Obama: No 'Change' or 'Hope' for the Unborn

During the August 17th conversation between Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren and the presidential candidates, Obama & McCain, the cultural crisis of abortion was given significant attention.

Warren asked both candidates, pointing out that 40 million abortions have occurred since Roe v Wade, "a what point does a baby get human rights in your view?"

McCain: "at conception."
Obama: "Well...i think...whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or uh, a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, uh, ya know, is, is uh above my pay grade."

Clearly, Obama doesn't believe that a child should have any human rights until birth--and even then that's been called into question. To be generous, he probably believes that life does begin at conception, but like secular feminists, he avoids the question of what is life and when does life begin and when does this person have rights and focuses instead on what are believed to be the rights of the woman.

Obama persists,

...But but but let me speak more generally about the issue of abortion...I am pro- choice, I believe in Roe v. Wade and I come to that conclusion not because I'm pro- abortion, but because ultimately I don't believe women make these decisions casually. I think they wrestle with these things in profound ways, in consultation with their pastors or their spouses or their doctors or family members.

Here Obama is simply naive because I don't believe we can account for 40 million abortions as the result of 40 million introspective women and families. In fact, Planned Parenthood isn't interested in women wrestling with this decision or else they would be in full support of the facilities that educate women about the alternatives. Crisis pregnancy centers provide women with an understanding of the life they are carrying and communicate options such as adoption or continuing the pregnancy and raising the child. Planned Parenthood's existence depends upon large numbers of abortions while hiding their history of promoting abortion as a matter of societal cleansing.

Obama continues,

So for me, the goal right now should be and I believe this is where we can find common ground, and by the way [I've now inserted this into the democratic party platform (unclear)], is how do we reduce the number of abortions? Because the fact is that, even though we've had a president who is opposed to abortion the last 8 years, abortions have not gone down....

Interestingly, the Guttmacher Institute says otherwise. In January 2008, it was reported that the abortion rate had dropped to a 30 year low. Accurate or not, it's clear that Obama doesn't even know what his pro-choice colleagues are saying on the matter.

Obama doesn't want to enter into theological or scientific discussion on when life begins and when a child has human rights because he doesn't feel qualified, yet he's willing to take a position on the issue without doing the research. He prefers to settle on the issue by an appeal to women's rights. How is it that he knows a woman's rights ought to trump those of the unborn? He really expects Americans to believe that someone as learned as himself can't study this issue and come to an understanding. But on the otherhand, how often do we hear politicians admit that they don't have the answers? When Joe Carter and I testified before the Illinois State Legislature on embryonic stem cell research, it was clear we were dealing with clueless politicians who not only did not know what they were talking about, but didn't know what they didn't know. Obama clearly doesn't know what he needs to know and demonstrates a lack of integrity by his unwillingness to pursue these answers. Politics as usual. Where's the change in that?