Divorcing Abortion from its Domestic Partner
Editor’s Note: Today’s post is written by SecularProLife.org member Nick Neal. Thanks, Nick! If you are interested in being a guest blogger, email info@secularprolife.org.
On November 2, 2010 pro-lifers (including me) were partying like it was 1994. After two years of an administration that overturned the Mexico City policy, passed a healthcare bill that will allow for abortion funding, and flirted with F.O.C.A., a pro-life majority in the House was a breath of fresh air. However, there was one election defeat for pro-lifers which wasn’t the fault of NOW, NARAL, Planned Parenthood or any other pro-abortion-choice group. It was the fault of none other than the Family Research Council.
In 2008, Rep. Joseph Cao was an anomaly in that he was one of the few pro-life Republicans to beat a Democrat in a traditionally Democratic district. On January 2011, he’ll be one of the few pro-life Republicans to lose his house seat. Why? The National Right to Life committee had endorsed him as a pro-life candidate, but the Family Research Council had railed against him because of his support for including sexual orientation in hate crimes legislation as well as overturning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. This caused a pro-life seat in the house to once again be under the control of a pro-choice Democrat.
Because abortion is often lumped together with gay marriage as “moral issues,” we tend to put the two on the same level of morality when really they are not. Gay marriage, no matter what you think about it, does not kill anyone. Abortion does. When the Family Research Council and other religious conservative groups constantly link the act of dismembering an innocent human being with two dudes getting married, that hurts the cause for unborn rights. It puts abortion in the category of sexual morality rather than as a violation of the natural right to live. I am not saying whether pro-lifers should or should not support same sex marriage. What I am saying is that we should no longer link the two issues if we want to do service to the unborn– and we certainly should not consider gay marriage a more important issue than abortion, as the Family Research Council did.
SecularProLife.org does not take a position on LGBT issues, largely for the reasons Nick states above.
1. The issue of abortion funding in the PPAACA is not so clear-cut.
2. When did the administration "flirt with" FOCA?
I think FOCA was more of an issue in the 2008 election; once Congress convened, abortion advocates quickly saw that they didn't have sufficient votes and moved on to more subtle anti-life measures.
Obama did as a nominee, state that he was going to vote for FOCA, He's been avoiding it today, but he hasn't renounced it
and yes, I know that's a run on.
Obama said he'd vote for FOCA in front of Planned Parenthood; he was clearly just pandering to his audience.
For the sake of the unborn, I hope you're right.
you are invited to follow my blog
Seriously. I really don't care what my fellow pro-choicers think about gay marriage, I just want them to stop A) claiming it's as important of an issue as abortion and B) linking gay marriage and abortion in some type of "disregard for nature" thing. It communicates that there's only one way to be pro-life and one way to oppose the deaths of unborn children, and there's not.
Huh?
Oh my GOD…I cannot believe I wrote "my fellow pro-choicers." Obviously I was way more sleep-deprived than I realized…O_O