Combox for:
Obama's Abominable Childkilling Extremism (Robert George)
[6 November 2008]
http://socrates58.blogspot.com/
2...ildkilling.html
In looking over a Wikipedia article about "Conservative and Republican Support for Obama" I was astonished to see that Frank Schaeffer: the son of the famous evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer, now an Orthodox Christian, and one who had been (I thought) staunchly pro-life, supported Obama.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Oba...bama_Republican
Read his own ultra-absurd rationale here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
fr...ro_b_85636.html
Catholics and the election were disappointing if not surprising. I hope that when it comes to the actual issue of being pro-life, they show more resolve...
A friend of mine wrote a post explaining why he supports Obama. I know I've seen what he claims has been refuted, e.g. Bill Clinton supposedly causing less abortions etc, I just don't have the info at hand. Could someone direct me to that kind of info? I'll post what he says here if anyone wants to respond to it:
"I wrote the following for Maureen Johnson's Ya for Obama website. It was written before the election, but it outlines why I think that people are being unreasonable when it comes to Obama's stance on abortion:
First of all let me get this out of the way: I'm not American and I can't vote. But this election is not just an election for the American President. It is one for a major world leader.
Since both you and I don’t have much time, let me get straight to the point. I know I'm probably too late with this post for a lot of people - however if I can help someone change their mind, or help someone help convince another person, then I think this post might be worth it.
Like many people I am Christian. I also have great respect for human life and believe that "life" starts in the womb. But this isn't a place for discussion of the morality of abortion. I'm writing this post as if I am discussing the issue with someone who thinks that abortion is wrong, not necessarily because that is the case, but because that is the kind of person who needs convincing that they can vote for Obama.
First, if you want to assess Obama on his character; Obama has acknowledged that abortion is a tragedy. Contrary to popular belief, he does not believe abortion is a “good” thing. He does, however, believe that it is sometimes necessary.
Whether or not one agrees with Obama’s personal morality in relation to issue the most important things to look at are his policies. Looking at Obama’s policies and voting history on a superficial level, one might immediately assume that a vote for Obama is a vote for more abortions. However you must also remember that Obama plans on providing lower and middle-class people with greater tax-breaks, better educational opportunities and better health care than McCain would. All of these initiatives make it easier for an individual to “choose” life for their unborn child. In fact, I have little doubt that if Obama was to carry out these promises it would help struggling women in bad situations to say yes to life.
It is because of this that Obama is aiming to create a society which promotes life, even if this might not be through obvious and overt means. I believe that a society shaped by Obama would be one in which less abortions are performed, because it would be easier to chose life. That said, I believe things like health-care, tightening of gun laws, Obama’s anti-war stance and his opposition to the death-penalty can all be considered opinions which are overtly “pro-life”.
If you don’t believe me that a President who has a pro-choice stance can lower abortion rates, one only has to turn to Clin
"one only has to turn to Clinton. It is interesting to note that despite his relatively “pro-choice” stance, abortions dropped under him to a greater degree than they have with any other president (if my statistics are correct, from about 1.6 million down to about 1.3 million). Under Bush, someone who claims to be pro-life, this number has almost stopped decreasing altogether. McCain’s only plan to try and decrease abortion is to attempt to overturn Roe vs. Wade, a strategy that has been ineffective from the get-go.
So I think that anyone who claims to be “pro-life” should vote for Barack Obama, because he is a candidate who is, in his own way, for life.
I will leave you with this thought: My ideal society is not one in which abortion is illegal, but one in which it does not need to be illegal."
Rhys, here are two pro-life sites that debunk the falsehood that abortions went down under Clinton and up under Bush. The exact opposite is the case (just as one would expect):
http://www.lifenews.com/nat4342.html
http://www.nrlc.org/news/2005/
NR...creaseMyth.html
"Frank Schaeffer: the son of the famous evangelical writer Francis Schaeffer, now an Orthodox Christian, and one who had been (I thought) staunchly pro-life, supported Obama."
Frank is an angry man who write some agnostic sounding things these days.
cf. http://www.christianitytoday.com...8/002/
1.32.html
Franky is angry and contrarian. No better way to get back at the old man - who fathered the Evangelical pro-life movement - than this. Well, except maybe by writing another smearing tell-all about the parents.
Pray for Frank.
Wow, psycho's like you sill exist. I am amazed.
Yes, Antony, and there are millions of us "psycho's" (sic).
You dishonor your namesake, St. Anthony of Padua.
I wonder if Antony would consider it “psychotic” to publish photographs of people killed in war, or to make movies that depict graphic violence.
How dare we show abortion for what it is! That's a naughty no-no. We can only show war atrocities and starving children in Africa and homeless derelicts, and horrific racist lynchings and burnings from the past, etc. But aborted babies? Nope, we can't ever do that, because it is extremist emotionalism, you see . . .
Dave,
Read [Frank Schaeffer’s] own ultra-absurd rationale…
Wow! I read it, but could scarcely believe what I was reading! Let’s hear him again:
“Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the intrinsic worth of each individual is celebrated. A leader who believes in hope, the future, trying to save our planet and providing a just and good life for everyone is someone who is actually pro-life.”
Obama is “actually pro-life??”
Dear God!
But what to say? Surely we've come to quite a pass when “pro-lifers” (so-called), can make such unbelievable kinds of statements! And sadly, such kinds of statements are by no means uncommon these days. But who would have ever imagined?
I’m reminded of those haunting words of Yeats' well known poem, The Second Coming:
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity....
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand....
