[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: Barrie Hussein most extreme abortoholic for prez ever; Catholics cannot vote for Barrie H sez bishop
PFLI PharmAid Center
pfli at pfli.org
Wed Oct 15 19:54:23 MDT 2008
*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 15 Oct 2008 AD
*
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Is that one of those freebies from ACORN?
**
10-15-2008
* Print This Article
<http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000008450.cfm#>
* Forward to a Friend
<javascript:%20openWindow(%20RefUrl,%20StyleSheet,%20LogoImage%20);>
1
Commentary: Obama's Abortion Extremism
by Robert George
His views on life issues mark him as the most extreme pro-abortion
candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.
Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the
office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme
pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most
extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the
United States Congress.
Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals --- even self-identified
pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals --- who aggressively promote Obama's
candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life
point of view.
What is going on here?
I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama's self-identified
pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly
unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what
they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama's abortion
extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as 'pro-abortion'
rather than 'pro-choice.'
According to the standard argument for the distinction between these
labels, nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without
abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to
have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find
themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when
having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if
abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as
widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with
taxpayers' money.
The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift
to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans:
slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have
preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition.
Such people --- Thomas Jefferson was one --- reasoned that, given the
world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as
it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of
abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other
businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who
argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit
profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal
opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing
slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn't think
anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that
slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given
constitutional protection.
Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as 'pro-choice'?
Of course we would not. It wouldn't matter to us that they were
'personally opposed' to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were
'unnecessary,' or that they wouldn't dream of forcing anyone to own
slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said
'Against slavery? Don't own one.' We would observe that the fundamental
divide is between people who believe that law and public power should
permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust
choice that should be prohibited.
Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be
a morally meaningful distinction between being 'pro-abortion' and being
'pro-choice.' Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama
certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does
not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority
should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly
pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally
permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden
has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby
leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If
we stretch things to create a meaningful category called 'pro-choice,'
then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on
occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate
deliberate feticide.
The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports
legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects
pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not
necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape
or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal
law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, "forces about half the
women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies
to term and bear children against their wishes instead." In other words,
a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated
in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to
reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are
not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them)
would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama
even more than they do his running mate.
But this barely scratches the surface of Obama's extremism. He has
promised that 'the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom
of Choice Act' (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a
federally guaranteed "fundamental right" to abortion through all nine
months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of
Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, 'a
right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined
'health' reasons.' In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every
existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental
consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding
restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life
citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being
forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their
jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed
with approval that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws
[and] policies."
It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many 'pro-choice' legislators, opposed
the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois
legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld
legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby
conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a 'punishment' that she
should not endure. He has stated that women's equality requires access
to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding
from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to
abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing
'pro-choice' about that.
But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life
members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the
Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life,
meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing
crisis pregnancies. In fact, Obama has opposed key provisions of the
Act, including providing coverage of unborn children in the State
Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), and informed consent for
women about the effects of abortion and the gestational age of their
child. This legislation would not make a single abortion illegal. It
simply seeks to make it easier for pregnant women to make the choice not
to abort their babies. Here is a concrete test of whether Obama is
"pro-choice" rather than pro-abortion. He flunked. Even Senator Edward
Kennedy voted to include coverage of unborn children in S-CHIP. But
Barack Obama stood resolutely with the most stalwart abortion advocates
in opposing it.
It gets worse yet. In an act of breathtaking injustice which the Obama
campaign lied about until critics produced documentary proof of what he
had done, as an Illinois state senator Obama opposed legislation to
protect children who are born alive, either as a result of an
abortionist's unsuccessful effort to kill them in the womb, or by the
deliberate delivery of the baby prior to viability. This legislation
would not have banned any abortions. Indeed, it included a specific
provision ensuring that it did not affect abortion laws. (This is one of
the points Obama and his campaign lied about until they were caught.)
The federal version of the bill passed unanimously in the United States
Senate, winning the support of such ardent advocates of legal abortion
as John Kerry and Barbara Boxer. But Barack Obama opposed it and worked
to defeat it. For him, a child marked for abortion gets no
protection-even ordinary medical or comfort care-even if she is born
alive and entirely separated from her mother. So Obama has favored
protecting what is literally a form of infanticide.
