I've recently seen a lot of "pro-life" letters to the editor, yard signs and radio clips. Most of those claiming to be "pro-life" have lost their direction. I think the "Vote Pro-Life" movement is misdirecting and misleading.
We had a "pro-life" president, a republican Senate, a republican House and a conservatively skewed Supreme Court for six of the last eight years. Did they do anything to reduce the number of abortions or outlaw it in those six years? No, but they did manage to spend hundreds of billions to kill thousands of Iraqi soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians that did absolutely nothing to us. Is that pro-life? Since 1973, more than 125 people have been released from death rows throughout America due to evidence of their wrongful convictions. Dozens of victims of capital punishment have been exonerated after their executions. How many are never proven at all? Is capital punishment pro-life?
I've never met a republican, democrat, conservative or liberal that actively promotes abortions. Labeling someone as "pro-abortion" is a dirty, dishonest tactic. Most of the pro-choice people I know view abortion as a regrettable last resort. They emphasize ways of preventing the situations in which abortion is considered. This is one reason why universal health care that is affordable to everyone is so high of a priority to them. If anyone (no matter how poor) can visit their doctor, get a birth control prescription, and get it filled for a few bucks, then how many unwanted pregnancies and abortions could be prevented?
If someone is truly pro-life, then they will condemn not only abortions, but also capital punishment, preemptive wars, and wars for power or monetary gain. The truly pro-life person will support any measure that can prevent the killing of a person (even if it means paying higher taxes). The truly pro-life person will accept the fact that many kids will mess around even if you express a value of abstinence until marriage. They will teach pregnancy prevention methods in addition to abstinence, rather than setting kids up for failure and increasing the number of unwanted pregnancies and risks for abortion. The realistic pro-life person will realize that banning abortions is not the same as preventing them. There will always be the do-it-yourself abortions for the desperate poor and the crooked doctors for the inconvenienced wealthy.
This is why the truly pro-life realize the dire need is to prevent the unwanted pregnancies in the first place. I see a misdirected, ineffective plan presented by the "pro-life" movement that will ultimately result in more abortions. Barack Obama, who admittedly is pro-choice, has presented plans that have the potential to prevent a large number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions, plans far more effective than McCain's.
Neither Obama nor McCain are truly pro-life. But Obama's plans line up more with a holistically pro-life view than McCain's.
Vote for Obama to minimize the number of abortions and the number of other innocents killed or vote for McCain for maximum carnage
