During the last few weeks of the 2008 US presidential campaign, I posted thoughts on what seemed
most important to me, in terms of the positions and objectives of the two major
candidates, their parties… and of my own.
As a registered Democrat, just-about-always voting straight-ticket
over the years, I favored Obama without reserve. And I recognized the conflict
between my commitment against abortion, and the Democratic Party's embracing
and enshrining of that asserted "right".
I settled the conflict for myself by looking beyond – arguably, now,
overlooking –
that issue, and looked rather to what my hope was: that he and his team would
see to the needs of the poor, the un(der)employed, the un(der)insured, and all
those people – here and beyond our borders – so ignored and plowed over by the
outward-bound Cheney-and-Bush-Jr. administration.
That was the sugar-coating to my tacitly giving the Democratic
Party permission to make and keep abortion available to all, since at the same
time the Obama administration would be fixing up and cleaning up our nation and
our world. Right?
I was wrong.
In my postings, I noted honestly that wiser heads than mine had
come down very differently on the scale from where I had settled, and
specifically regarding abortion. And I'd already noticed the disparity in the
number of deaths: at the time, some four thousand dead American servicemen and
-women in Iraq over five years – yet three thousand unarmed American children,
not even born yet, snuffed out... daily.
(That second number is from the CDC, as published in 2008,
and not pulled out of the air and padded by a knee-jerk alarmist site – and not
all states and reporting areas are even covered in those statistics. During the
1970-2005 span, thirty-six years, over thirty-eight million children
were dismembered and killed by abortion here in the United States, which works
out to over a million a year, twenty thousand a week, and just shy of three
thousand every day: 2,925 children.
(Bringing the numbers up through 2013 – the most recent that the CDC has
released – does reflect a decrease in the number of reported abortions, since
the peak in 1990 of over 1.4 million children killed legally in the United
States. That brings the average down to about 2,777 children aborted,
1970-2013; or 2,106 daily from 2006 to 2013. That's well over 2,100 too many.)
The meaningless, purposeless, idiotic war that George Jr. brought
to Iraq had by the end of his second term in office caused tens of thousands of
deaths to that country. And in the years since, especially beginning in 2010,
the number's grown to… is it a million now? More, in Iraq and Syria and beyond?
The mind reels. And there are millions more refugees. Thanks, George.
And in the United States alone, at least 664,435
babies were killed just in 2013.
Over the years since 2008, as I continued my growth in faith, I
continued also shining light into dark corners, including – of necessity – my
own inner corners. And I concluded that allowing even one not-yet-born baby to
be torn limb from limb, to have its spinal cord snipped, its skull crushed…
even just one… (let alone selling its pieces!) was not a fair trade-off for a
better economy and lip-service to empowerment of women (and of cowardly men…
myself included at the front of that line).
And in essence, it's not even a religious issue.
For me, it did take a deepening of faith to bring me to that point,
where I couldn't vote for that any longer. But sharing that square with me are
people of little faith, and of no faith. Have you heard of Nat Hentoff? Atheists Against Abortion? Pro-Life Humanists? Secular
Pro-Life?
No crucifix, cross, crescent, magen david, saffron robe, or golden
calf needed.
What's needed is heart, reason, and courage
at last to say No. Not Any More. Never.
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