The 35th anniversary of Roe v Wade is coming on January 22, 2008. How much do you really know about the decision? This web site will as you 12 questions about it and see how well you can do. I only got 7 out of 12 right (43rd percentile, apparently). Take it and post your scores here.
And this is a “closed book” test. No Googling while taking it.
Technorati Tags: Roe vs Wade, abortion
Mike Huckabee, candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, says that states shouldn’t be given the chance to determine their own abortion views.
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee rejects letting states decide whether to allow abortions, claiming the right to life is a moral issue not subject to multiple interpretations.
“It’s the logic of the Civil War,” Huckabee said Sunday, comparing abortion rights to slavery. “If morality is the point here, and if it’s right or wrong, not just a political question, then you can’t have 50 different versions of what’s right and what’s wrong.”
“For those of us for whom this is a moral question, you can’t simply have 50 different versions of what’s right,” he said in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
As much as I like Huckabee’s positions, I have to take issue with this. Government’s job is not to say what is right, but what is legal. Sometimes those two coincide, and sometimes they don’t.
I don’t believe that government should be the leading indicator of what’s right and wrong. It is very unfortunate that, for too many people, if it’s legal then it’s right. However, we can’t use that situation to then say that the government should pass laws against all that is immoral. This may sound funny to some, coming as it does from this evangelical Christian, but there are a couple of ideas at play here.
First is the idea that any set of rules made by men as to what is right and wrong is, by definition, going to be flawed. We can’t do it, and that’s taking on a job that God has exclusive rights to. Passing a low solely because it fits my moral code is, therefore, not a good idea. (Bear in mind that I’m emphasizing “solely”. We’ll come back to that.)
Second is the idea that my personal morality can inform what I want government to do. So based on my reading of the Bible, I may be against state-run gambling. My concern over taxing the foolish and government-sponsored co-dependence are moral stances, and they contribute to my opinion of laws regarding them. The Civil Rights laws of the 1960s were largely informed by a religious view of equality among people, equal in the sight of God. The laws were both morally right and a proper use of government in that they promoted liberty, equally, for all. For example, gambling promotes slavery to an addition.
So, while writing a pure moral code into a man-made document is doomed to fail, there is still a place for the Christian (and any religious person) in the creation of laws for the state or country. And while I appreciate Gov. Huckabee’s stance on the issue of abortion, I’m a little leery of him suggesting that the federal government should do it solely because it is right. That suggestion opens the door to abuses by more well-meaning politicians, and can result in less liberty as the government encroaches on the individual.
Now, having said all of that, I’m going to spin you in further circles and say that I do agree that the matter of abortion should be decided at the federal level. The reason is that protecting the right to life is a primary function of government, and without the right to life, no other rights can be enjoyed. Further, the Roe v Wade decision did nothing but muddy the waters as to what the Constitution really says about privacy. So yes, I think it should be overturned, and indeed I think abortion, as a matter of liberty, should be a matter of federal legislation.
But to do it because it is “right”, from a political standpoint, invites abuse. Government has a specific purpose and it should be used accordingly.
Technorati Tags: Mike Huckabee, abortion, gambling, church and state, morality, liberty
Russ Neglia of “Pro-Life Pro-Logic” has a post up about the church — Catholic and Protestant — and its reluctance to take a public stand for life. Aside from its own teachings to the faithful, Russ sizes up the church in general and finds it generally missing from the public square. As to why this is, Russ believes that “non-offense” and “tolerance” — that is, modern day political correctness — have seeped into the message and the preachers.
Calling something “wrong” is inherently offensive and intolerant. Can the church still do this?
Technorati Tags: abortion, pro-life, Christianity, Russell Neglia
Erick, a fellow Georgian at Redstate, runs the numbers.
In May of 2005, Georgia’s “Woman’s Right to Know Act” went into effect. As Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson explains, “The law required that doctors explain to women the medical risks of abortion and the status of life in their womb. They then had to wait 24 hours before proceeding with this critical decision.”
