Splits in the Pro-life Vote
I see that James Dobson has thrown his focus onto Huckabee, not a surprise given Dobson's bi-issue tendencies.
But a Huff-post yesterday by Christian conservative Frank Schaeffer has added evidence that the Religious Right is splitting between the power-broker politics of the old guard and an emerging generation of evangelicals who are putting the human back into the race.
Here, Schaeffer writes why he is pro-life and pro-Obama.
Evangelicals weren't politicized until after my late father and evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, Dr. Koop (Reagan's soon-to-be Surgeon General) and I stirred them up over the issue of abortion in the mid-1970s. Our Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book, movie series and seminars brought the evangelicals into the pro-life movement.(Dad's political influence persists. Last week one of my father's followers -- Mike Huckabee -- was interviewed by Katie Couric, along with all the other presidential candidates. Couric asked the candidates if they were to be sent to a desert island and could only take one book besides the Bible, what would that that book be? Huckabee answered that he'd take my father's book Whatever Happened To The Human Race?)
[Snip]
Conversely the "pro-life" ethic of George W. Bush manifested itself in a series of squandered opportunities to call us to our better natures. After 9/11, Bush told most Americans to go shopping while saddling the few who volunteered for military service with endless tours of duty (something I know a little about since my son was a Marine and deployed several times). The Bush doctrine of life was expressed by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq that has killed thousands of Americans and wounded tens of thousands more.
[Snip]
Regardless of the official position of the Supreme Court on abortion, a country in which all Americans are offered some sort of dignity and hopeful future would be a place conducive to the kind of optimism each of us must hold in our hearts if we are to welcome children into this world. But if our highest aspiration is to be a consumer with no thought or care for our neighbor, we will remain a culture in which abortion is not only inevitable but logical.What we need in America is a spiritual rebirth, a turning away from the false value of consumerism and utilitarianism that have trumped every aspect of human life. To implement this vision we need leaders that inspire but to do so they have to be what they say they are. It's not about policy it's about character.


Comments
Thanks Alex, these kind of discussions are very important. As a Catholic, I have spent a lot of time thinking about what being "pro-life" means and the answers usually aren't easy to come by. I think it's very healthy that these old stereotypes and polarizations are starting to break down.
Posted by: Beth | February 10, 2008 01:19 PM
good post!
almost 20 years ago a friend and i gave a presentation at a college on the nonsense of his fathers' thought.
I didn't know his son had done a turn-around.
Posted by: doug | February 10, 2008 11:00 PM