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The...d_Coming_(poem)
Well, perhaps a bit dramatic, but still, something to think about. But perhaps we should listen to Augustine, speaking of hard times in his own day.
“Brothers and sisters, everyday there is grumbling against God: ‘The times are bad, and the times are hard.’ It’s the trifles we were talking about that are taking a beating – ‘bad times, hard times, grievous times’ – and yet shows are still being exhibited! They are what’s bad, they are what’s grievous; let them get them straightened out. You say the times are hard? How much harder are you, failing to use the hard times to straighten yourself out! Such vain, crazy processions still flourishing, people still agog for such frivolities! There’s simply no end to cupidity, no pauses even to its workings….
- Sermon 114B:14, Works III/11, p. 112.
“My brothers and sisters, let us start going straight. Look, the times will soon get better, and lo and behold they will do so right now…{42} – ibid., p. 113.
“Don’t hope for times of any sort, except the sort that can be read about in the gospel. I won’t tell you what sort they are; copies of the Lord’s gospels are on sale all the time, the reader reads out from them. Buy one for yourself, and just you read it when you’ve got the time; or rather, make sure you get the time, time better spent on this, after all, than on those frivolities. Read what sort of times are foretold until the end or the world, and believe what you read, {45} don’t kid yourself. It’s not because Christ has come that the times are bad; but it’s because they were hard and bad that he came, in order to provide comfort and consolation.” - ibid., p.113.
Notes:
42. He doesn’t mean it, of course; he is just supposing.
45. He actually says, “Believe yourself.” The assumption behind this is that you would be reading the book aloud, even if you were alone, an
...even if you were alone, and so you are being told to believe your own voice. Most of his audience were illiterate, of course. This exhortation to them to by copies of the gospels and read for themselves just indicates that, as usual, he was addressing himself primarily to the better off, and thus more educated, members of his congregation.
And in another sermon, Augustine has a few words which I believe would find a ready application to our current political / social scene:
“Many people are endowed with eloquence, and are bad, and they make use of this very eloquence in running rings round many others and defrauding them, and in seeking secular power for themselves. All such people are to be condemned, but still they are human beings.” – Sermon 374:4:1, Works, III/11, p. 394. Date: 409.
“A sharp mind is a great good, but still the sort that the good can use well and the bad badly; it’s not yet a good by which you can become good. All the perversities of all errors, all sects, preaching deviant morals and ungodliness, {16} have had as their authors men of great brilliance. They weren’t the brain-children of any sort of men, they were started by men of the sharpest intelligence.” –Ibid., sec. 5:2, pp. 394-395.
Note 16: Omnes sectae praevaricationis et impietatis; by the former sort, preaching deviant morals, he is likely to have had pagan philosophical schools in mind like those of the Epicureans and Cynics; by the latter, teaching ungodliness, impiety, Christian heresies.
The Works of Saint Augustine, Newly Discovered Sermons, Sermons, III/11, 1997, ISBN 1565481038
Mr. Armstonrg, after reading this article I have what I have always known about the man confirmed beyond reasonable doubt. However since I am not American and therefore could not take part in the election, I could only watch desperatly from over the Atlantic.
He has been elected, nothing can change that now, but how should one confront the issue from the Orthodox Christian perspective? Especially when you're (My) close circle is completly in favor of him and is most ignorant of what he actually stands for?
Hello Dave,
In light of the recent American election I was having a civilized debate with one of my peers who is pro-abortion. The whole thing was progressing quite respectfully until I brought up the disturbing subject of partial birth abortion. When I began to describe the process by which it is done she denied it totally, and, when I replied that I along with many others had seen images of the proceidure she remarked that the "Pro-life people" were simply " picking and choosing which pictures of abortion to display, and that they only chose the most gruesome exeptions when in fact it is quite humane." According to her they did thid for simple shock apeal.
Now in a normal situation I would simply dismiss this. However the central argument to her thinking is that if anything like this comes from a pro-life or Catholic source then it "must" be biased. Is there any way you suggest in which I could crush this reasoning?
Thanks,
Phil | 11.11.08 - 2:14 pm | #
Here is a detailing of a description of the gruesome procedure by the abortionist who devised it, presented in the congressional record (which your friend can try to deny if she wishes):
http://www.pregnantpause.org/abo...ort/
haskpap.htm
Here's another discussion of it on a "neutral" site: "ReligiousTolerance.Org" from all perspectives:
http://www.religioustolerance.or...org/
abo_pba.htm
Wikipedia devotes a very extensive page to the murder procedure, with extensive references, that she would be hard put to deny:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Int..._and_extraction
"AbortionFacts.com" offers more info:
http://www.abortionfacts.com/
par...rtial_birth.asp
NPR devoted a program to it:
http://www.npr.org/templates/
sto...storyId=6424425
So did PBS:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/l...tion_11-
05.html
How much more proof does she need to know that this horrendous thing existed before it was banned?
Hi Phil,
Especially when you're (My) close circle is completly in favor of him and is most ignorant of what he actually stands for?
All we can do is educate people. Time is on our side. His extremism will definitely come out as he governs, just as it did with Slick Willie. That will be our biggest advantage. It's one thing to propagandize during a campaign: quite another to govern in the real world. Liberalism always fails. So he either fails, or he actually moves to the center: if only on pragmatic grounds. Either way, we come out ahead. But many thousands more babies will die, and there is little we can do about that now. That's the saddest thing of all, and it was made inevitable once again, by ignorant, inconsistent, compromised Christians (including lots of dumbbell, disobedient Catholics) who put this man into office.
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