You may be thinking, it can't get worse than that. But it does.
For several years, Americans have been debating the use for biomedical
research of embryos produced by in vitro fertilization (originally for
reproductive purposes) but now left in a frozen condition in
cryopreservation units. President Bush has restricted the use of federal
funds for stem-cell research of the type that makes use of these embryos
and destroys them in the process. I support the President's restriction,
but some legislators with excellent pro-life records, including John
McCain, argue that the use of federal money should be permitted where
the embryos are going to be discarded or die anyway as the result of the
parents' decision. Senator Obama, too, wants to lift the restriction.
But Obama would not stop there. He has co-sponsored a bill-strongly
opposed by McCain-that would authorize the large-scale industrial
production of human embryos for use in biomedical research in which they
would be killed. In fact, the bill Obama co-sponsored would effectively
require the killing of human beings in the embryonic stage that were
produced by cloning. It would make it a federal crime for a woman to
save an embryo by agreeing to have the tiny developing human being
implanted in her womb so that he or she could be brought to term. This
"clone and kill" bill would, if enacted, bring something to America that
has heretofore existed only in China-the equivalent of legally mandated
abortion. In an audacious act of deceit, Obama and his co-sponsors
misleadingly call this an anti-cloning bill. But it is nothing of the
kind. What it bans is not cloning, but allowing the embryonic children
produced by cloning to survive.
Can it get still worse? Yes.
Decent people of every persuasion hold out the increasingly realistic
hope of resolving the moral issue surrounding embryonic stem-cell
research by developing methods to produce the exact equivalent of
embryonic stem cells without using (or producing) embryos. But when a
bill was introduced in the United States Senate to put a modest amount
of federal money into research to develop these methods, Barack Obama
was one of the few senators who opposed it. From any rational vantage
point, this is unconscionable. Why would someone not wish to find a
method of producing the pluripotent cells scientists want that all
Americans could enthusiastically endorse? Why create and kill human
embryos when there are alternatives that do not require the taking of
nascent human lives? It is as if Obama is opposed to stem-cell research
unless it involves killing human embryos.
This ultimate manifestation of Obama's extremism brings us back to the
puzzle of his pro-life Catholic and Evangelical apologists.
They typically do not deny the facts I have reported. They could not;
each one is a matter of public record. But despite Obama's injustices
against the most vulnerable human beings, and despite the extraordinary
support he receives from the industry that profits from killing the
unborn (which should be a good indicator of where he stands), some Obama
supporters insist that he is the better candidate from the pro-life
point of view.
They say that his economic and social policies would so diminish the
demand for abortion that the overall number would actually go
down-despite the federal subsidizing of abortion and the elimination of
hundreds of pro-life laws. The way to save lots of unborn babies, they
say, is to vote for the pro-abortion-oops! 'pro-choice'-candidate. They
tell us not to worry that Obama opposes the Hyde Amendment, the Mexico
City Policy (against funding abortion abroad), parental consent and
notification laws, conscience protections, and the funding of
alternatives to embryo-destructive research. They ask us to look past
his support for /Roe v. Wade/, the Freedom of Choice Act, partial-birth
abortion, and human cloning and embryo-killing. An Obama presidency,
they insist, means less killing of the unborn.
This is delusional.
We know that the federal and state pro-life laws and policies that Obama
has promised to sweep away (and that John McCain would protect) save
thousands of lives every year. Studies conducted by Professor Michael
New and other social scientists have removed any doubt. Often enough,
the abortion lobby itself confirms the truth of what these scholars have
determined. Tom McClusky has observed that Planned Parenthood's own
statistics show that in each of the seven states that have FOCA-type
legislation on the books, "abortion rates have increased while the
national rate has decreased." In Maryland, where a bill similar to the
one favored by Obama was enacted in 1991, he notes that "abortion rates
have increased by 8 percent while the overall national abortion rate
decreased by 9 percent." No one is really surprised. After all, the
message clearly conveyed by policies such as those Obama favors is that
abortion is a legitimate solution to the problem of unwanted pregnancies
-- so clearly legitimate that taxpayers should be forced to pay for it.
