Friday, November 07, 2008

Presidential abortion

I had someone tell me again yesterday that they didn't understand how a Christian could vote for Obama, because of his stance on abortion. You know, maybe I'm just stupid, but I don't get this. I mean, I can understand that someone wanted McCain to be president and not Obama - I have absolutely no problem with that. But I DO NOT understand how people can say a Christian shouldn't have voted for Obama because of the abortion issue. And I'm not trying to be combative or argumentative, but... really... I don't understand.

For starters, I don't think anyone should vote for a president on the basis of one single issue. That seems irresponsible to me. But maybe more importantly, though... if a person is so against abortion (and I am certainly not in favor of abortions - as were neither presidential candidate), can someone please tell me what McCain planned to do to reduce or stop abortions? I'm serious. What was his plan? As far as I know all he did was say he was pro-life, but he had no intention of changing any abortion laws or doing anything to help reduce the number of abortions. Obama at least had a plan to try to reduce the number of abortions - which I linked to before in this article.

So, could someone please set me straight; or quit saying I can't be a Christian because I supported Obama.

Btw, I will be traveling and might not have a chance to check this for a couple of days. maybe.

5 comments:

MR said...

I think I know what they're thinking, although taking it out on you is kind of silly.

Obama is going to be replacing Supreme Court judges as they retire over the next four years. Now that Obama has won he can install more liberal judges that align with the democratic party. This makes it much more unlikely that the abortion precedent case Roe vs. Wade and subsequent laws will be overturned at any point--this is a target goal of a large percentage of religious institutions who think killing at either end of the spectrum is wrong, abortion and capital punishment.

And if you ask them about abortion as "one issue" they will tell you that all other issues hinge on that, i.e.-what does it matter how someone feels about the economy if they don't exist?

I've completely had this conversation.

dan said...

Well, I can understand this viewpoint. But I heard McCain flat out say to a national audience during the debates that he would NOT appoint Supreme Court judges on the basis of their beliefs in this regard. So that's what has me puzzled.

Rick said...

But what about Poland? Enjoy your time away, you need it.

Tom said...

The supreme court issue is about whether the judges are going to be activists or show judicial restraint. An activist will take law and basically create new law that was never intended by the law makers. In the abortion issue, States were making laws against abortion. Then the Supreme Court ruled in RvW that those laws violated a persons right to privacy. The argument is that when the lawmakers made the law about the right to privacy they had no intention of saying you could not make a law against abortion. But an activist believes there job is to apply the principle to new issues. If they show judicial restraint they would say that it is up to the congress to make the new laws for new issues.

For me, I want judicial restraint because I think it makes it possible for the supreme court to truly serve as a check and balance. A lot of Christians don't understand this and what they really want is activist judges who rule on the conservative side of issues which has happened in the past.

In the recent past the Democratic party has favored liberal activist judges and justices. Republicans would claim they favor judicial restraint though many would argue that they prefer conservative activism. In any case, the charge against you is unfair because you could easily say the same thing about a number of other issues. As for me, I'll just pick one of your many other flaws to harangue you with. :)

Tom said...

Oops, I probably wasn't clear. You can have an opinion on either side of the abortion issue and still show judicial restraint. That would be why McCain could say that he wouldn't use the abortion issue has a litmus test. The thought is that he would have still chosen justices that showed restraint.