Nai, you’re right that some people would continue to get abortions, and that this would be dangerous for some of them because they couldn’t afford to get it done properly. And that sucks, that really does; but 50 children being aborted and 30 mothers being injured a day is a lot better than 4,000 children being aborted each day.

As for the unwanted children, that’s another part of this problem that sucks. But, I’d personally rather be adopted than killed. It’s definitely a tough situation for the mother, especially if the father is a shmuck and won’t help her, but they still need to take responsibility for their actions. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s the right thing to do.

I don’t understand how you can believe that abortion is murder, but then say that it’s a woman’s right to choose. It’s a woman’s right to choose whether or not she murders her child? I realize that abortion or pregnancy affect the mother, but the life of the child outweighs those concerns a thousand times over.

Ian -

if there was a mafia group operating in your town who were murdering twenty to thirty people a week for not paying extortion money

We have that now, its called the BATF/FBI/CIA/Military. I believe we’re trying to change it in a peaceful democratic means, instead of by force.

Sorry, couldn’t resist the hyperbole

Regarding Kerry as a flip-flopper— This is the most vague and bizarre criticism of a lifetime politician I have ever heard. Say it with me… “politicians pander.” That’s what they do. Our own “resolute” president has done it himself. (one of the most striking was in the 2000 debates when he said, we shouldn’t be involved in regime changes, nation building, or say, “we’re america. this is the way it oughta be. if you don’t like it, tough.”)

And regarding abortion… it’s certainly true that you cannot legislate the heart. As Father Ronald Rolheiser points out, we live in a culture that blatantly promotes promiscuity without consequences and any culture that does that will have abortion as a symptom - legal or illegal. The real work of abortion takes place in the hearts of women and young girls.

Does anyone ever notice that Jesus never seemed to involve himself in politics? Slavery was a reality of the time. Unbelievable oppression and brutality were common in his day as well. But his approach was bottom-up, not top down.

Many people in mainstream Christian culture — and I’m not suggesting any of you belong in this category — have this concept of Jesus that if he had come in the 20th Century, he would use mass media and political authority to establish his kingdom. But he didn’t come today. And if he did, I still doubt he would have chosen such a path. I still believe in the Jesus who meets people one on one.

Christians need to be more active in loving and caring for a generation of young girls who are growing up with Britney Spears branded chastity and young men whose sexuality was bred in digital pornography.

Millions of children are dying around the world for other reasons besides abortion. But in each and every case legislation is not the answer.

To enact real change, we need to start where Jesus did - in the hearts and minds of men and women.

You don’t smash the fruits, you attack the roots.

– sorry… I had no idea I had a sermon in me. I was just going to write a couple sentences.

Interesting quote from the Bruderhof communities concerning Bush’s supposed pro-life stance:

Who Is Pro-Life?
Emmanuel Charles McCarthy

As I read the triumphant headlines in the
newspapers day after day–?U.S. Pounds
Iraq from Air?–and saw the pictures of
missiles streaking into Iraq, I could not
help but hear the silent screams of all the
little Iraqi children in utero who were having
their lives ripped from them…Yet the silence
on this matter of abortions induced by war–
silence in the church, in pro-life circles and
in peace and justice efforts–is thunderous.

It is as if abortion for saving a person?s
reputation is absolutely evil; abortion for
saving a family?s economic life is absolutely
evil; abortion for saving a person?s job is
absolutely evil; abortion for saving a person
from what he or she perceives to be an
intolerable personal future is absolutely evil,
but abortion to save oil fields for the present
and future control and profit of American and
British oil interests or to save the world from
non-existent weapons of mass destruction
or from a local dictator is morally permissible!
It is as if patriotic earplugs have been discreetly
employed by pro-lifers in order to not hear what
they have been telling others to listen to for over
thirty years–the silent screams.

I like this one.
Your Heinz bottles don’t lie

Check your Heinz bottles
I checked and my bottle of Heinz catsup says “Product of Canada”

Guess I’ll be checking out all the Heinz products at the store!
Shortly after reading the following e-mail content, I happened to
look at the label of a jar of Heinz sandwich slice pickles.
Yep….”Made in Mexico.”

Check some of your Heinz products. Sen. John Kerry keeps talking
about U.S. corporations leaving this country and setting up shop
in foreign countries, taking thousands of jobs with them.
He is right, because that has happened. However, he is trying to
blame it on George W. Bush. As far as I know, Bush has not moved
one factory out of this country because he is not the owner of a
single factory. That cannot be said about Kerry and his
wife,Teresa Heinz-Kerry. According to the Wall Street Journal, the
Kerrys own 32 factories in Europe and 18 in Asia and the Pacific.