But for a moment let's suppose, against all the evidence, that Obama's
proposals would reduce the number of abortions, even while subsidizing
the killing with taxpayer dollars. Even so, many more unborn human
beings would likely be killed under Obama than under McCain. A Congress
controlled by strong Democratic majorities under Harry Reid and Nancy
Pelosi would enact the bill authorizing the mass industrial production
of human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed. As
president, Obama would sign it. The number of tiny humans created and
killed under this legislation (assuming that an efficient human cloning
technique is soon perfected) could dwarf the number of lives saved as a
result of the reduced demand for abortion-even if we take a delusionally
optimistic view of what that number would be.
Barack Obama and John McCain differ on many important issues about which
reasonable people of goodwill, including pro-life Americans of every
faith, disagree: how best to fight international terrorism, how to
restore economic growth and prosperity, how to distribute the tax burden
and reduce poverty, etc.
But on abortion and the industrial creation of embryos for destructive
research, there is a profound difference of moral principle, not just
prudence. These questions reveal the character and judgment of each man.
Barack Obama is deeply committed to the belief that members of an entire
class of human beings have no rights that others must respect. Across
the spectrum of pro-life concerns for the unborn, he would deny these
small and vulnerable members of the human family the basic protection of
the laws. Over the next four to eight years, as many as five or even six
U.S. Supreme Court justices could retire. Obama enthusiastically
supports /Roe v. Wade/ and would appoint judges who would protect that
morally and constitutionally disastrous decision and even expand its
scope. Indeed, in an interview in Glamour magazine, he made it clear
that he would apply a litmus test for Supreme Court nominations: jurists
who do not support /Roe/ will not be considered for appointment by
Obama. John McCain, by contrast, opposes /Roe/ and would appoint judges
likely to overturn it. This would not make abortion illegal, but it
would return the issue to the forums of democratic deliberation, where
pro-life Americans could engage in a fair debate to persuade fellow
citizens that killing the unborn is no way to address the problems of
pregnant women in need.
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.
In the end, the efforts of Obama's apologists to depict their man as the
true pro-life candidate that Catholics and Evangelicals may and even
should vote for, doesn't even amount to a nice try. Voting for the most
extreme pro-abortion political candidate in American history is not the
way to save unborn babies.
/Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director
of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at
Princeton University./
/This article originally appeared in /Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and
the Common Good <http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/> /and is reprinted
with permission./
/(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family is for
informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an
endorsement of the sites' content.)/
If you enjoy reading articles like this one, sign up for the
free /CitizenLink Daily Update/ e-mail.
<http://www.citizenlink.org/CLFeatures/A000001970.cfm> You'll get news
and commentary from Focus on the Family Action delivered right to your
computer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pro-life Catholic Bishop Confirms that a Catholic Cannot Vote for Obama
in Good Conscience
An Open Letter to American Bishops regarding 'Catholic moral teaching'
and the 2008 election presents "the authentic teaching of the Catholic
Church..." concerning "the candidacy of Barack Hussein Obama."
ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 15 /Christian Newswire/ -- The "/Open Letter/", by
Randall Terry, has been sent by certified mail to all U.S. Bishops. (See
complete Open Letter at www.humbleplea.com
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001Wr2Drg_z_XgXDHqptVOR4EDqpHi2xp-3bMOkM_zoz_SbA5DeVysQVj3xPozcP5n2ByTRVpt20M4QJywZrH_br_jN3FOMpQoeQCge2uW9clUBrxg91W3nvg==>.)
Following is the complete response from Bishop Gracida concerning the
/Open Letter/ and /Faithful Catholic Citizenship. Faithful Catholic
Citizenship/ proves - using the words of John Paul II - that a Catholic
cannot in good conscience vote for Back Obama.
"Dear Randall,
I have visited the humbleplea.com website and have read the Open Letter
[to the U.S. Bishops] and brochure 'Faithful Catholic Citizenship.'
You have done an excellent job of presenting the authentic teaching of
the Catholic Church and applying it to the candidacy of Barack Hussein
Obama.
I encourage you to disseminate the two documents as widely as possible.
More and more bishops are speaking up in the way you desire.
I hope and pray that their numbers will increase before November 4.
Blessings!
