Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Abortion

Part of the platform of President Obama is to reduce abortions. This has never made sense to me why someone would say that abortion is not wrong, but we need to get rid of as many abortions as possible. Mixed messages.

These mixed messages are not producing a reduction in abortions according to the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune reported today that "Planned Parenthood of Illinois says that in January it performed the highest number of abortions in its history".

When you tell people that abortions need to be reduced and you also say that there is nothing wrong with abortions and it is just a choice people make then we should not be surprised by the results.

This would be sad if this were just another political issue that we disagree on. Instead it is a tragedy because we have seen a drastic increase in the death of children.

Do you feel that the President is sending mixed messages about abortion?

6 comments:

Westy said...

Yep.

And counting the embryos soon to be killed for stem cell research, the number of unborn babies killed will go up quickly.

Jesse Curtis said...

Yes. Obama is trying to get the benefit of sounding amenable to conservative ideas on abortion without actually doing anything of substance in that direction. He's playing politics with an issue that is far more than politics to us. Makes me mad!

Anonymous said...

I guess when you are trying to please everyone / get as many votes as possible, you have to play around in the grey areas of life. You can't stand for something like it is a black and white decision and still be popular these days.

That's what annoyed me the most about Obama. He calls himself a Christian at times, then swings as far away from it as possible in order to not look like his morals are that important. He's a very confusing man, and if he continues leading us this way we're in for some very confusing times!

KG said...

Thank you all for your comments. I know that Christians are sometimes accused of being single issue voters and only voting based on abortion. I think this is a bit naive to base your voting on one issue. That being said, abortion is a huge deal to me and most believers because it is a justice issue. It is a life issue. It is a image of God issue.
Obama doesn't understand how much this issue is about what people believe in. He often trivializes it by accusing people of playing politics on this issue. Give me a break. Don't insult peoples intelligence and sense of conviction.

And now stem cell research is the next issue where he is saying that we need to "move beyond politics". These are human life issues, not politics.

I pray that he will begin to see differently on these issues.

Do you feel that some Christians are caught up in trying to be "progressive" and as a result are compromising on core issues? Where is Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo's critique of Obama?

Unknown said...

I know I'm probably a little late on the response here but I just saw that you had a blog.

Although I support Obama but not his abortion policies, my bone to pick with is with Christians.

We call it genocide. We call it mass murder. We call it injustice. But what are we doing about it? Do we really think it's injustice or is it just lip service? What are we as a church doing? We compare it to the holocaust. But if we saw millions of Jews being killed, would we just sit and complain about it, or would we be doing something? We DON'T really believe abortion is genocide.

I read the article you are referring to in the Suntimes today (3/25/09). It tells of stories of women who can't afford babies but are "forced" to receive abortions. What are we to do? Blame it on Obama? Keep electing Republicans? What services are the Church offering? Why aren't we all in front of abortion clinics helping these women? Why aren't we giving money to organizations that help prevent abortion? So instead of blaming it on Obama or Democrats, we need to look at ourselves and see what we are or aren't doing about it. If Christians were motivated by action against abortion instead of protesting and ranting for changes to laws that are almost impossible, we could probably change the culture of abortion and make it unthinkable.

KG said...

I guess that I would offer some push back to your thoughts Eliot. Obviously not all Christians are doing all that they should, but that does not mean that the church is not active on this issue. In fact, most would accuse the church of being to active on the issue of abortion and saying they need to calm done.

I know believers who have worked in advocacy campaigns on this issue, served at crisis pregnancy centers, helped struggling pregnant teens financially, talked to women going into abortion clinics, and on and on. Not to mention the huge amount of Christians that I know who have chosen to adopt as part of their action steps on this issue. This is getting very involved.

We can always say the church should do more and ignore all that the people of God are doing.

But what about the problem of a President who talks out both sides of his mouth to tell people what they want to hear, but then does nothing to stop this national tragedy.