One thing that has come up a lot, at least in my tiny circles, regarding the election is the issue of abortion, and both candidate’s stances on it. Basically, McCain is more pro-life, while Obama is more pro-choice. What terrifies me is the Freedom of Choice Act, which Obama is very much in support of. While wikipedia is perhaps not the most reliable source of information, I think that in this instance it will suffice:
The Freedom of Choice Act (H.R. 3719/S. 2020) is a bill in the United States Congress which, if enacted, would abolish all restrictions and limitations on the right of women in the United States to have an abortion, whether at the State or Federal level. Sponsored in the House of Representatives by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., and originally co-sponsored by Congressman James Greenwood, R-Penn., Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Congresswoman Diana Degette, D-Colo., and in the Senate by Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and originally co-sponsored by Sen. Jon Corzine, D-N.J., Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Sen. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., and Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., the bill was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on Jan. 21, 2004, and in the United States Senate on Jan. 22, 2004. The bills were referred to the Judiciary Committees of their respective Houses.
Described by NARAL Pro-Choice America president Nancy Keenan as a bill to simply “codify Roe v. Wade,”[1] opponents of the bill point out[2] that it would, if passed, invalidate every restriction on the abortion of a fetus before the stage of viability, even those previously found consistent with Roe v. Wade by the United States Supreme Court, such as parental notification laws, waiting periods, requirements of full disclosure of the physical and emotional risks inherent in abortion, or restrictions on certain late-term abortion techniques (lifting the ban on partial birth abortions*). In addition, it would force the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which restricts the use of Federal funding for abortions, and invalidate the ability of religiously-based hospitals or clinics to refuse to perform abortions based on the violation of their consciences.
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the Democrat 2008 Presidential candidate, who has become a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the bill, announced in a speech before The Planned Parenthood Action Fund on July 17, 2007, “The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.”[3]
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the Republican 2008 Presidential candidate, who supports overturning Roe v. Wade[4], opposes the bill.
*I have added this parenthetical to offer an example of one such technique, currently abolished, that would be reinstated.
Here is a video clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf0XIRZSTt8
The above act is the first thing he would sign as president.
Now, it may surprise you that I am not posting this blog to say that one cannot vote for Obama because he wants to make abortion easier to obtain and wants to undo everything done to try and rid America of abortion. I have posted the info on FOCA and the vid so that you better understand Obama’s view on abortion, because what I really wanted to post is a letter that I wrote, that he will probably never read. I hope that the points it raises provide some food for thought, as this is how I see the abortion “issue” from my Christian perspective. The main point I raise in my letter (I hope) is that I cannot understand how a person can claim to be Christian and yet support and not fight against abortion, which is completely non-Christian (again, in my view). Were Obama to read my letter, my hope would be that he would realize he has to make a decision: to be true to his confession of faith in Jesus Christ, or to forsake that and continue to ignore the intrinsic evil of abortion, which is not a single issue among issues, but is something of far greater importance.
October 19th, 2008
To the Honorable Barack Obama,
God’s abundant blessings upon you, your wife, and children!
May this letter find you in good health, as I imagine that the campaign trail wears you out very quickly! I very much hope that this letter reaches you, as I wish to share with you my great concern regarding the issue of abortion (please hear me out!), and I wished to offer you a perspective on the issue that you may not have considered before. I have come to know that you support abortion, the Freedom of Choice Act, etc., and it is my great hope that you support these things not because of bad intentions, but because your passion for helping people and for social justice has obscured some very important things.
You confess, Sir, that you are a Christian, and this brings me great joy. Having a Christian president, I believe, is absolutely essential for this country’s well-being. But what concerns me is that, from the way I understand human life, abortion directly contradicts a basic belief of all Christian people, and that to support abortion seems to me to not be Christian at all. Not only do I believe this country needs a Christian president, but it needs an authentic Christian president, witnessing the faith as truly as he or she can. Please do not feel that I am passing judgment on you! Rather, I wish to present my understanding that you might consider it and ponder in your own heart whether or not abortion has a place in a Christian’s life in Christ, a life that all Christians endeavor to live as best we can.