Rene Henry Gracida
Bishop Emeritus of Corpus Christi"
/An Open Letter to American Bishops regarding 'Catholic moral teaching'
and the 2008 election/ and /Faithful Catholic Citizenship/ can be read
online at www.humbleplea.com
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001Wr2Drg_z_XgXDHqptVOR4EDqpHi2xp-3bMOkM_zoz_SbA5DeVysQVj3xPozcP5n2ByTRVpt20M4QJywZrH_br_jN3FOMpQoeQCge2uW9clUBrxg91W3nvg==>.
"We are begging U.S. Catholic Bishops to correct the error put forth by
Catholic Attorney Doug Kmiec (and others) that says:
* It is time to set the record straight that it violates no aspect
of Catholic teaching for a Catholic Voter to endorse, support, or
vote for Barack Obama... (Doug Kmiec, Catholic Attorney and
Author, /Can a Catholic Support Him?/; pg 36.)
* ...U.S. Catholic bishops have confirmed that it is the intent of
the voter, and not the candidate's support for abortion, that
determines the candidate's acceptability for the Catholic vote.
(Pg. 82, Doug Kmiec, /Can a Catholic Support Him? /)
"This assertion by Doug Kmiec is false. We pray other bishops will
correct the error being taught in their name. We are urging the faithful
to read the letter themselves, then call their bishop to urge them to
publicly correct the erroneous teaching being put out in their names.
"We also encourage Catholics and Evangelicals to download and distribute
this material at their neighborhood churches." -- Randall Terry,
Founder, Operation Rescue
Call 904 687 9804 to schedule an interview.
Christian Newswire
<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001Wr2Drg_z_Xi2l4-X78Y-XF31I4_aori3YVnZgkwqP5Kf8KV7tIHw7dMBxGwSm-IVZDOYKoo_H30xlIDmW6KOuyErMGUahCLsQbvbiJPcZYsikb3fUbVSSf0tLRCMP9iQ>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PFLI PharmAid Center
pfli at pfli.org <mailto:pfli at pfli.org>
PO Box 1281
Powell, OH 43065-1281 USA
800-227-8359
www.pfli.org
PFLI supports pharmacist rights of conscience NOT to be forced to
dispense or counsel for chemicals which violate their sincerely held
religious, moral or ethical beliefs. For more info see:
http://www.pfli.org/main.php?pfli=conscienceclausefaq
*** PFLI is the only pharmacy association which is exclusively pro-life.
It represents thousands of pharmacists and many lay supporters
in the USA, Canada and all around the globe. For membership info, key
PFLI texts, PFLI archives, late-breaking news, abridged newsletter excerpts
or general information, visit the PFLI web site at http://www.pfli.org.
Or e-mail us at mailto:pfli at pfli.org.
*** We do NOT send out SPAM. To subscribe to PharmFacts E-News, just
send an e-mail with the word
"subscribe" in the subject area or better yet, just enroll right from
our main news page at
http://www.pfli.org; to cease your subscription [although we can't
imagine anyone would!] self-manage your account at:
http://pfli.org/mailman/listinfo/pflienews_pfli.org
*** You may contact PFLI at any/all of the following: Pharmacists For
Life International,
PO Box 1281, Powell, OH 43065-1281 USA, 1-800-227-8359 [US & Canada only],
+1-740-881-5520 [voice] or +1-707-667-2447 [fax]; e-mail us at
mailto:pfli at pfli.org.
*** You can order our publications as well as begin/renew your
membership or donate right on our
secure website at http://www.pfli.org/shop <http://www.pfli.org>. Click
on the "PFLI Store" link on the toolbar and
follow the prompts! There you can also donate to PFLI as well as
purchase a wide range of publications.
* *
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://pfli.org/pipermail/pflienews_pfli.org/attachments/20081015/57112d8f/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 78028 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://pfli.org/pipermail/pflienews_pfli.org/attachments/20081015/57112d8f/attachment-0001.jpe>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: obama_smoke.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 28731 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://pfli.org/pipermail/pflienews_pfli.org/attachments/20081015/57112d8f/attachment-0001.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 2923 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://pfli.org/pipermail/pflienews_pfli.org/attachments/20081015/57112d8f/attachment-0001.gif>
More information about the PFLIENews
mailing list