Talk about Barack Obama’s poor choice of words:
. . . “Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. . .”
I was born in Chicago to an unwed mother in the days when abortion was illegal. So, luckily for me, I wasn’t aborted. I was given up for adoption. I’m pretty sure, though, that my birth mother — I have no idea, and no inclination, to know who that was — considered my birth to be a mistake on her part, but not a punishment. I’m sure that the occasional liberal who stumbles upon this blog does wish that I was aborted but — tough cookies; I wasn’t. I do know that the wonderful folks who adopted me consider me a blessing. And so do the people whose lives I’ve touched through the years. I’ll bet, if all the cats I’ve cared for understood the concepts involved, that they would also consider my birth to be a blessing (for them) and not a punishment.
I was in a gift shop yesterday and there are all sorts of greeting cards for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, graduations, and the birth of children. Those latter cards refer to the birth of a child as a “blessed event.” None call it a punishment.
We already know by the company he keeps, the church he attends, that Obama is a piece of crap who embraces hate-mongers as being like “part of the family” and now we know that the “values and morals” he teaches his daughters are not to abstain from sex until marriage or insist that they use contraception or to just cross their legs and say, “No!,” but rather that if they have sex, they might be “punished with a baby” and they should be able to kill it.
I’ve said before, here, that I am pro-life and Obama’s casual attitude that an unwanted baby is a “punishment” is so repulsive that even if he were (and he’s not) pro-Second Amendment, I would not vote for trash like him. Ever.
An unborn child is not just a clump of tissue. When a mother feels the unborn kicking, that means there are real nerve cells operating. Nerves that can feel pain and — in the case of an abortion — death. And why do expectant mothers play music to or talk to their swollen bellies? Because it’s a clump of un-living tissue? Or because it’s a child? Why do they start eating “right” and not drinking alcohol or smoking? Because it’s just a clump of tissue? Certainly not because it’s a punishment?
Or maybe because they want their blessed child born perfect? And a late-term abortion, where the child is partially born and then has it’s skull crushed and is vacuumed out; the nerves are operating; the child doesn’t feel that pain of death? Oh, wait, it’s just a punishment and we’re setting the sentence aside so what the hell. . .
And this guy wants to be our leader?
23 Responses to “Not Ready For Prime-Time”
on 31 Mar 2008 at 5:40 pm # doug in Colorado
Wow…just…Wow…You get it, dude.
on 31 Mar 2008 at 7:09 pm # dan in michigan
Well said, Jeff
My wife and I were lucky enough to adopt a baby girl 12 years ago, born of an unwed teen who had the guts to do the “hard” thing and deliver her unwanted child. I don’t know who she was but I would love to send her a progress report to validate her decision. I would tell her how her daughter is now in the 7th grade and just made the volleyball team. I would tell her how well her daughter is doing in school, about all her friends, her dog, and the piano lessons. I could go on, but my point is that this young teen didn’t just save one life, she enriched dozens of lives, my wife and I and our family. She is the only granddaughter in the family. Christmas is good.
on 31 Mar 2008 at 7:18 pm # Wes S.
I’ve thought from the beginning that Obama was either, at best, a second Jimmy Carter, with appeasement and weakness abroad and a miserable socialist economy at home…or at worst another Louis Farrakhan, albeit with better manners.
With stuff like this coming out of Obama’s mouth, I’m leaning toward the latter option…
It’s a real pity that half the electorate spends less time and effort choosing a President than they do an American Idol winnner…
on 31 Mar 2008 at 7:20 pm # Daniel
Good job, Jeff.
As someone who can’t father a child - I would have considered adopting, but can’t afford it.
Guess we all work through our lot in life.
Congratulations.
(Oh, and I agree. I won’t vote for BO either.)
on 31 Mar 2008 at 8:14 pm # John
I can’t thoroughly agree with you this time. My sister was a joy to my mother and a willing and ept student of the lifes lessons she had to teach. I on the other hand had to be like serving hard time for her. A constant 18 year battle. I relieved her of the burden 6 days after graduation. I know her life would have been one hell of a lot easier if she only had my sis. As a result of that up close and personal obsevation, I’m a 1st trimester choice advocate. Not sure I can always debate it but if I had ALL the answers I’d move to Olympus with the rest of them.
