LIFE DIGEST: Obama’s reversal of pro-life policy his least popular act
- Feb 3, 2009 - 1
President Obama’s executive order to rescind a pro-life policy is the most unpopular act he took in the first 10 days of his administration.
Also in this edition: Brit: Saving planet requires no more than 2 kids per family and ‘Biological colonialism’ threat in Africa, archbishop warns and Lawsuit filed in Florida infanticide
Obama’s decision to overturn the Mexico City Policy, which barred federal funds from going to organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas, was approved by only 35 percent of Americans, according to a USA Today/Gallup survey. The poll found 58 percent disapproved of the action and 7 percent had no opinion.
Of six other actions by the new president, Americans favored four of them by at least 74 percent and another by 56 percent, according to the poll. The only decision other than his repeal of the Mexico City Policy not to receive majority approval was his closing of the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorist suspects. Only 44 percent favored that action.
Obama’s Jan. 23 order reversed a rule that has prohibited international organizations from receiving U.S. family planning funds unless they agree not to perform or counsel for abortion or lobby in order to liberalize the pro-life policies of foreign governments. President Bush restored the policy in 2001, eight years after President Clinton overturned it. The Reagan administration instituted the rule in 1984, announcing it at a conference in Mexico City.
The poll, which was conducted Jan. 30 to Feb. 1 in phone calls to more than 1,000 Americans 18 years of age or older, also showed 59 percent of Democrats approved of Obama’s repeal of the Mexico City Policy, while only 33 percent of independents and 8 percent of Republicans agreed with it.
Brit: Saving planet requires no more than 2 kids per family
Families should be restricted to two children in order to protect the environment, Britain’s “green” adviser says.
Abortion and contraception should be promoted in policies to combat global warming, says Jonathon Porritt, chairman of the English government’s Sustainable Development Commission.
“I think we will work our way towards a position that says that having more than two children is irresponsible,” Porritt said, The Times of London reported Feb. 1.
“I am unapologetic about asking people to connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint and how they decide to procreate and how many children they think are appropriate,” he said.
American bioethics specialist Wesley Smith attacked Porritt’s position.
“’[S]aving the planet’ could come to be seen as so urgent as to justify a plethora of pernicious policies,” including euthanasia and mandated eugenic infanticide, Smith wrote on his weblog Feb. 1. “[W]e wouldn’t want the planet burdened with useless carbon dioxide exhalers, would we?
“Perhaps the Greenies will seize on these developments and begin to select out embryos with a genetic propensity to be tall or heavy. Indeed, why not pull out all the stops and redesign our species to be no more than four feet tall? After all, if our population numbers were drastically cut and we were all diminutive, think how much better the earth would feel!”
‘Bioogical colonialism’ threat in Africa, archbishop warns
African women may become the victims of “biological colonialism” if the legislative wishes of some organizations are granted, the archbishop of Johannesburg has warned.
“Biological colonialism is on our doorstep,” Archbishop Buti Joseph Tihagale said at the South African Catholic Bishops’ Conference, according to Zenit news service.
Tihagale pointed to the efforts of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the African Union’s Maputo Protocol to persuade African countries to legalize abortion and in vitro fertilization.
“Such legislation will make it possible to poach ovarian human eggs from African women,” he said Jan. 22, Zenit reported. “Harvesting ovarian human eggs in Africa will help meet the needs of embryonic stem cell research in industrialized countries.”
Zenit is an international news agency that reports on news from a Roman Catholic perspective.
Lawsuit filed in Florida infanticide
A lawsuit alleging murder has been filed against the owner of a South Florida abortion clinic after a botched abortion produced a live baby girl.
The Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based, pro-life law firm, filed the suit Jan. 27 in Miami against abortion clinic owner Belkis Gonzalez and 12 other defendants in a case stemming from a July 2006 attempted abortion.
Sycloria Williams gave birth at a Hialeah, Fla., clinic after the preliminary stages of an abortion. Gonzalez allegedly cut the umbilical cord, put the newborn, named Shanice Denise Osbourne, into a biohazard bag and dumped the bag in a trash can. More than a week later, police found the decomposing body of Shanice in a cardboard box in a clinic closet, according to the Thomas More Society.
The law firm says it became involved in the case when a law school professor was quoted in The Miami Herald as saying it “couldn’t be a case of homicide” if the baby was not “viable.”
“That opinion is dead wrong,” Thomas More President Tom Brejcha said in a written release. “A disabled or dying patient may not be ‘viable’ in the sense of being able to live very long or without help, but if you kill them, it’s murder. This was a case of infanticide, and we’re not going to let it go ignored or unpunished.”
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
Further Learning
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comments
1 On Feb 4th, 2009, at 9:50am, Bruce Landry wrote:
It’s easy to toute your morality when you speak of ending the torture in Guantanimo Bay unless your son or daughter is being held hostage, or they are about to be attacked. Yet when we consider the millions of children that have been murdered by this nation over the sins of their biological parents, it is staggering.
I guess the biggest concern I have is that as smart as President Obama is considered to be, he cannot see the ties to the bills he signs to Eugenics, which was originally brought about to take down people of various other races, the downcast and needy.
I pray God’s hand of protection and guidance over our President, and that God’s will would come into the center of His world and life to the glory of God.