This morning, I heard numerous news reports on the comments made by John McCain and Barack Obama during their joint appearance at a "megachurch" over the weekend. Most of the news reports focused on the candidates' perspectives on abortion. I heard one report on a local religious station blasting Barack Obama for not immediately wanting to ban all abortions (they even recognized his statement that he wants to work to reduce the number of abortions). Last week, this same station had a news report blasting Barack Obama for wanting to withdraw troops from Iraq very very quickly. The program hosts argued that such a quick withdrawal would be dangerous to the stability and safety of Iraq.
Here is my problem with the "news" reports described above. As usual, it comes down to consistency. Barack Obama is blasted because he wants to remove troops from Iraq fairly quickly. The religious radio hosts recognize that it was a mistake to attack Iraq and force the need to maintain a military presence. The hosts argue that chaos would erupt if the troops left too quickly. The hosts share Obama's goal of achieving a position in Iraq that does not require a military presence by an outside entity. They just differ in the timeline to achieve that goal.
It seems to me that these radio hosts and Obama also share the same goal when it comes to eliminating abortion. Obama has stated that he would like to see they day when there are no abortions. However, he doesn't feel that simply outlawing abortion will achieve that goal and that society needs to address the reasons why women choose or are forced to choose to have an abortion. He also argues that outlawing abortion would lead to "back street" abortions that are often lethal. He argues that trying to eliminate abortions quickly will create chaos.
Why is it that the religious radio hosts chide Obama for wanting to get out of Iraq quickly and argue that doing so will lead to chaos but do not chide themselves for wanting to eliminate abortion quickly when doing so will also lead to chaos?
No comments:
Post a Comment