In addition, their company, the Heinz Company, leases four
factories in Europe and four in Asia. Also, they own 27 factories
in North America, some of which are in Mexico and the Caribbean.

I wonder how many hundreds of American workers lost their jobs
when their plants relocated in foreign countries?

I also wonder if the workers in Mexico and Asia are paid the
same wages and benefits as workers in the United States. Of course
they’re not. However, Kerry demands that other companies that
relocate should pay the same benefits they did in the U.S.

Why does he not demand this of the Heinz Company, since he is
married to the owner?

If Kerry is elected, will he and his wife close all those
foreign factories and bring all those jobs back to America?
Of course they won’t.

They’re making millions off that cheap labor.
The labels don’t lie, Does Kerry?

PLEASE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW TO MAKE
SURE THEY HAVE THE FACTS!!

A couple of quick thoughts on abortion as discussed here…

I agree that we should also attempt to deal with the root causes of abortion. But we need to remember that the root cause is usually selfishness, in a large majority of the cases. Personally, I’m not willing to wait until everyone in the world becomes less selfish for abortion to stop.

Is killing another adult ever justified? Some people might say it is, in self-defense or in defense of others. But are there ever economic reasons for aborting a baby? I think not. Adoption is always an option.

Also, I think the argument that, if abortion is made illegal, it will still happen, is a bit overworked. Maybe the occasional desperate teen mother will do something stupid with pills or a coat hanger, but for all practical purposes abortion in America would stop if it were made illegal. The 4,000 abortions a day would drop to nearly zero, and those that did occur would start to be called murders, as they should be.

Seriously though. Make no mistake, I am not a Kerry fan and I will be voting for W. but I posted that stuff for fun mostly
Now I have to know. What scent of candles do you burn in your John Kerry shrine?

I’m speaking as a Canadian, so I have no right to take a stand in your political argument. However, we make good ketchup up here. In fact, we make a lot of things better up here. Maybe it’s the cold winter that makes us hearty or something. Nobody in the US outsources to Canada to save money, they outsource to Canada to improve quality. You outsource to Mexico, China, etc. to save money, the same as us. Welcome to the global economy.

Thanks for your thoughts, Justin. I am right with you for sure on selfishness being the primary cause of abortion. This is one issue I wish was easier. A couple more thoughts, quickly (I hope).

…

Abortion is such a frightening issue because of how everything lines up. If I make my vote this Tuesday about abortion, I can’t say I agree with more than a handful of other stances of our president. Even Pat Buchanan fears a second-term Bush presidency!

…

I wish the same justices who would protect the unborn were the same ones who would protect our freedoms. There are not only liberal activist judges, there are conservative activist judges that are every bit as scary.

What do you think? Are freedom of speech and assembly less important than protecting the rights of the unborn? Does anything counterbalance this issue? Is this a hill that all Christians should die on when it comes to every other policy decision? I think for some it really is.

…

Some of you, if you’ve had any experience in pastoral care of grieving families, may be aware that the funeral industry is a powerful lobby group. This is relevant, so stay with me. Because the increase in numbers of people requesting cremation has caused a huge dropoff in profits for funeral homes, funeral corporations have gotten legislation passed in many states that requires a family be told what will happen to their loved one’s body.

They are told that parts of the body may explode and pop. That most of the remains will be turned to a fine powder, but that some parts will stay intact until they are eventually ground up in the final stages of the process.

They are “required” to read this gruesomely phrased script to people in grief if they choose cremation.

Now - if all this can be required by law to be read to an individual regarding a dead loved one, couldn’t a similar law be passed requiring the reading of a detailed description of an abortion? At a minimum, people should have to face the gravity of their decision, so long as it remains a choice.

And as I believe Nai pointed out — the fathers are almost always left out! I think the guys should be required to pay a lifetime of child support if the mother chooses abortion.

…

Oh yeah — and regarding outsourcing: I am not a proponent of sweatshops, but my friend Chet Thomas who has lived and worked among the poor of Honduras for 20 years says that the best jobs available for the poor are the ones outsourced to the country by North American corporations. I would personally rather see employment and development creep up around the world than at home. A poor North American is far better off than a poor third world child. If outsourcing jobs helps my incomparably poorer neighbors, I would have to cautiously say that I am not against it - for now. Unfortunately, it’s American corporations that have contributed and/or caused many of the problems existing in third world countries… so… uh… yeah.

Anyway, most American Christians would probably want to slug me for it, but I echo Ben Folds’ frustration with politicians and their endless “God Bless America”s… Folds says, “Why don’t you bless someone else for a while and give us a rest?”

Speaking of giving it a rest, would someone shut me up already?