Now I’m not voting for Obie or Hillie and I’m still going to read Alphecca daily (FU you can’t stop me).
on 31 Mar 2008 at 9:55 pm # TAF
Rest assured the cats understood…which makes them superior to democrats in yet another way.
on 31 Mar 2008 at 10:23 pm # Charity
I had no idea that you were so adamantly pro-life, Jeff. I always thought of you as the typical libertarian on that issue, I guess.
Thanks for sharing your personal story.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 6:57 am # Jeff Soyer
Abortion is one of those issues that can start an argument almost anywhere. I also know that the libertarian argument is to allow choice.
OF course, I hear from the pro-choice side that any law against abortion interferes with a woman’s “reproductive choices” and I usually answer that she (and her partner) had that choice before conception occurred. Contraceptives are widely available.
Is there a middle ground? I firmly believe that once the nerve tissues start to develop, that there isn’t. Before they do? I could grudgingly go along with allowing it during the first trimester for the sake of not tearing the country apart over the issue but once the baby starts kicking — sorry, but it now has operating reflexes and that means functional nerve tissue and that means it feels pain and death.
My stance against abortion is based not on religious grounds but rather on humanitarian ones. Giving an unwanted child up for adoption is the humane thing to do. Ending its life certainly isn’t.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:12 am # Bill
Daniel: You may indeed be able to afford it.
My wife and I checked into adoption, and found that we either couldn’t afford it, or if we could afford it there were some restrictions that we weren’t entirely comfortable with (like ‘open’ adoptions).
We decided to become foster parents, and as luck would have it just a couple of months after we were certified a newborn became available (yet another young mother who didn’t get an abortion, thank God) for foster care, and we eventually ended up adopting him.
The actual costs for the adoption were minimal (I think we spent about $1k for a lawyer, and I ended up finishing the process pro se because he was worthless), and we were paid to take care of our son right up until the day the adoption was finalized.
Think about it, it might be a decent option.
I will give you this caveat, however: We were *EXTREMELY* lucky to get a newborn (he was less than a week old when we took him home). You might end up with an older child that has some significant emotional baggage, even as a toddler or preschooler. Kids from caring, loving parents don’t generally end up in the foster care system.
Still, it’s an option, and one that worked out wonderfully for my wife and I.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:27 am # Bill
In support of Jeff’s argument, there are plenty of parents who would love to adopt a healthy newborn.
This is why people often end up going overseas to adopt. Most kids available for adoption in the US tend to have problems. Things like FASD, major birth defects, developmental disabilities, etc. It takes a special kind of person to willingly take in children like that, and thankfully there are people who will do that.
Having said that, a healthy newborn put up for adoption in the US has a shelf-life of about 3.2 seconds: Everyone wants to adopt a newborn. After all, if you can’t pass your genes along, at least you get the opportunity to pass along your culture and values unfettered by any previous experiences the child might have.
This is why foreign adoptions are so attractive, despite the price: You can get a newborn, or at least an infant.
If there were fewer abortions in the US, and all those kids that would have been aborted were put up for adoption immediately after birth, those children would be immediately snapped up.
I’m not “Pro-Life” by any means, and have always maintained that women should have the right to chose. Having said that, my experience with adoption makes me wish that more women would choose WISELY.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 12:46 pm # Keith
Hi Jeff,
I didn’t know you were adopted.
On the pain thing, unfortunately a lot of people in medicine still cling to Descartes’ bullshit that animals and even young babies are incapable of feeling pain!
Screams, thrashing around etc are ignored as it “is impossible to prove that they are actually feeling pain”
This bullshit allows things like late abortion, vivisection and even surgery on babies without pain control to be continued without mass rebellion
Try asking a doctor if he used any pain relief for the babies when he got all the circumcissions to do during his internship.
