An Early "Values Voter" Obama-Rama Slam

(And by the way, I also posted over here about one of the more noxious offenders of the punditocracy.)

McClatchy tells us here that…

WASHINGTON — Republican lawmakers on Wednesday urged President Barack Obama to reconsider his support of legal abortions as anti-abortion activists arrived in Washington for a protest on the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling.

As many as 200,000 people were expected to join the "March for Life" to the Supreme Court building on Thursday on the 36th anniversary of the 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

…

Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said abortion opponents were girding for a series of abortion-rights actions by Obama, possibly as soon as Thursday.

"We expect the Obama administration to push a sweeping pro-abortion agenda which, if successful, would greatly increase the number of abortions," Johnson said.

Bill Burton, an Obama spokesman, declined to comment.

"We're not making any announcements on that today," Burton said.

(God, let the guy take his coat off in the Oval Office at least before you start haranguing him, willya? And I know it’s going to be difficult for “the faithful” to comprehend the fact that, at long last, we now have a president who, by every appearance, is skilled in actual governance, as opposed to the prior life form that inhabited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.)

In response to Johnson, please allow me to note the following from this link…

The Guttmacher Institute, whose figures are cited regularly by both sides in the abortion debate, say on their Web site, "In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed, down from 1.31 million abortions in 2000."

There's little to show the decline has come about because of anything President Bush did or didn't do. In fact, the number of abortions in the U.S. has been falling steadily since the 1980s regardless of whether the person in the White House favored a legal right to abortion or opposed it.

It should also be noted that Obama, as candidate, said that states should be allowed to regulate late term abortions (and by the way, please allow me to note once more that “partial-birth abortion” is a political term and not a medical one).

I’m not sure what Obama meant, though, when he said that “We've actually made progress over the last several years in reducing teen pregnancies, for example,” given that this tells us that teen pregnancy rates rose for the first time in 14 years in December 2007. We also learn from the “On The Issues” text that Obama’s “present” votes on “five horrendous (Illinois) anti-choice bills,” according to NOW, antagonized a group that overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton for president (Obama’s “present” votes indicated that he didn’t like the abortion-related legislation, but he wanted to keep it alive so it could be fixed for a later vote as opposed to scraping it altogether, primarily for the reason of ensuring that the mother is protected).

Also, Obama would expand access to contraception, and he has also said that he would extend “the same presumption of good faith” to abortion protesters that some have extended to him.

The McClatchy story also tells us that Obama supports the Freedom of Choice Act, which “would prohibit federal, state or local governments from denying or interfering with a woman's right to choose to have an abortion. It would (also) allow women to file retroactive lawsuits claiming harm from past denials.” And this tells us that the Prevention First Act, already endorsed by Obama, “would increase federal funding for family planning, promote comprehensive sex education, and expand women's access to contraceptives.”

The ABC News story also tells us that the Hyde Amendment, named after a philandering former Congressional Repug of sadly little worth, now deceased, is still very much in place, as it has been for 33 years, and likely will remain that way; the amendment bans all government funding of abortions – on this, I (a Catholic) want to point out that I recently heard someone from “Priests For Life” claim from the pulpit that Obama will ensure that government funds abortions again…even though the speaker wore a turned-around collar, that didn’t absolve that person from telling the truth, which is that Obama is not going to risk hard-won political capital trying to stir up the “culture wars” for real by trying to repeal Hyde when there are so many other weightier issues to be addressed.

And by the way, for the record, here is the statement from President Obama (ummm, that sounds nice after all these years) on the Roe v. Wade anniversary.

Also for the record, here is Media Matters debunking another lie from Flush Limbore on the so-called “Mexico City” policy that “prohibit(s) the federal government from providing funds to international family planning groups that promote abortion or provide information, counseling, or referrals about abortion services in other nations” (as MM tells us, it was first imposed by The Sainted Ronnie R, rescinded by Clinton, and revived by Dubya; I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before it’s rescinded again – if the “Priests For Life” person I noted above was referring to “Mexico City” and not “Hyde,” he should have said so).

But you just knew that the Repugs and their acolytes weren’t going to take all of this sanity from Obama lying down without responding somehow, didn’t you?

Well, the McClatchy story also tells us…

House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio sent Obama a letter signed by 80 GOP colleagues asking him to back off his campaign support for the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would repeal dozens of restrictions states have placed on abortions.

"Since the beginning of your presidential transition, Americans from all walks of life have been touched by your pledge to govern from the center, and by your vow to be a president for all Americans," Boehner wrote to Obama.

"We are writing to respectfully urge you to build on this foundation by withdrawing your pledge to sign the so-called Freedom of Choice Act, which would in one tragic act overturn virtually all pro-life laws nationwide," the letter said.

As an Illinois legislator and U.S. senator, Obama compiled a strong voting record in support of abortion rights.

"The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act," Obama told a national gathering of Planned Parenthood members in July 2007.

Obama added: "On this fundamental issue, I will not yield."

Elections have consequences, Boehner (pronounced “bo-ner”).

And don’t you know that one of Boehner’s GOP colleagues that engaged in his publicity stunt (rightly called that by Nancy Keenan of NARAL) was our own Joe Pitts?

Oh yes, Pancake Joe is such a friend of families in this country that he voted against a renewal of Head Start, against raising the minimum wage at least twice, against a bill empowering the FDA to regulate cigarette content, requiring disclosure of product ingredients, banning cigarette marketing to children, and requiring more prominent health warnings, and against funding of SCHIP (four times!!), as noted here.

That’s the choice you make when living in the reality-based community, though. The Dems, by and large, are trying to govern for individuals in all phases of life, from conception to death. That’s a considerably more challenging proposition than that offered by the Repugs, who quite rightly look upon life within the womb as sacred, but somehow believe that, once that life is fully realized upon birth, all bets are off.