Both Oars In "Senator Kerry, what are you saying?"

Jan 30, 2009

Senator John Kerry, what are you saying? Mr. Obama reverses the ban on funding and promoting abortion in the world with our tax dollars and your response is to proclaim the order "a very powerful signal to our neighbors around the world that the United States is again back in the business of good public policy, and ideology no longer blunts our ability to save lives around the globe." John, would you kiss your mom with that mouth? How can you twist the promotion of abortion in the world into an improvement in the "ability to save lives"?

On the other hand, it seems that President Obama can still out do you in rhetoric. He made Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, very happy and claimed at the same time his action was aimed at putting an end to a "stale and fruitless debate" that "has only served to divide us." That is like a parent trying to end a squabble between siblings by letting one of them have the last punch. When you make the president of NARAL happy, you have to be looking for the most divisive of fights with her foes.

I worked for twelve years in one of the countries that have benefited from U.S. relief programs. During my time in Haiti, I was asked for assistance for everything from shoes to college educations. I had parents ask for school money. I had women ask for jobs for their sons and daughters. I had children ask for money to bury their mother or father. I had a guy even ask for money for a lawyer to get his brother out of jail. But, I never, not once in twelve years, had a woman ask for money for an abortion. The women I knew and worked with regarded children as precious hope for the future and their security.

On the other hand, I did find myself defenseless in a discussion with a former papal nuncio to Haiti who asked, "Why do people in your country promote family planning among the poor in the world? Do you fear the people of the developing nations?" That is a good question: Why do some of the wealthy philanthropists of this country, and now our government, promote having fewer children in the world—especially the developing world? What is it that we cherish above life in general? Selfishly, as the nuncio intimated, I fear it is keeping the quality of our own lives.

Mr. Obama also plans to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund. Unlike global warming, it is not clear that those who have warned of overpopulation have the facts behind them. Malthusian doomsayers have yet to provide evidence that the world cannot support the growing number of people on it. Improper distribution, waste and greed are more likely the culprits than overpopulation for the starvation and pain suffered in the world. We live in a time when lavishly sponsored climbers can enjoy a Coke while climbing Everest, yet a child in need of clean bottle of water in a Tanzanian refugee camp is told that it is too complex to deliver him one. This is what needs to be solved.

Artificial population control, especially involving abortion, seems to have the exact opposite effect to what Nancy Keenan hopes. How can she claim that Mr. Obama’s decision helps to "end divisive policies that harm women" when, in countries where abortion is used most aggressively, there is an unnatural imbalance in the ratio of males to females? China and India, where the deadly combination of ultrasound and abortion are found, both have noticeable distortions in their male to female ratio. It is obvious that more female fetuses are being aborted than male. Who is being harmed most in this scenario?

It is time we really consider the motivation behind easy access to abortion. Whose problems does it actually solve? Certainly, it is not the unborn child’s. In a presidency where Martin Luther King, Jr., is often quoted, shouldn’t we ask if greater access to abortion was his dream for the oppressed? Or, was it greater access to life?