Ireland does not allow abortion and lastyear even tried to stop a 16 yearold girl from travelling to England to abort a baby which had no brain and would have died shortly after the cord was cut. Somehow it was going to be more holy or something for her to endure labour to deliver a lump of dead flesh.
That extreme has to be wrong
At the other end, i have a friend who is still seriously screwed up by being told that his father wanted his mother to abort him. It works wonders for his self esteem!
Other extreme, also wrong
PS, the new pope thinks using contreception will have you burning in hell for all of eternity…
well, not you personally, but then I’m not sure that he thinks much nicer thoughts about gay people either.
Keith
on 01 Apr 2008 at 1:10 pm # Mike Gallo
Jeff-
The greatest fallacy in libertarians being “pro-choice” is that it is not respecting the rights of the unborn child, only the supposed rights of the pregnant mother. The problem with this argument from my perspective (Biochemist) is that no one is politically willing to define life. I mean, we have people charged for double homicide for killing a pregnant woman, but that woman could have had the baby killed herself and it would not have been homicide? The argument also does not address the reproductive “rights” of the father as half owner (in an intellectual property sort of way) of the child’s genetic material. I mean, if you can terminate a pregnancy in expectation of financial woes as a mother, why not as a father, who must pay child support for 18 years of the child’s life?
There’s not enough of an open debate about this, and until a definition of “human life” exists, such debate cannot be honest. I don’t think this takes away from your libertarian street-cred.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 4:05 pm # Sigivald
My impression (via Althouse) was that Obama was speaking of birth control, not abortion, and that the “punishment” in question was in the context of his young daughters making the mistakes of having sex too young and without contraception.
In that context, calling a pregnancy a “punishment” for said mistake doesn’t seem that far out of line - certainly it cannot be denied that many young women who become pregnant feel like it’s a punishment, no matter how much they might come to cherish their child’s life, or how much said child might cherish his or her own, later.
And while there might be some coded support for abortion in there, the plain text is not meaningless without a coded subtext argument, so there’s no need to go there, I think.
(Also, I’m with Mike, though not for strictly identical reasons. There’s no one position on abortion that a libertarian must take, since libertarian first principles don’t cleanly resolve which of the interests (mother, child, to a lesser extent the father) “must” take precedence in a libertarian analysis.)
on 01 Apr 2008 at 5:32 pm # straightarrow
I’m pro choice, right up until pregnancy. After that, it is not “her” body alone. There is no moral mandate that would allow reasonable people to approve a woman killing an unborn child as merely the exercise of her free choice when she has already proven to be incapable of making good choices.
Sex could have been declined, birth control could have been used of the physical (available everywhere) and chemical, adoption could be chosen. So don’t say she didn’t have the right to choose. She did. Once she chose to share her body, even unintentionally with another resident as a consequence of sharing her body intentionally with another external person she has used all the choices she can morally and ethically be allowed until the birth of the child. At which time she still has choices. To be pro-life is not to be anti-choice. It is to be “responsible choice
on 01 Apr 2008 at 6:19 pm # Yu-Ain Gonnano
Keith,
The old Pope would have said the same thing. Contraception has been verboten in the Catholic faith for a long time. It’s nothing new.
And has been stated earlier, Libertarian position on abortion isn’t cut and dried. It all depends on when one gains the fundamental right to life. Once you determine that, then intentionally taking the life of a non-consenting non-adult is certainly forbidden.
But nobody can agree on when that is.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 8:16 pm # Daniel
Thank you, Bill, for that information.
I wasn’t aware that could be the case.
on 01 Apr 2008 at 9:57 pm # RonInAz
Great post Jeff.
Everyone has the choice to modify their behavior before conception. After that the choices have been made.
I personally think of abortion as capital punishment for the “crime” of being inconvenient.
