Good thing I don't believe in bad luck; starting this fight before the election sounds like I'm accepting Obama's election as a fait d'accompli. However, it IS important enough to pass on. Go to the website of
Fight the Freedom of Choice Act, which Obama promises as his first act in office IF elected.
2 comments:
More than one way to kill.
A political candidate’s position on abortion has become the de facto litmus test of morality, and of respect for life. However, the data show that economic policies, health care and many other issues may be just as deadly. Consider the matter of health care. For a study of life expectancy in the United States published in PLoS Medicine in 2006, Harvard Professor Christopher Murray analyzed 8 years of census and health statistics data. He found an astonishing 35 year gap - in life expectancy based on county of residence, income, and other social factors. In my home county, Fairfax Virginia, life expectancy is among the top ten in the US about 81 years. Life expectancy in counties at the bottom is only 46 years, shorter than that in many developing countries! This isn’t a new finding - many other studies reported similar results. There are several reasons for such early death, but socioeconomic status and access to health care are the heavyweights. Thus, health care in particular and many other policy differences between the political parties can have as profound an influence on life as abortion. Clearly, the moral justification for voting cannot be based on a single issue.
As a Catholic, I am opposed to abortion and efforts to reduce abortions must continue. However, the pro-life concept must encompass all causes of death, not only abortion. The positions the Democratic Party has held with respect to universal health care, taxation, unemployment, war and torture, all of which have life-or-death consequences, are more consistently pro-life than those of the Republicans. My conscience requires that I vote for Barack Obama, and I will do so with great enthusiasm and hope.
Peter Kaufmann, Ph.D.
Past President, Society of Behavioral Medicine
Secretary, International Society of Behavioral Medicine
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the SBM or ISBM.
"A political candidate’s position on abortion has become the de facto litmus test of morality, and of respect for life."
Sorry to sound like an ignorant housewife clining to my relgion , but a man who deems it acceptable for infants born during an abortion to suffocate on a cold table in a utitlity room is an abomination, and none of you fancy statistics can dissuade me. Obama has no compassion for society's weakest members, and he is morally unfit to lead this nation.
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