Obama desires to limit abortions?

Dear Mr. President:

Congratulations on your election and inauguration. It is always gratifying to see how the American Republic is able to transition peacefully from one President and ruling party to the next. Please be assured of my prayers for the success of your administration and for peace and prosperity for the nation it is now you privilege and responsibility to lead.

In your Inaugural Address as well as your speech on Election Night, you indicated a desire to reach out to those who disagree with you. You said, “On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”

You spoke of the hope that future generations would look back on this time and say, “we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations,” and of how “a parent's willingness to nurture a child…finally decides our fate.” Most inspiring to me was your recognizing “the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”

It appears to me, however, that in one very important area, your actions and stated intentions are not in harmony with your Inaugural Address.

I would like to take you to task for the speed with which you signed an Executive Order to reverse the so-called “Mexico City Policy” regarding US funding of abortion-related services. This action and your stated support for the “Freedom of Choice Act” (FOCA) make abundantly clear that your policy positions exclude some from the promise of America.

Under your current approach, not all of those who would be part of the “future generations” to which we would deliver freedom will be alive to receive it from us. Not all children will live to see the time when their parents can nurture them. When some can be killed in the womb when they are unwanted, yet carried to term if they are, it becomes clear that not all are equal, not all are free, and not all are given the chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

Mr. President, perhaps the most divisive issue in American politics today is abortion, but it is divisive because it, more than any other issue, determines the kind of nation America truly is. How we deal with the unborn says more about our desire to help the vulnerable in our society than anything, and I implore you, sir, to reach across the great divides on this issue.

I ask you to demonstrate the moral and intellectual courage to engage in vigorous, open-minded dialogues with physicians, biologists, bioethicists, Constitutional experts, social workers, feminists, etc., who are against abortion. Hear that side of the story and be willing to consider the possibility that they have persuasive arguments, before bills are put into hoppers, before debates begin, before judges are appointed.

I know from reading your comments on abortion that you have concern about this debate being argued along purely religious lines. However, there are biological, social, philosophical, and constitutional discussions to be had without the issue ever needing to be painted in purely religious terms.

Many believe most strongly that life is the first natural right of man, as expressed in Locke, Hobbes, and the documents of the American founding such as the Declaration of Independence. All other rights flow from the right to life. One can have neither liberty nor the pursuit of happiness without life. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, these rights are unalienable, governments are established with the consent of the governed to secure them, and when government acts contrary to this, it is violating its social contract.

Many also believe that biology has settled convincingly the question Roe v. Wade evaded and that you have said was “above my pay grade.” That a distinct human life exists from the moment of conception is a proven fact; a unique human with a genetic code distinct from the mother is present, and immediately cells grow, reproduce and differentiate. What becomes the issue at that point is whether that life is permitted to continue or not. In the current environment, the deciding factor on whether that life continues or not is the preference on the part of one or both parents—a very arbitrary standard for whether one lives or dies in a just society.

Finally, many believe that the idea that Roe v. Wade is “settled precedent” is specious. The history of American Constitutional Law shows examples of decisions that were precedent for decades before being overturned either by Constitutional amendment (e.g. Dred Scott by the Reconstruction Amendments) or by Supreme Court decision (e.g. Brown v. Board of Ed overturning Plessy v. Ferguson). One wonders what would have happened if the Warren Court had felt Plessy was “settled” according to the idea of stare decisis, instead of listening to and being convinced by the arguments made by Thurgood Marshall and others.

You are in a unique position to use your bully pulpit to bring us all together here, to drive toward options that discard the false dichotomy between taking care of the mother and the child that have been established by proponents of the expansion of abortion rights and FOCA. Reduction of abortion to a matter of women’s health alone, without regard for the fact that a different, separate life is involved, is just as dangerous and non-constructive as reducing the pro-life debate to purely religious grounds.

We can work toward eliminating the causes of unwanted pregnancies and the socioeconomic conditions that lead women to think abortion is their only way out, while also providing, even encouraging, options that affirm life when pregnancies occur, such as adoption, better prenatal and postnatal care for women who carry to term, etc. All we need is the will to do so.

Let America shine as a beacon to the world that we reject as false the choice of either killing the unborn or preserving the physical, psychological and economic well-being of the mother who carries them.

Mr. President, when you speak so eloquently about hope, opportunity, freedom, and the need to help others around us, I believe you sincerely seek this. I too want America to truly be united in common purpose. Yet if you persist in what appears in the early going to be a very divisive approach to an already divisive issue, you will fail in this desire to unite us. Rather, you will inspire those on the pro-life side to work as never before to defeat candidates and laws that do not protect the most vulnerable.

Again, please know that I pray that God will bless you with wisdom on this and the many other challenges you—and we as a nation—face. We will be able to face them, and overcome them, if we face them together.