Two years have now passed since the Act went into effect. Again, from Senator Johnson
According to the Senate Majority Leader, Tommie Williams, we have already seen significant results in passing this critical pro-life legislation. Since it went into effect in May of 2005, the DHR reports that between 32,500 and 40,500 women have talked to their doctors about an abortion. After that conversation and the information provided to them by this law, approximately 10,000 chose to carry their babies to term. In addition, 2,300 minors considered terminating their pregnancy and only 500 did so. So we saved about 11,800 babies so far. Pretty neat, huh?
Much, much more than just “neat”, in my estimation. Erick credits the election of pro-life legislators with turning the tide, and I’d agree. Your vote counts, and your vote matters.
Technorati Tags: abortion, pro-life, State Senator Eric Johnson, Georgia, State Senator Tommie Williams, Woman’s Right to Know Act
Rudy Giuliani is not my first pick for Republican presidential nominee. He’s got some troubling stands on some issues that are important to me. But whatever those disconnects, he’d be far better than anything the Democrats have to offer.
Except that’s not what a number of conservative Christians are saying.
Some of the nation’s most politically influential conservative Christians, alarmed by the prospect of a Republican presidential nominee who supports abortion rights, are considering backing a third-party candidate.
More than 40 Christian conservatives attended a meeting Saturday in Salt Lake City to discuss the possibility, and planned more gatherings on how they should move forward, according to Richard A. Viguerie, the direct-mail expert and longtime conservative activist.
Rudy Giuliani, who supports abortion rights and gay rights, leads in national polls of the Republican presidential candidates. Campaigning in New Jersey on Monday, Giuliani brushed aside talk of an upstart effort by religious conservatives.
“I’m working on one party right now _ the Republican Party,” Giuliani said. “I believe we are reaching out very, very well to Republicans. The emphasis is on fiscal conservatism, which brings Republicans together.”
Other participants in the meeting included James Dobson, founder of the Focus on the Family evangelical ministry in Colorado Springs, Colo., and, according to Viguerie, Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, a conservative policy group in Washington.
The problem with this approach is that if they act on this threat, they ensure the election of someone even further from their beliefs than Rudy. And they have to know this, which means they’d rather have someone in Planned Parenthood’s back pocket, never mind all the other nanny-state, anti-growth policies that would get introduced and implemented, than someone with whom they could at least agree on most of the time. If you have a Republican in the White House, you at least have someone who’ll give conservative Christians a fair hearing rather than just lip service.
Betsy Newmark has a better suggestion.
There is a candidate in the race right now who fits all the needs of these cultural conservatives – Mike Huckabee. They could be mobilizing behind him. If Huckabee started moving in the polls and surpassing expectations in the early states, these conservatives might be able to convince Giuliani (if he were to win the nomination) to put Huckabee on the ticket to alleviate some of this cultural conservative angst.
How much influence a VP would have is a matter of debate, as Betsy notes, but rather than bailing out, engage.
Technorati Tags: Rudy Giuliani, Republican, Christian conservatives, Christian Right, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Richard A. Viguerie
Russ over at Pro-Life Pro-Logic had a post last month that covered the same topics as those in my response to Anne Rice. While mostly dealing with Christianity vs. the pro-choice viewpoint, he makes a very interesting and thought-provoking connection to the subject of charity to the poor.
The Left has, in my view, a totally one-sided view of poverty. They have abandoned one part of humanity – the unborn (the unseen), for the economically poor (the seen). Mary Meehan, in an article in “The Progressive” in 1980 stated it clearly: “the abortion issue, more than most, illustrates the occasional tendency of the Left to become so enthusiastic over what is called a “reform” that it forgets to think the issue through. It is ironic that so many on the Left have done on abortion what the conservatives and Cold War liberals did on Vietnam: They marched off in the wrong direction, to fight the wrong war, against the wrong people.”
That Christians would follow them off this cliff, given what should be a different view of God’s creation, makes no sense to me.
Technorati Tags: abortion, Christianity, poverty, Mary Meehan
This is the 2nd and final part of my analysis of an open letter from Anne Rice. Part 1 can be found here.
Abortion
Anne Rice spends most of her letter covering this issue, and she starts with an assertion that, to me, shows a lack of consideration of the history of the issue.