I do favor “retroactive abortions” for those in society who prey upon others (murderers).
on 01 Apr 2008 at 10:57 pm # Clint
Well, well said, Jeff!
on 02 Apr 2008 at 1:16 am # Jason
I’ve lost quite a few friends over the abortion issue. I find it repulsive that others would so casually take a human life simply because it’s convenient to them to do so. I struggled with this for a long time, even before I returned to the Church. I just couldn’t see how once a person’s DNA became its own code distinct from mother or father that it could be killed for being in the way of progress. It’s no progress when we treat people as prey. That’s the underlying threat of abortion and disarmament: people who think themselves as our betters have deigned to treat us as prey.
I can’t say I understand first-hand the whole shock of finding out that someone is adopted. I can say that had it not been for adoption, my grandfather have spent the rest of his life without any semblance of family life or responsibilities. He may never have married my grandmother, and without that link, I would never have been able to experience life on this earth as I do now. As much as the traditional image of orphanages have been discredited and mocked, they have been the place of some kind of haven for the “unwanted.” I wish there were more people to help bring them back.
on 02 Apr 2008 at 4:26 am # Louis
Nineteen years ago we adopted a deeply troubled girl of 4 years. Raising her was really hard. Three years ago she became pregnant out of wedlock, then again 18 months ago. My initial reaction was, “Oh no, here we go again!’ Now I know what an enormous blessing they are. I look into their eyes and think”What part of heaven did you come from?” Every day they save me from despair and nihilism, and I would walk into the mouth of a lion for them.
A message to the Obamas : Love is work. Children are work. Work and punishment are not the same thing. Babies, all of them, are miracles.
on 02 Apr 2008 at 9:38 am # middleagedhousewife
When I was younger, a pregnant girl in highschool was a very unusual sight. I can remember seeing 1 girl, definitely in the later stage, and another who was rumored to be pregnant but left school early. Even in the mid 70’s, there was a stigma attached to being pregnant and not married - at least in our small town. There are at least half a dozen (visibly) pregnant girls at my son’s highschool. When they deliver, IF they deliver, they will be allowed maternity leave from school - the local libs want her to have time to bond w/ her child before having to face the pressures of school work - and she will be assigned a teacher to come to her home for the duration, for at least 4 hours per day, to keep her up on her education. She will also have a county nurse assigned to come to her home each day to make sure she knows how to care for the baby. That is in addition to all the other ‘programs’ out there to carry her along. Again, there is no longer a stigma out there, there is, instead, a welcome wagon. Once, if a girl got pregnant, her punishment was shame. Now, there is no shame; there is acceptance and (damned close to) applause. Maybe if he taught his girls responsibility, modesty and added in a healthy dose of shame, there would be no need for the safety nets in place in our society and Obama could be a grandfather to legitimate grandkids.
Having said that, I have to add that, our highschool was just a smaller version of Peyton Place - like any other school in any other town - and everybody knew who fathered those babies. Everybody knew for sure that, of the two people involved, one was a slut/player who finally got ‘caught’ and the other had been robbed of her/his chastity. Strangely enough, opinions did not run strictly along the male/female line.
Because they saw how the pregnant girl was being talked about, girls who were able, used protection. Those who weren’t able, did their best to hold out for a ring. Yes, our parents tried to hand us morals and values, but, at least as far as my little chiq of friends thought, it was the stigma, the fear of being treated and talked about the way we -ourselves- treated and talked about the other girl, that kept us from doing what she had done.
Oh, and we also walked to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways and we ate dirt for dinner and we were grateful teenagers.
on 03 Apr 2008 at 4:45 pm # C
I gave a baby up 30 years ago this year. I spent a lot of time that year kicking myself for making such a stupid mistake, feeling embarrassed and guilty and God alone knows what else. But I don’t believe I ever once thought I was being punished and I certainly never thought of the word punishment in connection to the baby.
Thank you for this post, Jeff. Somehow I had managed not to think of what Obama’s latest malapropism meant to me personally as mostly I try to ignore his existence, but this just make me feel a deeper level of contempt for him, something I didn’t think was possible.
on 04 Apr 2008 at 1:05 am # straightarrow
May I say thank you C, for doing the best thing you could have done if you could not care for a child. Beats the Hell out of killing them. No telling how much joy was brought into the lives of others by your decision.