Remember during the election when some guy posted a study that said abortion rates had gone up under the Bush administration? Well, it isn't true. According to a factcheck.org article, abortion rates have continued to drop under the Bush Administration, though at a smaller rate than in previous years. 

From an article in the LA Times this little excerpt nearly bowled me over:

Sarah, 23, says it never occurred to her to use birth control, though she has been sexually active for six years. When she became pregnant this fall, Sarah, who works in real estate, was in the midst of planning her wedding. "I don't think my dress would have fit with a baby in there," she says.

I'm speechless. 

Lore linked to an article on the current Brouhaha raging over Sarah Palin. Reading it I couldn't help but agree with much of what author Camille Paglia writes. But it wasn't until the end that I nearly stopped dead in my tracks.

She writes,

Let's take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body.

...

But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, "Sexual Personae,") has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature's fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive.

Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman's body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman's entrance into society and citizenship.

Emphasis mine.

Its shocking. And I can literally not wrap my mind around how someone can freely admit that abortion is indeed murder, the "extermination of the powerless by the powerful" and then fiercely defend her right to do just that, or in her own word, her right to "unconstrained access to abortion on demand".

*sigh*

She did make some astute observations. Note the following:

Over the Labor Day weekend, with most of the big enchiladas of the major media on vacation, the vacuum was filled with a hallucinatory hurricane in the leftist blogosphere, which unleashed a grotesquely lurid series of allegations, fantasies, half-truths and outright lies about Palin. What a tacky low in American politics -- which has already caused a backlash that could damage Obama's campaign. When liberals come off as childish, raving loonies, the right wing gains. I am still waiting for substantive evidence that Sarah Palin is a dangerous extremist. I am perfectly willing to be convinced, but right now, she seems to be merely an optimistic pragmatist like Ronald Reagan, someone who pays lip service to religious piety without being in the least wedded to it. I don't see her arrival as portending the end of civil liberties or life as we know it.

She notes, and I agree, that the same tactics have been used on Obama. Sometimes I just wish people would refrain from hysterical and grossly ignorant gossip that frequently flies willy nilly through the media (all forms, mainstream and private [blogs, i'm looking at you]) during the political seasons. I take that back. Not sometimes, all the time. But that's an absurd request. You can't expect grown adults to behave maturely. History teaches us that.

It is nice to see Palin's star on the rise, and its true her media splash has all but eclipsed Obama. Which is good, because campaigns are won and lost on media coverage, a sad affair, but true. Words need not be true to be effective, and the vast portion of information delivered to us by the "media" is misleading at best and false at worst.

Oh well. Lord come quickly...

 

Its going to be a long winter. well. maybe it won't, but right now, in the middle of the season I love best, I'm beginning to feel the dread of a long winter.

I wish I understood how I felt. I'm not usually short on words to describe my feeling, being the kind of rare individual who spends more time than is possibly healthy examining his own soul. Its a complex knot.

There are a number of issues I'm currently feeling strongly over. So I'm going to list them here:

1) Two of my best friends are going through difficult times right now. A lot has changed for them in the last year. They've grown in huge ways spiritually and when that kind of growth happens, its usually because of hard hard circumstances emotionally and physically. I've watched from a distance while they have walked though it, and I haven't said much. I frequently don't say much. Its a fault of mine, not wanting to tread lightly on matters I feel are tremendously serious. Their circumstances remind me of what a member of my family had to go through, and I hope they know that this kind of tempering is something to cherish. Its far far worse to be comfortable, because comfort changes little. I hope they know that I am praying for them, that even if I don't speak up often, they are frequently on my mind.

2) Speaking of comfort, that's where I am. The last year had been a period of growth for me. Rich growth. Areas of my life that God had been quietly teaching me about had underwent maturing, and there were exciting things happening. I had grown accustomed to the rich emotional content of it all. Then, in the last two months, things settled down to the generic rhythm of life I've had for the last 6 years. And I miss desperately the feeling that God is up to something. Right now I feel unable to stand, unable to grasp His promises. Everything is colored by this feeling I can't shake that nothing matters. I have brief moments of joy, but they don't last.

It isn't that I believe God isn't going to do something great. But right now, I can't see any farther than the next work day. Few of the things I know to be good in my life are generating the kind of excitement I'm craving, and I'm feeling, in general, emotionless.

Its hard to trust when you can't see anything but gray skies ahead. Its easier to deal with the discomfort now if you know something better is coming, but the disconcerting emptiness ahead is sucking the life out of me.


3) This election cycle has been particularly frustrating. Its like watching a train wreck happen, slowly, knowing things are going to crash and being unable to stop it.