I want to add here that I am Pro-Life. I believe in the sanctity of the life of the unborn. Deeply respecting those who disagree with me, I feel that if we are to find a solution to the horror of abortion, it will be through the Democratic Party.
Ms. Rice does touch on these historical issues lightly later on, and I’ll hit them more in-depth then, but even looking at how the abortion issue generally falls between the parties today, I don’t see this as making sense. What I hear from Democrats are things like John Kerry with this sentiment:
I completely respect their views. I am a Catholic. And I grew up learning how to respect those views. But I disagree with them, as do many. I can’t legislate or transfer to another American citizen my article of faith. What is an article of faith for me is not something that I can legislate on somebody who doesn’t share that article of faith. I believe that choice is a woman’s choice. It’s between a woman, God and her doctor. That’s why I support that. I will not allow somebody to come in and change Roe v. Wade.
If one’s commitment to Christianity should be “absolute”, as Ms. Rice has said, there is a big problem with this statement, that is generally the line religious Democrats use when talking about abortion, and that is the canard about legislating one’s religious faith, or sometimes call ramming one’s religion down your throat. Civil rights are very much a moral issue, but does Sen. Kerry have the same problem with legislating that? No, he’s very willing to impose his view on KKK members, and rightly so. It’s right, it’s moral and it’s the law. Legislators all throughout our country’s history, and more so in our early history, based many of their decisions partly or mostly on their religious faith. This excuse is disingenuous.
Regarding Hillary Clinton, NARAL gave her a 100% score on her 2006 voting record (PDF), and she’s a big supporter of Roe v Wade. See here for other details. You won’t curb abortions by voting the way she does. Like her husband, she’ll talk the talk, but watch the way she votes.
When voting, as Ms. Rice says, “Conscience requires the Christian to vote as a Christian”. If there is a substantial difference between Ms. Rice’s vote and Sen. Kerry’s or Clinton’s vote, I’d like to know what she thinks it might be. Both votes affect more than just the voter, and one’s Christianity shouldn’t be compartmentalized between private and public life.
In one sense, votes by representatives will, to different extents, reflect the people represented rather than the representatives views. At the same time, by that very title, the representative represents their constituents views and values, and his or her own views are part of that; he or she was voted in partially or mostly because of their views. It’s certainly not always a perfect fit between the politician and the constituents, but Sen. Kerry’s statement takes his religious beliefs totally and completely out of the equation. If Democratic politicians, in general, can’t bring themselves to vote against abortion, how in the world they be better in stopping the horror of it?
Read the rest of this entry
James Taranto has given a name to the idea that the country is getting more and more anti-abortion partially due to abortion being legal. Calling it “The Roe Effect”, it postulates that since those who favor legal abortion are more likely to get one, and assuming children generally follow the political leanings of their parents, more abortion foes are being born than abortion advocates, and thus over time support for legal abortion will dwindle. (See the Wikipedia entry for links to other articles on this.)
After the Roe decision, it would take at least 18 years for the effect to start being seen, when the post-Roe kids were of voting age. However, there’s another trend occurring that may have an effect on American politics without the waiting period.
Blame Canada!
It may seem like a quiet country where not much happens besides ice hockey, curling and beer drinking. But our neighbor to the north is proving to be quite the draw for thousands of disgruntled Americans.
The number of U.S. citizens who moved to Canada last year hit a 30-year high, with a 20 percent increase over the previous year and almost double the number who moved in 2000.
In 2006, 10,942 Americans went to Canada, compared with 9,262 in 2005 and 5,828 in 2000, according to a survey by the Association for Canadian Studies.
According to this survey, the increase is mostly politically-related.
The current increase is fueled largely by social and political reasons, says [Jack] Jedwab [ACS’s executive director].
“Those who are coming have the highest level of education – these aren’t people who can’t get a job in the states,” he explains. “They’re coming because many of them don’t like the politics, the Iraq War and the security situation in the U.S. By comparison, Canada is a tension-free place. People feel safer.”
If most of these folks are generally Democrat voters, depending on the places and districts they moved from, over time this could also help swing American politics more to the right. 10,000 may not be enough to swing a presidential election, but a Senator here and a Congressman there would matter after a while.
