The Pink Flamingo :: Barack Obama and the Culture of Death

There is another reason we need to band together to defeat Barack Obama. He is one of the most pro-abortion candidates we’ve ever seen. There are some terrifying new developments in assisted suicide in California. Considering Obama’s view on partial birth abortion and his plans to socialize medicine it has terrifying implications for everyone who isn’t absolutely perfect, young, healthy, and beautiful. It is literally a license to kill.

Barak Obama

"… "A woman's ability to decide how many children to have and when, without interference from the government, is one of the most fundamental rights we possess. It is not just an issue of choice, but equality and opportunity for all women. "I have consistently advocated for reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. I oppose any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's ruling in this case. "I believe we must work together to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies. I support legislation to expand access to contraception, health information, and preventative services to help reduce unintended pregnancies. That is why I co-sponsored the Prevention First Act of 2007, which will increase funding for family planning and comprehensive sex education that teaches both abstinence and safe sex methods. It will also end insurance discrimination against contraception, improve awareness about emergency contraception, and provide compassionate assistance to rape victims. "Finally, I support the enactment and enforcement of laws that help prevent violence, intimidation, and harassment directed at reproductive health providers and their patients."…”

[From a statement by Sen. Obama on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, January 22, 2008. Full statement is available here:

"Thirty-five years after the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, it's never been more important to protect a woman's right to choose... Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America... I believe in and have supported common-sense solutions like increasing access to affordable birth control to help prevent unintended pregnancies... As President, I will improve access to affordable health care and work to ensure that our teens are getting the information and services they need to stay safe and healthy."

[Transcript from Democratic Presidential Debate in South Carolina, MSNBC, April 26, 2007.]

"You know, I think that most Americans recognize that this is a profoundly difficult issue for the women and families who make these decisions. They don't make them casually. And I trust women to make these decisions in conjunction with their doctors and their families and their clergy."

[Statement from Sen. Obama on Supreme Court Decision upholding Federal Abortion Ban, April 18, 2007,
(accessed May 4, 2007).]

"I strongly disagree with today's Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women. As Justice Ginsburg emphasized in her dissenting opinion, this ruling signals an alarming willingness on the part of the conservative majority to disregard its prior rulings respecting a woman's medical concerns and the very personal decisions between a doctor and patient. I am extremely concerned that this ruling will embolden state legislatures to enact further measures to restrict a woman's right to choose, and that the conservative Supreme Court justices will look for other opportunities to erode Roe v. Wade, which is established federal law and a matter of equal rights for women."

[Barack Obama, excerpt from The Audacity of Hope published in Time Magazine, October 15, 2006,
(accessed April 28, 2008).]

"I explained my belief that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved and wrestled with her conscience when making that decision; that I feared a ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions, as they had once done in this country."

I think this says it all:

“….The Christian Right has fought hard to deny women the ability to make reproductive choices through restrictions on abortion, sex education, emergency contraception, and contraception generally. Barack Obama supports reproductive liberty and reproductive choices for women. He supports a woman's right to choose, even when it comes to late term abortions, and he supports federal funding of both contraceptives and sex education for teenagers….”

NARAL gives Barack Obama a 100% grade in 2007, 2006, and 2005. More from The Abomination of an Obama Nation

CATHOLIC PROBLEMS
Is there a problem with Catholics and Barack Obama. (h/t Sally Vee)
The Catholic League will openly oppose Barack Obama who is causing problems within the ranks of Catholic supporters.

“…A leading pro-life Catholic is feuding with supporters of Barack Obama who claim to be Catholic but join the candidate in violating the Church's teachings by strongly supporting abortion and embryonic stem cell research. Catholic League President Bill Donahue says true Catholics would oppose Obama. Donahue began the exchange last week by issuing a press release calling on Obama to dissolve his National Advisory Council because the members of the panel are pro-abortion. Donahue provided evidence showing the majority of the members of the council had received 100 percent voting marks from extreme pro-abortion group NARAL Yesterday, the members of the Obama council responded with a joint letter that LifeNews.com received. “Senator Obama recognizes that abortion presents a profound moral challenge, tied in part to a loss of the sense of the sacredness of sex and lack of parental involvement," they claimed, even though Obama opposes parental involvement laws. “Senator Obama has also reached out to Americans on both sides of this issue and embraces practical proposals designed to reduce the number of abortions in this country," they added.

However, Obama has opposed legislation to reduce abortions at every turn -- opposing efforts to stop taxpayer-funded abortions, a partial-birth abortion ban, and a measure to give babies who survive failed abortions medical care….”

At The Pink Flamingo, we’ve been following the Obama abortion saga. There, I feature a piece about Obama and his Illinois voting record. Race 42008

“…From Obama’s March 30, 2001 remarks on the Illinois Senate floor:
OBAMA: This bill was fairly extensively debated in the Judiciary Committee, and so I won’t belabor the issue. I do want to just make sure that everybody in the Senate knows what this bill is about, as I understand it. Senator O’Malley, the testimony during the committee indicated that one of the key concerns was — is that there was a method of abortion, an induced abortion, where the — the fetus or child, as — as some might describe it, is still temporarily alive outside the womb. And one of the concerns that came out in the testimony was the fact that they were not being properly cared for during that brief period of time that they were still living. Is that correct? Is that an accurate sort of description of one of the key concerns in the bill?

O’MALLEY: Senator Obama, it is certainly a key concern that the — the way children are treated following their birth under these circumstances has been reported to be, without question, in my opinion, less than humane, and so this bill suggests that appropriate steps be taken to treat that baby as a — a citizen of the United States and afforded all the rights and protections it deserves under the Constitution of the United States.

