life," when, in fact, we're all "pro-life," but they're "anti-choice." I will always lament that the choice people weren't quick and forceful enough to get on them as soon as they grabbed that phrase; they should have turned it around on them immediately, taken it away from them, made us all "pro-life."

Language matters.

[babylonsister]

13. So is being depressed during a later term good enough reason

to have an abortion? I don't think so either, and I'm pro-choice.

[babylonsister]

3. Huh? Link? nt

[DJ13]

4. PUMA is over there----------->>>

[Captain Hilts]

7. Another man who thinks women are touchy about abortion rights.

Well, we are!

[guruoo]

8. Ditto that....

on edit, both PUMAS and Clinton haters need to spend less time griping,
and more time supporting our "presumptive" nominee.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. Seriously...

They will throw anything against the wall, in the hopes that it sticks. It's tedious.

[Coexist]

5. thank you for posting this.

[Hekate]

14. The entire article is well worth reading, & very encouraging. Thanks for posting it.

:hi:

Hekate

[calimary]

16. This. Is. AMAZING.

I was stunned that it was somebody else writing this stuff - that we here have lamented FOR YEARS now. Son of a BITCH!!!! (Not him!)

Dear God, I hope EVERYONE EVERYWHERE sees this.

This would be a BRILLIANT strategic response to any and all of those emails we get excoriating or insinuating about Barack Obama regarding anything and the kitchen sink.

Kicked, Recommended, Bookmarked, and Emailed to myself - so I can find it later.

HIGHLY HIGHLY recommended! If more Evangelicals share this guy's view, we are ALL saved. In the broadest sense.

Thank you, babylonsister - maybe the best post you've ever presented here.

:patriot: