Ex Utero
October 14, 2004
I don’t know how many Catholics are still undecided at this point, but my feeling is that abortion just isn’t strong enough an issue to decide an election on. I was looking at catholic.com — which isn’t exactly the most balanced source of information — but they have this big voters guide saying the five “non-negotiable” issues for Catholics are abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, human cloning and gay marriage.
Well, Kerry and Bush agree about gay marriage, so the most controversial one of those is moot.
Both oppose euthanasia.
Both support embryonic stem cell research, although with different opinions on just how it should be done.
“Human cloning” is a red herring. John Kerry supports therapeutic cloning, the creation of an embryo and the extraction of stem cells before they’ve become specific cell types. This, while the embryo is still microscopic. John Kerry opposes reproductive cloning, like the crazy cult that keeps saying they’ve cloned a baby. The writers at catholic.com included “human cloning” as a separate item, despite the fact that Kerry’s position on the issue is simply that of his stance on stem cell research, to make it look like Kerry was advocating cloned babies for everyone.
What’s left is abortion. Life begins at conception, etc. etc. etc. But like the earlier article stated, “life doesn’t end at birth.” Yes, it’s a clever marketing line but it’s also something to seriously consider. The problem is that Bush’s moral focus on the dignity of life is focused solely on the gestational stage of the child.
Once the child is born, Bush is content to cut back Medicaid so that she can’t receive adequate medical care.
He’s cut funding for Head Start programs^1^ so she’ll be unprepared when she gets to school.
He’s underfunded the No Child Left Behind act to the tune of $9 billion.2
He’ll give 31% of the tax cuts^3^ to the the wealthiest 1% of Americans. By 2010, 52% of the tax cuts will go to the wealthiest 1%.4 That’s not exactly the best way to take care of a poor woman who’s just had a baby, and can’t rely on government-funded programs to help pay for her child’s health and education.
And once that baby is grown up, if she did well, she might consider joining the military because of the government’s promise of money for college. There, she might be forced to fight, and risk her life, in an unjust war — which the Catholic church says that, as Catholics, we must oppose.
Or if she didn’t turn out so well, she might be executed by the government; an issue that the Catholic church opposes (although catholic.com didn’t deem it “non-negotiable”), yet Bush supports vigorously. On the other hand, John Kerry opposes the death penalty, and has been called “the first major-party presidential candidate in more than 15 years to take such a strong stand against capital punishment.”
And if the girl manages to survive all that, Social Security will have been depleted by the Republicans’ record-setting deficits, and if Medicare still exists it will have been rendered useless by Bush’s concessions to the drug companies.
It’s not that I agree with Kerry so much about what happens in utero — it’s that I can’t stand what Bush is doing to those of us who have traversed beyond the birth canal.
Sources
1 Tom Paine.com: Leaving Head Start Behind
2 The Seattle Times: ‘No Child Left Behind’ should be more than just a slogan
3 Citizens for Tax Justice
4 ibid.