Last time I said that I was finished blogging about this issue, which turns out not to be true, since I have noticed one more hot button issue associated with abortion that has picked up steam in the Evangelical community: opposition to the Freedom of Choice Act. There’s a petition circulating against FOCA that you may be interested in signing. This is a bad piece of legislation, I believe. I think the worst part is that it mandates (as far as I can tell – and I could be wrong) that even doctors with a moral opposition to abortion would be forced to perform the procedure. I can say with certainty that if I were a medical doctor, I would resign without hesitation before being forced to perform an abortion.
My prediction is that Barack, despite his campaign promise, will not sign FOCA. The reason is that it would ignite a culture war to end all culture wars. The Catholics, who own something like one in six of this nation’s hospitals, have talked about closing (not selling) their hospitals if the act goes through, which would probably finish tanking the economy. Barack wouldn’t want to jeopardize the economy and health care further, and he wouldn’t want to intensify the so-called culture war. He has much more important bipartisan things to accomplish, namely restoring the economy, working on energy policy, and reforming the health care system. One thing that we have learned about O’Bama is that he is a smart democratic politician, and I just can’t imagine him throwing away his presidency on this single issue.
But let me be clear: while I oppose FOCA, I have 100 times more disdain for the pro-life movement, since it is their social and economic policies that make it almost impossible for our country to achieve the low abortion rates enjoyed by Western Europe. So if you sign FOCA, I challenge you to examine another document, called the 95/10 initiative (related to the now-defunct Pregnant Women Support Act), being supported by the Democrats for Life and some pro-life democrats in Congress. This piece of legislation gets its name because it has the goal of reducing the abortion rate by 95% in the next 10 years (that was starting in 2005).
Will reducing abortions involve making contraception more available? Yes. Will reducing abortions involve ‘spreading the wealth’ to single mothers who need to finish high school? Yes. Will reducing abortions involve long, paid maternity leave so that women don’t have to sacrifice their careers? Probably. Will reducing abortions involve increasing special needs funding and children’s health care? Yes. Unfortunately the pro-lifers, fiscal conservatives, and laissez-faire Republicans will be the very same people who defeat these common-sense measures. They are too busy being concerned about Joe the Plumber and his fake bid to buy his company. But if you are really pro-life, you may want to rethink your staunch opposition to “spreading the wealth.”
