April 13, 2008
Babies As Punishment
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From Senator Obama: “Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t’ want them punished …. With an STD.”
That’s punished with a baby, conception as a mistake.
The blogs and talk radio were all over the remark, of course, but it’s an indication of how protective the national media is of their chosen candidate that this disturbing comment went mostly unnoticed by them. After the initial outrage, nothing in the past two weeks. If words matter, as Obama has famously said, then “punished with a baby” should matter.
It does to me because I am pro-life. For two reasons:
One is my Catholicism. I remember sitting in Father Polini’s religion class as a sophomore at South Catholic High School in South Philadelphia back in the early ’50’s when he lectured about the inviolability of unborn life.
The second reason is logic. If something becomes a baby, it had to have begun as a baby. Not as a virtual baby or a potential baby — a real baby. It can be called a zygote, an embryo, a fetus or whatever — it still becomes a baby. My logic tells me that destroying it at any point along that continuum is destroying a life.
That said, I wouldn’t prevent a woman from having an abortion or support laws denying them that opportunity because my objections are based on a personal religious belief and a thought processes that are peculiarly mine, even though others might agree with them.
Science has been desperately trying to figure life out, researching virtual life, personhood, potential life, viable life and other definitions that attempt to describe this growing “object” within a woman’s belly.
Further, scientific research has demonstrated that half the “cellular material” at the very early stages of pregnancy becomes the placenta. So how much and what portion of that “material” is or isn’t “the baby?” I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows. God knows, but right now, He’s not telling.
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What we do know is that abortion is an emotionally devastating experience. Senator Obama’s characterization of a baby as “punishment” belies the gravity of the event. His remark reduces the creation of life to a bad act that merits punishment, not unlike robbing a bank or driving while drunk. Adding “the punishment of an STD,” makes equivalent in his mind the creation of life and the transmission of a disease.
Missing from Senator Obama’s comment is the idea that a pregnancy represents life. It demonstrates a mindset that abortion is nothing more than an expedient solution to a life-altering decision, just a gambit that reduces abortion to a cut-and-dried response to a difficult situation. Most importantly, it eliminates the critical partner to anyone’s behavior — its consequences.
There are no consequences in Obama’s conclusion because the consequence is eliminated. The “sinner” experiences no consequences, the baby does. Obama’s view represents a mindset that is unfortunately here to stay, engraved in the stone of secular thinking and would be a rallying point from this potential next President.
Probably there are some who consider abortion merely as a fail/safe for careless sex, as an out clause or loophole. I expect that they’re in the minority. The decision to abort or not to abort is a monumental one, emotionally complex, with significant impact on the mother and father, her family and friends.
Sadly, the attitude of some pro-lifers has been the same as Senator Obama’s, but for a different reason. To them, bringing the baby to term is the punishment, the living consequence of the sinful act of fornication. The woman, too often a teenager, got what she deserved. There is little Christianity or compassion to that, and it seems no different an attitude from Senator Obama’s.
The theoretical and religious preachments of the politician and pastor ignore the tortured truth of an often frightened young girl faced with momentous choices that may or may not include parents and/or boyfriend (if he even cares): Have the baby and miss school and perhaps never graduate, get married prematurely, maybe never graduate and probably raise a child in poverty, have the abortion and kill a living thing, or have the baby and give it up for adoption.
Senator Obama’s comment, however, is more ominous than a righteous pro-lifer’s retributive cry for punishment and runs deeper than affirming a woman’s “reproductive rights.”
The year after the “Born Alive Infants Protection Act” became federal law in 2002, an identical law was considered in a committee of the Illinois Senate. Both laws mandated health care providers to care for a living baby that survived a botched abortion and not, well, there is no pretty way to describe the alternative – to dispose of it. The Illinois version was defeated with the committee’s chairman, Senator Obama, leading the opposition, in effect voting once in 2003 and twice before that, for infanticide.
We will soon be voting for a nominee for president. One can vote with a clear conscience for someone who is pro-choice. Can our conscience be as clear for someone who denies a living baby the right to life? Not mine. How about yours!? This is a punishment too far.
Comments(10)
I’m with you — how can i in good conscience vote somebody who kills babies. Or do I just want someone who can fix the economy and put a few extra dollars in my pocket?
Thanks, John. But I don’t think Obama has a clue about how to fix the economy and his policies certainly won’t put those extra dollars in our pockets.
Babies are not punishment. Barack Obama is much smarter than that. He chose the wrong sequence of words, don’t crucify the man. How many abused, neglected, abandoned babies are there in the world? How many productive people come from that scenario? I have found that the same people who want “The Right To Life” are the same people who support a rogue president who sacrifices our sons and daughters to the welfare of the “Billies” (his words) and the murder of over 100.000 citizens of another country (MANY are babies!), who worship the same God we do.
Are you aware of the rate of suicide of our soldiers who are currently in the military after they go to Iraq? Do you care about them? These are FULL GROWN men who have productive lives and families, who feel so much despair from the actions the Right Wing has ordered them to do, that they kill themselves. Go look the number up, it will shock you into silence. Suffice to say, it far outstrips the 4,000+ casualties in battle. DEFEND THEM. GET OUR COUNTRY TO HELP THEM! THEY ARE US! Stop talking about babies that are unborn and not part of this world yet. Start the dialogue about how we, as human beings, can love the people here, now. And maybe, just maybe, we won’t need abortions anymore, because we take care of our people, not throw them into the meatgrinder after they are born, believing that is “Right”. Remember, GOD will judge us all, especially those who judge others here on earth. It is not your job. Love is the true and final answer. And that is the message of Jesus. Forgiveness. Not persecution, like you thrive on. Forgive and love and all will be ok eventually. You just watch. Violence begets violence unless you are enlightened.
-peace
Do you support organizations that help young mothers with unplanned children? What I find so hypocritical about Christian right-to-lifers is their intolerance for abortion coupled with their intolerance for welfare programs. If you do not support abortion, you most certainly should support programs that provide young mothers with a financial and emotional support system to take care of an unplanned child.
Sally … of course. And how can you make a blanket indictment of people you don’t know, never knew and probably won’t know about their feelings towards welfare programs?
No, I don’t support programs that provide young mothers with financial support for an unplanned child. If it happens, it should happen voluntarily, through church or family.
Education and birth control information is what I’ll support. You don’t want a kid, don’t fuck. I won’t want to pay for your roll in the hay.
they feel like they are entitled. i think family should take care of their own mistakes. mine did with all my medical costs through the years. my dad worked very hard with two jobs and a 20 acre farm and he kept food on the table just fine. they never st foot in the welfare office because of the high cost of my medical needs
and we still have a community pot today
Laura, there are many like you, people who held the course on their own, without expecting entitlements. I’m all for helping the less fortunate. We NEED to. It’s the moral thing thing to do. But that’s what private organizations and churches are for and they often did the job well. But the secular exclusion of the Church from our daily discourse has diminished their effectiveness and importance.
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Hi,
Where did you get this photograph of babies? It’s wonderful. I’m looking for a photo of babies with a white background for a book I’m writing. Can you tell me where you got it?