So I’m going to coin a term here for what happens when liberals move to Canada and take their politics with them: The Roeaux Effect (pronounced “the roe effect”).
Aside from its effects on American politics, the article notes the reasons of a couple of the 10,000 emigrants, and they are indeed political and social. One person is Tom Kertes. One of his thoughts on the move gives a peek into the liberal mind and its thoughts about soaking off the money of others.
Kertes, who moved with his partner, is happy in his new home. “Canada is a really nice country. My mother is thinking about it. My stepfather has diabetes and has health issues. So, he’d be taken care of for free if he moved up here.”
Sure, his stepfather could go up and get it for free — really free — because he hasn’t paid in to the system for his whole life. He’d essentially be living off the “forced charity” (oxymoron) of others. And, of course, it all depends on how long he wants to wait for treatment.
And here’s another testimonial:
Jo Davenport, who wrote “The Canadian Way,” moved from Atlanta to Nova Scotia in December 2001. She also cites political reasons for her move, saying that she disagreed with the Bush administration’s decisions after 9/11.
“Things are totally different here because they care about their people here,” she says, explaining that she’s only been back home once or twice.
By December 2001, Iraq wasn’t even on the Congressional funding docket, so Ms. Davenport couldn’t even abide going after those who harbored bin Laden. Definitely a reliable Democrat vote gone north.
Her comment that “they care about people here” insinuates that they simply don’t here. Well, there are some folks who might think differently about that. Earlier in the article it adds just a bit of perspective.
Of course, those numbers are still outweighed by the number of Canadians going the other way. Yet, that imbalance is shrinking. Last year, 23,913 Canadians moved to the United States, a significant decrease from 29,930 in 2005.
So over twice as many people come here as go there every year. First of all, you’ll note that none of them were interviewed for the article. Secondly, if people here simply didn’t care, I daresay the numbers would be quite different. One wonders how many of them come here to escape the waiting lists in the Canadian health care system.
And it would be interesting to find out the political and social leanings of those folks. It could be that the Roeaux Effect is not just about the 10,000 going north, but also the 20,000 coming south. Again, no mention of that in the article.
So now I’m going to put out the call to whoever has the resources to do a study on the effect of immigration & emigration from & to Canada has on American politics. If you just read the ABC News report, you’d think quite a lot, based on the interviews. But then again, this is the MSM. There might be nothing to it.
Technorati Tags: Canada, immigration, US politics, Roe Effect, Roeaux Effect, James Taranto, Association for Canadian Studies, Jack Jedwab, socialized health care, Afghanistan, media bias
An extensive study of abortion views is highlighting a sea change in attitudes in the past 15 years.
Over 30,000 survey interviews were conducted in the state between 1992 and 2006. Participants were asked: “On the debate over abortion policy, do you consider yourself to be pro-life, pro-choice or somewhere in between?” Those who gave a definitive answer were then asked how strongly they held their view.
Results in 1992 were largely in step with what study authors Christopher Blunt and Fred Steeper call the “self-interest hypothesis.” Women and men under 30 were the most ardently “pro-choice” (39 percent) and the least likely to be strongly “pro-life”( 23 percent).
Today, by contrast, among the current generation of 18- to 29-year-olds, 36 percent say they are strongly “pro-life,” while just 18 percent say they are strongly “pro-choice,” the study authors said.
The trend was particularly evident among women in that age bracket. Forty 40 percent identify themselves as strongly “pro-life” and only 20 percent as strongly “pro-choice.”
The data reverses a two-to-one ratio that was evident in 1992, the study noted.
Technorati Tags: abortion, Overbrook Research, Christopher Blunt, Fred Steeper
Almost 5 and a half million have died during the Iraq war, and you hear virtually nothing about them on the news. They were not killed with guns, bombs, chemicals or nukes, but the mass destruction is real, all the same. And the killing continues day after day. If you really care about violence and deaths, this is where we should start.
Abortion as WMD may sound over-the-top, but consider that George Bush has been called the worst terrorist on the planet because of deaths one or two orders of magnitude lower than this. Some perspective is in order.
(Click on the graphic to be taken to a page with how the stats are arrived at.)