Politicians lie. This is a fundamental truth. Its sad, but true, of the populace (i include myself in this) that we care more about image than substance. This election is as much or more a popularity content than it is a vetting of qualified candidates for the highest office of the United States. Watching the candidates is like watching high schoolers and their juvenile posturing. Its depressing.

It has been particularly frustrating to me to see good friends, christian friends, embrace the marketing. I'll say it openly. Obama is not a friend to Christians. Not politically. For all his talk, he is the same old liberal agenda, with the one exception that he is much much better at speaking than any other liberal for a long time.

He has a silver tongue and because most people tend to base their decisions on the thin substance of speeches and words (which are worth less on election day than a junkies promises) he has gained quite the religious following. He sells hope, preaching a peculiar kind or secular religion. But unlike Christianity, whose hope is grounded firmly on the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, Obama stands mostly on little else than his ability to make a tired agenda look sweet and appealing.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think he's the antichrist. I don't think he's a terrorist. I don't really buy into the conspiracies or the hype McCain's campaign or the well and not so well meaning supporters of McCain send out. But Obama, regardless of how he chooses to spin it, and I trust nothing a candidate says while running for office, votes pro choice, believes that the government should be more involved in our personal lives, and thinks the government should be the agent in this country for giving of one mans wealth to another.

In the end, no matter how nuanced and careful or thoughtful he might appear to be, he chooses to deny the rights of millions of innocents. A man who can turn his back on those most in need of his help, is a man I don't trust. He can say he cares, but really, how much are words really worth?

I realize this screed isn't exhaustive. I simply don't have time to spend days compiling a dissertation and trying to tease out the truth of hundreds of pages and hours of talk by the candidate to proffer you unequivocal proof. And that frustrates me too.

The next two presidents of the united states will be in office for a total of 8 years. 8 Years. But far more important than that are the 2-3 supreme court justices those two presidents will appoint. Justices who will be in office for 30 years. I cannot understate the importance of this. I am not happy with McCain. But he has consistently, over 30 years, voted pro life. He is our best chance of getting conservative justices appointed. Justices who will defend the constitutional right of the unborn to live, who will stand against the erosion of states rights. Long after the war and the economy are over, those judges will be making an impact.

I could go on and on about this, but will spare you the repetition

For all my frustration, I want my christian friends who disagree with me, and even my non christian friends to know that I do not take this as cause to change how I feel about them. I'm not going to castigate you for not agreeing with me. Even if you are wrong wrong wrong. ;)

There was I think, another thing going on. But I can't remember it. Another time perhaps.


 

Public Discourse - Obama's Abortion Extremism, by Robert George is a great article, articulating much better than I ever could, why voting for Obama for President is a patently unwise action to take if you wish to preserve the sanctity of human life. Below is a quote from the last paragraph, but please take the time to read the full article, which documents where Obama, by his actions, stands.

What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama's America is one in which being human just isn't enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama's America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: "that question is above my pay grade." It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator's pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then.

 

Lose-Lose on Abortion: Obama's threat to Catholic hospitals and their very serious counterthreat.

If the Freedom of Choice Act passes Congress, and that's a big if, Obama has promised to sign it the second it hits his desk. (Here he is at a Planned Parenthood Action Fund event in 2007, vowing, "The first thing I'd do as president is, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'd do.") Though it's often referred to as a mere codification of Roe, FOCA, as currently drafted, actually goes well beyond that: According to the Senate sponsor of the bill, Barbara Boxer, in a statement on her Web site, FOCA would nullify all existing laws and regulations that limit abortion in any way, up to the time of fetal viability. Laws requiring parental notification and informed consent would be tossed out. While there is strenuous debate among legal experts on the matter, many believe the act would invalidate the freedom-of-conscience laws on the books in 46 states. These are the laws that allow Catholic hospitals and health providers that receive public funds through Medicaid and Medicare to opt out of performing abortions. Without public funds, these health centers couldn't stay open; if forced to do abortions, they would sooner close their doors. Even the prospect of selling the institutions to other providers wouldn't be an option, the bishops have said, because that would constitute "material cooperation with an intrinsic evil."

 

Mexico City Policy - Voluntary Population Planning

What it does: "The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2151b(f)(1)), prohibits nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that receive Federal funds from using those funds "to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning, or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions." The August 1984 announcement by President Reagan of what has become known as the "Mexico City Policy" directed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to expand this limitation and withhold USAID funds from NGOs that use non-USAID funds to engage in a wide range of activities, including providing advice, counseling, or information regarding abortion, or lobbying a foreign government to legalize or make abortion available."

What Obama Said:"These excessively broad conditions on grants and assistance awards are unwarranted. Moreover, they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning programs in foreign nations. Accordingly, I hereby revoke..."

So now my tax dollars are being used to pay for and promote the practice of abortion in foreign countries. *awesome*.