If the fetus is not a human being until born into the world, then I can certainly see how abortion can be acceptable, for all our moral obligations regarding harm and murder are based on the idea that we cannot harm or murder another human being. “Thou shalt not kill,” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If the fetus is not human, it cannot be killed and cannot be our neighbor.
However, if the fetus is not a human being, then neither was Jesus Christ a human being. For Jesus Christ, the one confessed by all Christians to be fully God and fully human, was also once a fetus in the womb of his mother. If he were not human until his birth, or even until a certain point in Mary’s pregnancy, then neither was he the Son of God until his birth, and this simply cannot be. In order for Jesus Christ to be fully-God and fully-man, he has to have been both from the moment of conception, and he was; so are we all.
The angel of God, Gabriel, who said not a word of his own, but rather only what God ordered him to say, said to Mary, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus…” Gabriel told Mary everything about Jesus, before he was conceived within her. Before his conception, it was made known that Jesus would have a name (Jesus), a gender (son = male), personhood (sons are people), an ancestry (the line of David), and a purpose (to rule over the house of Jacob, and an everlasting kingdom). God already had these things in mind for Jesus, and at the moment of Mary’s “yes” he was conceived, and in that moment he came to have them. God promised all of these things before Jesus’ conception; therefore Jesus had them at the very moment of it as well and after; they would not be promised and then reserved or activated at some later date; at birth for instance. These are all aspects of being human, being a living human being (“being” is an act, the act of existing and participating in existence). I have these things as well, albeit differently, as a 25 year-old man. If Jesus, being fully-man (and fully-God) had such things at the moment of his conception and after, then so did I, and so do we all, for we are all fully-human (inasmuch as we are not God). He had also a soul, the very Holy Spirit of God, for being God he would have the Spirit of God also and thus a soul and a complete being. He has been God from eternity, and he has been man since he entered the womb of Mary and was conceived in that instant, and not a moment later.
Who is to say that I did not also have a soul, from the moment of my conception? For if the Holy Spirit is the giver of all life, and being that the zygote is alive (for dead things cannot grow), would not the Spirit need to bless the zygote with life for it to be alive in the first place? Would it not be to destroy the future dwelling place of the Spirit, received at baptism, to abort or otherwise harm it?
This means that the very foundation of the Temple of the Spirit, which we call the human body, is the zygote, the conception, the union of sperm and egg that has the complete DNA and the life to bring a new human into the world. The zygote is the cornerstone of human existence and in this country and all over the world it is this cornerstone that is being utterly rejected, just as the world rejected the cornerstone of our faith and life Jesus Christ. How can anyone reject the very cornerstone of their being and yet stand? How can we build a people and country on such a belief?
Therefore, Sir, with all respect and Christian love I must say again that to be a Christian and find abortion acceptable is to deny the humanity of Jesus Christ, which is an essential belief one must hold in order to be Christian at all. Those who accept abortion and also confess being Christian are confessing either falsely or in error, and if you are in error I would seek to help you find truth, which is why I offer you this letter. I offer this also to say that, while one should not be a single-issue voter, I don’t see abortion as a single issue, for since all political issues are human problems (economy, environment, war, etc.) they are founded essentially on human life, which has its beginning at conception. Therefore abortion is not a single-issue among many issues, but is ultimately close to The Issue, that is, human life and preserving its dignity with “liberty and justice for all” from conception to natural death, so that all human beings in this country can enjoy the inalienable rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” these and more being brought to us from God by the Jesus Christ we must confess with our whole lives whether in the pew, in private prayer, or in the Oval Office. For if at the moment of conception a human person exists, then he or she is protected by the laws of God and of this nation which you have taken an oath to serve, and the rights of that person must be respected if the law is truly at the equal and just service of all people. I urge you to please choose life and therefore Jesus Christ.
May God bless you always and abundantly, Sir, may God bless America, and may His will be done through Jesus Christ on November 4th.
Given this, can a person support abortion and still be true to their faith in Jesus Christ?