It should be noted, as numbers are thrown around, that without his wife’s net worth, Kerry is indeed less wealthy than Bush. Check the link below.

Between 9 and 26 million for Bush compared to as much as 1.8 million for Kerry, with Kerry having a prenuptial agreement with his wife keeping her money separate. Together Kerry and his wife are worth . He does share as much as 600,000 of assets, including homes, etc.

I apologize to all those who asked for a reply, and I dropped out of the fun (busy week and weekend).

dcrew - asked me “to explain what I meant by Bush cutting funds for the poor, the hungry, the sick.”

I cannot offer a long list of specific stories, but I believe the sources of the stories when I did read them. A similar story is about how George hugged the firefighters right after 9/11 and said he was with them, then within the year, cut $150 million in funds for training/equipping/supporting emergency personnel nationwide. THe Chicago Tribune columnist Molly Ivins? wrote the column that really hilighted this for me.

George and the Republican congress have a consistant habit of lending moral support to the needy, but withdrawing material support. I assume they would say they were cutting government waste, or the tax cuts will trickle down money in other ways, but that never worked for me.

Pat - on the abundance of parents waiting to adopt babies.

I am sure that there is a log jam of parent waiting for caucasian babies. Is this so for minority babies? I don’t know. Adoption is a wonderful alternative to abortion. See Amy’s post for a good plug on this.

Ian - You said, “I don?t understand how you can believe that abortion is murder, but then say that it?s a woman?s right to choose. It?s a woman?s right to choose whether or not she murders her child? I realize that abortion or pregnancy affect the mother, but the life of the child outweighs those concerns a thousand times over.”

Yes. The issue is whether this country’s laws consider abortion murder, not what you or I believe. The woman must choose within the moral code she has at the time. If she does not have, or denies, a relationship with God, she may murder her baby.

It always appears to be a male thing to legislate women into a second class existence. I will say it again, where is the father in these situations? Where is the family’s of the two prospective parents? Where is the community? Where are all the Christians who should be helping support these women in need? Who will love these women as Jesus said to do? (sorry, I get a little carried away)

For the record, I am a male.

Justin - On your quick thought: “Also, I think the argument that, if abortion is made illegal, it will still happen, is a bit overworked. Maybe the occasional desperate teen mother will do something stupid with pills or a coat hanger, but for all practical purposes abortion in America would stop if it were made illegal. The 4,000 abortions a day would drop to nearly zero, and those that did occur would start to be called murders, as they should be.”

I would love to see what statistics, or train of thought led you to believe that only the occassional desperate teen would do something stupid. You could be right, I don’t have a crystal ball, or any information to say otherwise.

Another thing that continues from something virusdoc mentioned. How can a self-declared Christian president be against killing the unborn, but deny pardons to those facing capital punishment and make war on two powerless countries? Yes, yes, I know we are all sinners. I guess he isn’t done yet?

I liked Adam’s question on how you balance such a serious issue with all the others in determining who is the best candidate. My answer is that the pro-choice issue will be with us long after a second GWB term. This election is about what kind of country my grandkids will inherit, and that has everything to do with Kerry vs. Bush, and every presidential/congressional/senatorial election hereafter. God be with us.

I am now done with the pro-choice issue. Whew!

Nai,
The Chicago Tribune I would imagine is quite liberal. I would have to know the details behind those cuts, those kinds of numbers can be manipulated easily.
Speaking of numbers here is an interesting look at tax cuts explained.

Tax Cuts Explained
>Let’s put tax cuts in terms that everyone can understand. Suppose that
>every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100.
>If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something
>like this:
>
>The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
>The fifth would pay $1.
>The sixth would pay $3.
>The seventh $7.
>The eighth $12.
>The ninth $18.
>The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
>So, that’s what they decided to do.
>
>The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy
>with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
>”Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the
>cost of your daily meal by $20.”
>
>So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay
>their bill the way we pay our taxes.
>So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But
>what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy
up the
>$20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share’?
>
>The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they
>subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth
>man would each end up being ‘PAID’ to eat their meal. So, the restaurant
>owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly
>the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
>And so: The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100%
>savings).
>The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
>The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (29% savings).
>The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
>The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings)
>The tenth now paid $50 instead of $59 (15% savings).
>Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four
continued to
>eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare
>their savings.
>
>”I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He
pointed to
>the tenth man “but he got $9!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth
>man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got nine times more
>than me!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $9
>back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
>”Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get
>anything at all. The system exploits the poor!”
>
>The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the
>tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without
>him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something
>important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half
>of the bill!
>
>And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our
>tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most
benefit
>from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being
wealthy, and
>they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good
>restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

This is true unless you are a Kerry and you pay 13% on taxes.
Happy Voting. I had a blast!