OBAMA: Well, it turned out — that during the testimony a number of members who are typically in favor of a woman’s right to choose an abortion were actually sympathetic to some of the concerns that your — you raised and that were raised by witnesses in the testimony. And there was some suggestion that we might be able to craft something that might meet constitutional muster with respect to caring for fetuses or children who were delivered in this fashion. Unfortunately, this bill goes a little bit further, and so I just want to suggest, not that I think it’ll make too much difference with respect to how we vote, that this is probably not going to survive constitutional scrutiny. Number one, whenever we define a previable fetus as a person that is protected by the equal protection clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we’re really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a — a child, a nine-month-old — child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it — it would essentially bar abortions, because the equal protection clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child. Then this would be an antiabortion statute. For that purpose, I think it would probably be found unconstitutional.

The second reason that it would probably be found unconstitutional is that this essentially says that a doctor is required to provide treatment to a previable child, or fetus, however way you want to describe it. Viability is the line that has been drawn by the Supreme Court to determine whether or not an abortion can or cannot take place. And if we’re placing a burden on the doctor that says you have to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible and give them as much medical attention as — as is necessary to try to keep that child alive, then we’re probably crossing the line in terms of unconstitutionality. Now, as I said before, this probably won’t make any difference. I recall the last time we had a debate about abortion, we passed a bill out of here. I suggested to Members of the Judiciary Committee that it was unconstitutional and it would be struck down by the Seventh Circuit. It was. I recognize this is a passionate issue, and so I — I won’t, as I said, belabor the point. I think it’s important to recognize though that this is an area where potentially we might have compromised and — and arrived at a bill that dealt with the narrow concerns about how a — a previable fetus or child was treated by a hospital. We decided not to do that. We’re going much further than that in this bill. As a consequence, I think that we will probably end up in court once again, as we often do, on this issue. And as a consequence, I’ll be voting Present…."

BARACK KIRVORKIAN?
Sally Vee sent this to me last night.
The CA state assembly passed an assisted suicide bill that allows doctors and nurses to suggest by unconscious dehydration. Considering his very strong pro-abortion stance, one wonders what an Obama Administration would put into their socialized medicine requirements. When you stop and think about it, the implications are absolutely terrifying. In other words, this new CA bill would allow family members to simply decide a disturbed or ill relative is a pain in the you know what – and they kill ‘em. But – these same people will argue forever against capital punishment. (as will I)

“…AB 2747 would authorize total sedation without nutrition and hydration for depressed and confused patients, whether or not their natural death was imminent. The bill would also allow family members to order the death of a mentally disabled person when a nurse opines they have less than a year to live, similar to Terry Schindler Schiavo's death at the hands of her husband.

AB 2747 passed the Democrat-controlled Assembly Wednesday afternoon on a 41-32 vote, a one-vote margin of victory in the 80-member lower house. The vote was virtually party line, Democrats for, Republicans against. AB 2747 is authored by the same Democrats who unsuccessfully carried physician-assisted suicide bills for the last three years.

"This deceptive bill will cause death and shorten life, despite its claims," said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, a leading California-based pro-life, pro-family organization. "Drying up and shriveling to death through dehydration is a fate worse than lethal injection. By transforming palliative sedation into a vehicle for assisted suicide, AB 2747 would transform doctors and nurses from healers and comforters into killers like Dr. Jack Kevorkian."

AB 2747 would allow a doctor or a nurse to opine that a patient has "less than one year to live," and then ask depressed patients if they would like to be totally sedated into unconsciousness. Total sedation is usually an irreversible procedure that does not include nutrition and hydration. If patients or decision-making family members fall prey to suggestions of total sedation, death from dehydration will usually occur within five days.

This is the fourth time that the assisted suicide bill has been pushed by Assembly Democrats Patty Berg and Lloyd Levine. But this year, instead of proposing to have doctors administer lethal injections, AB 2747 aims to produce death by sedation abuse, a clear violation of life-affirming medical ethics. Until now, total sedation has been used only when death was imminent - within hours or days - and when strong pain medication was not enough. Medical ethics require that food and water (nutrition and hydration) not be removed when sleep-inducing drugs are used, since doing so would cause unnatural, as opposed to natural, death. Yet AB 2747 pushes total sedation even if patients have not rejected food and water.

"Just as the assisted-suicide bills of the last three years have been rejected, so should the California Legislature reject AB 2747," said Thomasson. "Assisted suicide by total sedation ignores the sanctity of human life and violates life-affirming medical ethics. People who are ill need support, spiritual care, and counseling if they're depressed. But AB 2747 would ensure the death of innocent Californians at the hands of an increasingly unscrupulous insurance industry that regards people cheaper dead than alive."…”

NOW - JOHN MCCAIN ON LIFE
John McCain has a strong record protecting the life of the unborn and the promotion of adoption. If you are interested in supporting life, there is no question about who you will vote for in November.

"...John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench.

Constitutional balance would be restored by the reversal of Roe v. Wade, returning the abortion question to the individual states. The difficult issue of abortion should not be decided by judicial fiat.

However, the reversal of Roe v. Wade represents only one step in the long path toward ending abortion. Once the question is returned to the states, the fight for life will be one of courage and compassion - the courage of a pregnant mother to bring her child into the world and the compassion of civil society to meet her needs and those of her newborn baby. The pro-life movement has done tremendous work in building and reinforcing the infrastructure of civil society by strengthening faith-based, community, and neighborhood organizations that provide critical services to pregnant mothers in need. This work must continue and government must find new ways to empower and strengthen these armies of compassion. These important groups can help build the consensus necessary to end abortion at the state level. As John McCain has publicly noted, "At its core, abortion is a human tragedy. To effect meaningful change, we must engage the debate at a human level."