With Planned Parenthood pulled into the Federal budget debate, abortion returns to the spotlight as a central issue in the American culture wars. What will be the buzz in your church this weekend?
Though political advocacy is a no-no in America’s tax-exempt religious congregations, this Sunday many pulpits across the country will no doubt find ways to voice their concerns over the current political unrest taking place in Washington, especially if the Federal government shuts down as many are predicting. Sparked by the GOP’s policy rider to cut government funding for Planned Parenthood, abortion has returned to center stage as a pivotal issue in the culture wars.
UPDATE: President Obama and congressional leaders reached a last-minute budget deal that averted a government shutdown. Apparently, the Planned Parenthood issue was tabled for the time being.
More progressive Christians will express their resentment toward House Republicans and their seemingly manipulative attempt to gain votes and divide the nation in times of economic crisis. Other more conservative believers will argue that no matter what political debates may exist, abortion is fundamentally and scripturally wrong and the government should in no way provide funding that might abet it.
Which congregation will you be in this weekend? Do you think your church will have something to say about the controversy? Where do you fall personally?
If we’re against using our tax dollars to kill unborn babies, then we need to defund the military too. Either that or evacuate all pregnant women and sterilize all postpubescent people within reach of our attacks.
Or practice war tax resistance.
Meg?! Seriously?!!! Are you trying to compare what our U.S. military does with abortion? Please tell us how these two things are morally equivalent. Every nation has the right to raise up a military for its own self-defense and yes, advance its own interests. Abortion is a woman choosing to take the life of a child in her womb.
Now you may choose to disagree with the reasons we go to war (and God will judge each nation for the rightness or wrongness of each action) but please don’t try to equate war (a nation facing off with another, sometimes just and sometimes not) with the murder of an unborn child.
Personally, I would love to see Planned Parenthood defunded. Pro-Life groups aren’t allowed to receive federal dollars (my tax dollars). They are forced to survive on the charitable contributions of folks like myself. Planned Parenthood should be forced to survive in the same way.
Ed (22-year veteran of USAF)
Meg that’s a false dichotomy and you know it. How could you compare funding the killing of unborn babies to the defense of our nation? Surely you can come up with a better justification for liberal policies than that!
Think of it as a modest proposal, a la Jonathan Swift.
And while you do, please admit to yourself that you don’t think killing babies inside their mothers is always wrong; after all, you just argued in favor of acts that result in the death of children before they’re born.
Meg, you connect dots that are not meant to be connected. If I didn’t know better I’d think your name was “Stretch Armstrong” because you reach long and far to try to make a point.
Also, if I ceded your point and admitted that I don’t believe that killing babies inside their mothers’ wombs is always wrong, it still doesn’t justify:
1) The fact that most all abortions take place because the child is an inconvenience to the mother not because the mother’s life is in danger or because she has been raped (The reasons given by many pro-abortion folks for why abortion services need to be available for all women). Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time!
2) The fact that Planned Parenthood receives Federal dollars for the same services (with the exception of abortions of course) you can get from many Pro-Life clinics. Why is Planned Parenthood special?
I’m not sure where you’ve detected my position on abortion.
I have simply pointed out an inconsistency.
Personally, a pay my federal taxes because I can’t leave my family behind to go to jail, and it is more difficult to live tax-free than I am willing to attempt. I also know that my federal tax dollars do a lot of good too, and there’s no way for me to contribute to the life-supporting uses of tax dollars without also contributing to the death-producing uses of tax dollars.
So I am culpable in the deaths of many, born and not yet born. And I still will be if Planned Parenthood is defunded.
Preface, I am pro-life.
Meg is pointing out a contradiction that is in line with the “Consistent Life Ethic/Culture of Life” perspective. Basically, that if we are going to make an issue out of abortion that we should make the same noise about abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, economic injustice, euthanasia, and unjust war because these are all directly or indirectly methods of attacking human life. This is a valid perspective. The point isn’t to justify abortion, but to discuss it within the broader context of how we mistreat human life (there are nuances within this perspective, i.e. some justify capital punishment but only in the extremist of situations). I also tend to agree with this perspective. We make abortion such an issue, but care for life is much broader than abortion.
I will say, Planned Parenthood (PP) cannot use federal money to pay for abortions or support abortions. I know folks argue that their presence and the validity they give to abortion is equal to giving money, but I think that is overreaching a bit. And an extremely low (3%)percentage of PP’s budget goes to anything directly related to abortion. Again none of that can be federal money. Also, whether we like it or not, whether we believe it moral or not, abortion is not illegal.
There is something important and misguided in the fact PP is “the” reproductive health clinic to go to when there are several, many organizations expressing values closer to those of yours and mine exist, but the broader conversation of more equally distributed funding was not the central issue of the debate. Moreover the biggest competitor, Crisis Pregnancy Center, has had its own issues because of its history of being overly evangelistic and falsifying medical information.
It is a complicated debate, just like the debate about education and if federal grant, loan and work study money can and should go to faith-based institutions, especially those that only hire people of their faith or specific tradition. The debate is about life yes, most assuredly, but it is also about America’s cultural struggles and culture war.
