In voting, an important consideration for me in bringing about a prolife society in regard to abortion is this: does this candidate seriously, substantively advocate for measures that will actually alleviate women’s perceived need for abortions?

After all, even if abortion is illegal, women will still be driven to have abortions, as they will be unless and until this society gets very, very serious about freedom of choice in contraception, sex education, policies that make parenthood or adoption feasible.

Read Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope. He not only recognizes that opposition to abortion can have humane motives, he is serious about cooperative action to reduce abortion.

I’ll take that any day over any conservative Republican who inveighs “prolife” but,in addition to prolonging the war and supporting the death penalty, is actively hostile to the human rights of nonprocreative sexual expression, pregnancy prevention,and public commitment to real social and economic support policies for parenthood.

And nobody here better accuse me of having innocent unborn blood on my hands. I have been working for over 20 years in a variety of ways to create a society where women have other and better alternatives, and I have faced the ultimate test of prolife myself, namely bearing an unplanned child in extremely difficult circumstances, thank you very much.

Don’t know why you’d think that. I don’t find that Dobson and company make a particularly attractive or compelling pro-life case.

But trying to get people who are already pro-life to support Obama is not the way to go about things.

Actually, what I’m trying to do is get pro-life people who have already decided to vote for Obama to get together and challenge him and his supporters on life issues.

The flow of money — now that’s one thing you and I can agree on 100%.

Well, we have more in common than I thought. I agree with you about ARTL including some horrifying parts. Personhood is the right way to go though. Truth is we really got to take what we can get…you know McCain was not the first choice for the conservatives. You gotta take what you can get. McCain is consistently, but not perfectly, pro-life. If Roe falls for any reason it would really help. Did you notice the list of supporters on the ARTL web site? Dobson and all the rest… Chances are you would not be pro-life if it weren’t for the likes of them. Oh yeah and the pope too. Horrifying. Show a little gratitude. In politics you got to look past the warts to shake hands.

Perhaps kicked out of the dem party was a poor choice of words on my part. They did not get kicked out. After the McGovern failure the party went in search of a way to win and decided to go with the feminist crowd (which was the height of fashion at the time…NOW and all that.) This was done at the expense of religious peoples. Most of whom happen to be pro-life. The repubs took them in and created a special little slum just for them and they have lived there ever since. One can get a lot done in a slum if you work at it. i.e.: the religious right take over of the 80’s and 90’s.

Religious people are not made to feel welcome in the dem party either. That’s another core problem. America is really quite religious.

Okay about polls. Stop reading the propaganda. There are lots of polls ands most are a bunch of carp. I won’t sight one because it is a waste of time unless you’re doing a Masters thesis. But in general what I said is more or less accurate. Let me highlight a main difference. There are 2 kinds of pro-choicer. The philosophically committed abortionist and those who don’t really know much or care about the issue. The latter are simply pro-choice by default. They just want people to be free to do what they feel is best for them. They may even say they are personally opposed or something like that. Pro-lifers have been working on this group and convert about 3 million a year to self describe as some form of pro-life. The former group is the one that has never gotten traction among the American people. They will likely always be there at around 25%. Obama is in this group. (Or at least as long as the money keeps coming in.)

Now listen here, you are incredibly politically naive if you think you are going to do any good for women in crisis or their children by supporting Obama. (note my previous post) He may use you to create an air of inclusion except that you are never going to be included. Sure, continue to work on your Greener friends and what not…I am sure there is lots of room for success there. But trying to get people who are already pro-life to support Obama is not the way to go about things. You are mis-representing who and what he is. This is not even fair to him.

One pro-life party is not enough, but Obama is not the ticket to that kind of future. Continue as a pro-life dem if that is who you are, but voting for him? Really? Not if you put life above party or any other issue.

Here is the ticket to dems going pro-life. Stop the flow of money from the abortion industry into the party. Until that happens the peoples voice will not be heard. Because money is the language of politics.

+Tom

I used to vote third-party, but I’m not convinced it can help unless we get some kind of IRV or proportional representation system. For now, I’ve decided to try to work within one of the existing big parties; and for me it’s a much more natural fit to try to convince Democrats to support the CLE than Republicans. (I also think it’s more likely to work; that said, I definitely honor those who are trying to change the Republicans from the inside.)

I did see your letter, and I like it a lot.

May your son and my daughter, and all their generation, inherit a decent world from us.

I think that he will be the next president regardless of how we small group of “consistent Pro-Lifers” vote. So we should try to get our voice heard by him and show him how inconsistent his abortion views are with the rest of his values. I did it through writing him a letter and posting it on my blog. Your “pro-life for Obama” group may also get us a seat at the table. But I feel too morally responsible for my vote to participate in giving Obama the opportunity to fund more abortion. My wife does plan to vote for Obama so I will definitely give her the link.

Unfortunately I think the group will likely go unnoticed, and pro-lifers voting for Obama will be assumed to be supporting all of his policies. Of course, I feel a lot of ambivalence about voting for McCain because of his support for the war. I think the way that those of us who espouse Consistent-Life Ethics to get noticed is to throw our voting weight behind a Third-Party candidate rather than getting statistically lost as we divide our votes between Republicans and Democrats.

I’m personally glad I found Joe Schriner on this post. I’ve been looking for a Consistent-Life third party candidate. I think I’ll invest my vote with him–despite the dark horse status and cheesy “Average Joe” label, reading his views impressed me.

-Jonathan

PS: Thanks Jen for the congrats on the baby. He is a great newborn. I hope all we do will make this nation better for his generation.