Well, we’ve had our discussions about budgets as moral documents and now have reached a budget deal that went right up to the brink of a government shutdown.
To those friends of mine who are also Christians, but identify more with the left than the right, I have a question for you: Just exactly what hill was it the Democrats decided they wanted to die on in this battle? Where did they draw the line and say, “This far and no further!”
It turns out their one adamantine point of no compromise was . . . funding Planned Parenthood. Wow, that’s a real Mr. Smith Goes to Washington moment. Gets you right in the old ticker.
I suspect Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are feeling a little uncomfortable as they review the bidding.
Not that this should come as a surprise. How many Democrat figures have been down this path and learned that they have to make a choice? Ted Kennedy was pro-life and was forced by his party’s realities to change. Jesse Jackson was pro-life. Same result. Ditto for one Albert Gore.
There is one orthodoxy in the party of the left that will not brook disagreement. Bob Casey the elder knew it. And Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a book about it.
April 9th, 2011 | 8:44 pm | #1
And Bob Casey Jr., who ran on the strength of his father’s reputation, has also learned it — but has not shown himself worth of that reputation.
April 10th, 2011 | 11:11 am | #2
“I suspect Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo are feeling a little uncomfortable as they review the bidding.”
Curious, why do you suspect that?
April 10th, 2011 | 1:40 pm | #3
Wallis and Campolo are the Protestant equivalent of the Catholic seamless garment crowd. The sanctity of life begins with the death row inmate and trickles down ever so agonizingly to the child in the womb.
April 10th, 2011 | 4:28 pm | #4
So tax cuts for billionaires while cutting off HIV/AIDS medicine for the poor is pro-life? I’m wondering if we can direct 10,000 Floridians who are cut off from life saving ADAP funding to “Catholic” hospitals for their free Truvada ($2500 per month – thanks to pro-life Congresspeople supported by the ‘pro-life’ crowd who are owned by Pharma) prescriptions? Please let me know where we can send them so that the Catholic “Charities” can pay for the medicine that the Republican pro-lifers have no problem denying to Gay men.
Also I noted that two people were killed by the Arizona Republican’s budget cuts to funding transplants. How many GOP legislators in Arizona have been refused communion over this? Where were the “Catholic” hospitals in Arizona?
Planned Parenthood is more pro-life than the Catholic Church as it provides low cost health care (breast exams, medical screenings, checkups, etc.) to those that cannot afford to go to “Catholic” hospitals or who will not be treated with dignity (e.g., Gay men) by Orthodox Catholics. And those Catholic hospitals get billions more in federal funding than Planned Parenthood.
With Orthodox “Catholics” pro-life begins in the womb and ends the moment the child is born, apparently. The reason why abortion is still legal is because of rampant hypocrisy on the part of the ‘pro-life’ movement.
April 10th, 2011 | 7:36 pm | #5
“The reason why abortion is still legal is because of rampant hypocrisy on the part of the ‘pro-life’ movement.”
No, the reason abortion is still legal is because people draw arbitrary lines as to when human life begins. If you can’t see the life you’re killing, then people find it easier to justify.
All of the examples of malfeasance that you pointed out are indeed terrible. I disagree with homosexuality, but I don’t think anyone, regardless of how they define their sexual orientation, should ever be denied medical treatment. It is terrible that anyone, especially a Christian doctor, would treat a homosexual as less of a person. I too agree that our money should focus less on pointless defense spending and more on aiding our society’s most vulnerable.
However, that being said, “Pro-lifers can be jerks, therefore abortion is wrong,” is hardly a cogent argument. All one shows with the examples you brought up are that pro-lifers are inconsistent, not that abortion is wrong. I don’t know if you were aiming to disprove that, but if you were I think other lines of argument are better than that.
“Planned Parenthood is more pro-life than the Catholic Church”
Speaking as a pro-lifer, this is false. Planned Parenthood does do many great things, and the moves by Republicans to defund the entire program is ridiculous, but any organization that supports the killing of innocent, helpless children is hardly pro-life.
“The sanctity of life begins with the death row inmate and trickles down ever so agonizingly to the child in the womb.”
The sanctity of human life begins with human life. I think all people have basic human dignity and should be treated as such. I’m against the death penalty. I’m pro-life. There shouldn’t be this sliding scale that’s being used. Human is human, all made in the image of God.
April 10th, 2011 | 7:39 pm | #6
I’m afraid this will incur no more soul-searching than our “Lazybrook” respondent above indicates — they simply scream false accusations. I’ve seen it before; I wish I’d seen it only from THEIR side, but I’ve seen it from ours as well. It seems to be one characteristic feature of politics: the blindness to the painfully obvious.
April 11th, 2011 | 11:13 am | #7
Yeah, it’s pretty sad. I would have hoped the hill to die on would be raising corporate taxes or keeping banks from profiting at the expense of the rest of society rather than funding the slaughter of the unborn. But this sure shows the priorities of the Democratic party.
April 11th, 2011 | 8:03 pm | #8
Tom in Lazybrook is exhibiting some lazy thinking:
“Planned Parenthood is more pro-life than the Catholic Church as it provides low cost health care (breast exams, medical screenings, checkups, etc.)…”
Actually, no. Planned Parenthood had to back away from their claim of providing mammograms. And while you can try your argument that PP is pro-life because it performs STD tests and hands out birth control (which is weak), calling a group that is proud of its abortion record “pro-life” is absurd. I’d think even they would shy away from such a term.
“…to those that cannot afford to go to “Catholic” hospitals or who will not be treated with dignity…”
Yes, because Catholic hospitals only cater to the wealthy, right? Except for the lines of Medicaid patients and the deeply poor around the country who count Catholic hospitals as their only hope. My poor grandmother passed away in a Catholic hospital, which shut down shortly afterward. (Not that rich, my friend.)
“With Orthodox “Catholics” pro-life begins in the womb and ends the moment the child is born, apparently.”
If this were the case, then there would be no Catholic hospitals at all, right? There would be no Catholics worldwide helping the poor, serving in medical clinics in the darkest corners of the world. If I were you, I’d check and see how many Catholic hospitals and clinics there are in Africa right now, serving HIV patients. The number is huge.
But ultimately, it’s utterly ridiculous, whether one is pro-Planned Parenthood or not, to believe that all American taxpayers should fund an organization such as PP. If every pro-PP American just anted up fifty bucks or more–and the pro-PP Hollywood elites truly put their money where their mouths are and anted up the millions that we all know they could–then PP would be awash in cash.
Instead, they squawk endlessly about the virtues of PP, and demand that all Americans pony up for an organization that is controversial to say the least, and completely and utterly unnecessary for a functioning country to run. You like it, you fund it, and quit whining.
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