Ed, I also don’t think you can say unjust war isn’t equivalent to abortion. It is the killing of people for self-interest. This selfish motivation is the same reasons you gave for being a force against abortion. They are of course different things, but the ramifications of and impetus of have a lot in common.
I’m not familiar with the “Consistent Life Ethic/Culture of Life” perspective, but if we want to question how our tax dollars are spent on defense we can. That is a very legitimate issue and debate we can have. But it seems to me that we are connecting defense spending with funding abortion in order to cloud the issue of the Federal Government supporting an organization that openly kills babies in the womb of the mother; Something I believe God abhors and I believe Scripture supports this view.
To your point concerning the fact that Planned Parenthood doesn’t use any of the Federal dollars it receives directly to support abortion reminds me of an incident that took place years ago between myself and another individual. This individual asked me for five dollars. I didn’t want to give it to him because he was an alcoholic and spent much of his money supporting his addiction. He promised that he wouldn’t use it for that because he respected me too much to do that. Later that day he came back drunk and I was upset because he made a promise to me. His response to me as he held up the five dollars I gave him was, “I didn’t say I wouldn’t drink! I said I wouldn’t use your five dollars!!!” I couldn’t help but laugh. The truth of the matter though was my five dollars freed him to use other money he had for what he really wanted. Federal dollars (to the tune of $70,000,000/year frees Planned Parenthood to use their other funds for what they really want.
Ed, you’ve got me really confused.
I get you on not wanting federal dollars to go to openly killing babies in their mothers’ womb. So what’s your proposal for preventing that in war zones? I mean, how are we going to be sure the bombs we drop don’t hit any pregnant women?
Maybe the operative word is “openly.” Maybe if we never publicize pictures of dead pregnant women, or keep it secret that pregnant women lived in Baghdad when we dropped the “mother of all bombs,” or pretend that war death is fake death. Oh, hey, maybe it’s this: if the mother and those with her are dead too, they’ll never be able to bear witness to the death of the child in her womb. Just as long as it’s not done openly, then our tax-funded bombs wouldn’t be “openly killing babies in the womb of the mother”? Maybe that’s what you mean.
Cause it sure is using federal dollars to kill babies in their mothers’ womb.
Meg, I’m not sure why you should still be confused because I have made my point very clear. This article is about federal funds supporting an organization that carries out the murder of children in the womb. It is you that have clouded the issue by bringing in federal funds that support the defense of a nation. These are two different issues. If you want to debate the necessity of defense and war, that’s fine, but that is also another topic. I’m just trying to stick to the subject at hand.
To your question about preventing bombs from dropping on pregnant women, I know we in the U.S. military do our very best to avoid heavily populated areas where there may be civilians who are not participants in the war. There are times where we may even give warnings to the population at large that we are coming or we are about to take some kind of action which gives them a chance to clear the targeted area. Does this mean that innocent people don’t die? No, but we try our best to minimize this.
Oh, I thought the subject at hand was U.S.-government-funded killing of unborn babies. That’s why I’m talking about U.S.-government-funded of killing of unborn babies.
I suspected that you persuaded yourself that war has nothing to do with killing of unborn babies by imagining a scenario in which pregnant women weren’t in the way of U.S.-funded bombs. I was right!
Trouble is, you assume that all airstrikes are planned well in advance, with enough time for families to pack up and move out of an area (which could itself lead to death by any number of means). But not all air strikes are planned in advance. Do you really believe that we would always give our human targets a heads-up? Or do you think we start a whisper campaign? “Hey, don’t tell so-and-so, but we’re about to bomb his house. You should leave, but don’t make it obvious because we want him to stay home so we can kill him.”
We also fund forces that specifically target civilians, and have for many years. Here’s an extremely horrifying example of a U.S.-funded military operation that not only didn’t take care to remove women of childbearing age from a war zone, it specifically targeted them and their families. Usually not that many people are killed at one time in U.S.-financed operations, but U.S.-funded forces often target civilians. I encourage you to do the “Look Inside” on this book on Amazon, and go to “The Dead.” There you’ll see a list of the men, women, and children were killed by U.S.-trained troops. On the list are a lot of women of childbearing age. Also a lot of born children, elderly people, and some people with disabilities, but we’re not talking about them just now. Knowledge of this incident did not prompt the U.S. to stop training and funding such forces. http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/09/07/afghanistan-civilian-deaths-airstrikes
So, I guess if you want to believe that U.S. defense spending has nothing do with U.S.-funded deaths of children inside their mothers, you can certainly continue to do that. But I don’t know how many honest people will believe with you.
As I said before, I know that my tax dollars fund the killing of many people, born and unborn. I grieve that. And I don’t pretend that the defunding of Planned Parenthood would make that problem go away.
Oops. Wrong link for the massacre. Here it is. Again, use the “Look Inside” feature to find “The Dead”: A list of the 1000 people killed in the massacre: http://www.amazon.com/Massacre-at-El-Mozote/dp/067975525X