[Peace-discuss] Obama gets another one right

[C. G. Estabrook]

I think it does matter to poor people's lives, but we disagree in what sense.  I
think it's a vicious society that does not provide people with a guaranteed job,
income, education, housing, health care, or child care -- and then sees it as a
liberal advance to provide the chance to bring to an end the lives of their
unborn children.

We're all appalled by the account of the murders in the Belgian child-care
center today, but those who consider abortion ethical are reduced to objecting
only to the timing: ending the lives of the same children some months earlier --
before they were born -- would be not only legal but laudable.  Economists argue
that our society is such that legal abortion reduces crime -- roughly, that
abortion makes for social peace by killing the poor.

Most of the people I know who've had an abortion or seriously considered it have
done so for economic reasons, even the well-to-do who could not afford the
interruption of education or career. But even after a generation of essentially
flat wages, we've taken none of the obvious steps that would be an alternative
to ending lives as a social program -- such as universal health care.

Before Obama "reversed Bush abortion-funds policy," he delivered an inaugural
address in which, as Paul Krugman says, "for those still hoping that Mr. Obama
will lead the way to universal health care, it was disappointing that he spoke
[in his inaugural address] only of health care’s excessive cost, never once
mentioning the plight of the uninsured and underinsured."

And I do think "it speaks to the tone Obama is setting in his first week in
office," but we interpret that tone differently.  I think it's indicated by the 
AP account today that "Missiles fired from a suspected U.S. spy plane killed 10
people Friday in Pakistan just east of the Afghan border ... The strike was the
first on Pakistani territory since the inauguration of President Barrack Obama,
but the latest in a barrage of more than 30 since the middle of last year."

I think we should oppose a social policy an essential part of which is ending
lives.  --CGE


Ricky Baldwin wrote:
> Put this one in the column of real differences, differences that matter to
> poor people's lives, among US presidents:
> 
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_abortion_ban
> 
> This is not as groundbreaking as closing Guantanamo Bay prison.  As the 
> article says, Clinton did the same.  Still, it speaks to the tone Obama is
> setting in his first week in office.  And if Obama didn't do this, we'd be
> right to call him out for failing to act.
> 
> Ricky
> 
> "Speak your mind even if your voice shakes." - Maggie Kuhn