by Dina Mcnulty

Created on: July 02, 2008

Abortion and Voting with a Human Conscience

I am disturbed by Obama's position concerning abortion. However, Obama and his position on abortion are not nearly as disturbing as some other sad facts that have recently come to light. Obama is just one man with no power other than the power we give to him.

First, I would like to address Catholics. As a Catholic, I am ashamed of the many Catholics who turn their backs on the Catholic Church and insist on voting for a man who does not truly respect human life. Obama is a man who makes many promises concerning the down trodden. Indeed, his positions appear to be right in line with Catholic values as he rants on and on about how he vows to protect the rights of innocent human beings. However, when it comes to the human being born alive after a failed abortion attempt, he will do nothing to protect that human being's right to live. Obama is not only pro partial-birth abortion, it is my understanding that he refused to vote in favor of a bill designed to protect the life of a baby born alive following an abortion attempt. In Obama's mind, the right of a woman to have a dead baby trumps that baby's right to live. Catholics should keep in mind that abortion is one of a handful of election issues that the Catholic Church considers non-negotiable.

I will put my Catholic values aside for a while to address something I find even more disturbing. The idea that babies are sometimes born alive after failed abortion attempts and our politicians must meet to discuss what should be done during such tragic events, says volumes about who we are as a society. How this event is even allowed to occur in a supposedly civilized society is beyond comprehension. We can talk about people having the right to food, clothing, homes, medicine, freedom from terrorists and the violence of war, but when our laws fail to protect an innocent human being's most fundamental right, the right to live, then we are truly a society full of empty promises.

Speaking of rights, I suppose I should also address the ridiculous argument by pro-choice people that a woman has the 'right' to do what she wants with her own body. This is another right that apparently trumps the baby's right to live. When I see a pregnant woman, I don't see one body, I see two. Why should the rights of a woman conerning her own body, trump the rights of the baby concerning his own body? True, the baby can't speak for himself, but would he choose to have his body ripped from his mother's

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