AmericanPapist Comments
I was very disappointed.
Bush has been very pro-life until now.
I was so glad when he vetoed fetal stem cell research, but this is disappointing.
Well, he bombed the hellfire out of a country that did NOT ask for our "liberation" and which did NOT have WMD (and even if they did, Saddam was NOT a threat to us--Bin Ladin was and is, yet we don't have him...do we??). He basically allowed the killings of thousands of innocent Iraqis and American service men and women. You canNOT be pro-life and do something like that. You just can't! His "pro-life" stance--like everything he claims to stand for--is subject to his own whim and will. It is not genuine.
Miss B.
There is a reason that abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae while other forms of murder do not... this is on a whole other level than a war in which there is definate disagreements between orthodox Catholics as to whether or not it is just. In other words, a Catholic may support a war (perhaps this war) in good conscience, while a Catholic may not support the use of an abortifacient drug in good conscience.
Thomas, permit me, I am going to vent for a moment. I voted for President Bush in the 2004 election. I was not thrilled with the war in Iraq. I was ashamed at the fact that the leader of my country appeared like an inarticulate boob and goofball when he spoke in public. I was not happy that he really did not act as president. He behaved like a politician constanly justifying himself; like he was still on the campaign trail.
However, I thought that we had a pro-life (at least in terms of abortion and ESCR)president. He was repectful of religious traditions. He did not rebel against his religious authorities, etc. I voted for him because I thought that if there was a president who had a decent chance of overturning Roe (we might still have a chance with the Roberts Court), stopping gay "marriage", and protecting embryos from destruction in a lab, it would be George W. Bush.
Obviously, I was wrong. Now, I see myself complicit not only in the actions of the administration, heretofore, but I am complict in the actions of the new head of the FDA. I realize that my complicity is small, but it is still ONE VOTE!!!
I am SO ANGRY at this imibicile, I could spit. But I won't. I will pray for him, as should we all.
This is the end of my rant, continue with your random blogging.
... "random"?
Warning: what follows might a bit nitpicky...
While "fertilized egg" is useful to a certain degree, I think we'd be best to avoid using the term, because it somewhat denies the nature of the entity, which in fact is no longer an egg at all, fertilized or otherwise. I'm not telling any readers here anything new when I note that the egg ceases to exist as such at the moment of fertilization.
Abortion-rights supporters use the term precisely because it obscures the fact that the conceptus is a new organism, a new member of our species, and *not* just an egg which happens to be fertilized.
I know I'm preaching to the choir here... my point is that we should be more precise in our language.
FWIW.
I don't see why this comes as a surprise. Bush has never been "pro-Life" in the sense that a small minority of Papists, like many here, are.
It's not a "life" issue as far as the White House is concerned. For most people outside of the Catholic end of the pro-Life movement, contraception just isn't morally problematic.
How this is a "betrayal" escapes me, unless we (pro-Life Catholics) really are as tone deaf and dense as I've long feared.
And anyone who's looking to POTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton (which, last time I checked are no longer the controlling cases for legal abortion in this country) doesn't understand what happened in 1973, or what will happen if they ever are overturned (i.e. NOTHING).
Flambeaux,
1. I realize that I may be a little dense.
2. Perhaps I need to update my judicial precident to find which cases are necessary to be overturned.
3. I realize that most of the states have provisions allowing abortions. However, since federal law and opinion trumps those of the states, it is my opinion that the federal allowance of abortion must be denied before it can actually happen.
4. Obviously, I did not look for POTUS to overturn Roe (and related cases). What I looked to GWB for was a stop to abortion proliferation. Examples would be federal/Supreme Court appointments, and administration appointments that are pro-life. I realize that the president cannot overturn Roe with an executive order. I am not THAT dense.
Kevin: I'm absolutely pro-life. My point was that we need to get off this idea that "pro-life" only refers to life in utero. It doesn't. Pope JPII wrote and talked about "the culture of life". Bush doesn't fit the cirteria, no matter what he says about stem cell research.
Donald: You pretty much summed up my own feelings, too. I was never thrilled at the idea of Bush as President. But--for me--John Kerry was simply NOT an option. I chose "the lesser of two evils" so to speak (though I don't literally think either men are evil). But Bush has steadily and rapaidly declined in my eyes. I truly believe he is an AWFUL president and it hurts me that Catholics will ignore his incompetence, lack of judegment, bad-decisions, war-mongering, and you name it...Catholics will ignore this because he's pro-life. But my argument is that he gave orders to bring war against a nation that did NOTHING to us. That is NOT pro-life. The lives of those innocent Iraqis are no less precious before God's sight than unborn babies. How convenient that most Americans have forgotten Bush's famous comment about Saddam: "Remember, he's the guy who tried to kill my daddy." Some of us know what this war is really all about.
Chris B: You are right. The actual term is "conceptus". But "baby" works fine for me no matter how small he is. :)
Flambeaux: You make a good point. For orthodox Catholics our definition of pro-life refers to more than just the abortion issue. This is why I personally DON'T believe Bush is truly pro-life. But being that he's not Catholic, I didn't expect him to exactly be able to quote from Humanae Vitae or anything.
We did the best we could when we voted for him. Kerry was not an option--nor was Gore--for many of us. But Bush was given a precious, precious gift when he was elected. He blew it. And he won't stop blowing it until his ass is out. And then I hope I never see his face again. Please, let him retire to Crawford and grow sheep or something.
Commenting by HaloScan
