The sanctity of life [Saddleback debate]

The two primary contenders for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, appeared at a forum on Saturday night and responded to questions posed by Saddleback Church's senior pastor, Rick Warren, author of the huge bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life."

To Warren's credit, he posed direct questions to each candidate on abortion and marriage, after earlier giving indications that he would avoid such controversial topics, an avoidance that would have masked Obama's radicalism and boosted his standing among evangelicals.

But Warren apparently heard the thunderous outcry from evangelical leaders from one end of the country to the other, who vigorously protested that no legitimate faith forum could omit questions on the two great moral questions of the day.

For any thinking and well-taught evangelical, the response of the two candidates on the sanctity of human life should end any indecision he might have in choosing between the two primary candidates for the highest office in the land.

Obama flatly said, "I'm pro-choice," after which he immediately declared, "I believe in Roe v. Wade," a disastrous Supreme Court decision that "legalized" abortion at all stages of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever.

His defense for his pro-choice position is that women don't make abortion decisions "casually."

But try to imagine a thinking evangelical supporting a "pro-choice" position on any other great moral question of the last two centuries. Let's imagine a candidate, for instance, taking the following position on slavery in 1860: "I'm pro-choice on slavery, and I believe in Dred Scott."

Or an evangelical candidate running for office in Germany in 1944 saying, "I'm pro-choice on gassing Jews, and I believe in the Final Solution."

Obama defended his position on grounds that he has seen to it that language has been inserted into the Democratic national platform that urges the party to find ways to reduce the number of abortions. (He wrongly asserted, by the way, that abortions have not gone down in the last eight years. Even Planned Parenthood's research arm, The Guttmacher Institute, admits that there were fewer abortions in America last year than any year since 1976.)

But imagine a candidate taking that position on slavery. "I believe everybody who wants to buy slaves ought to be able to, because I don't think those choices are made casually. After all, slaves cost money. So I'll protect the right of every American to own as many Africans as he can afford. But we ought to look at ways to encourage and support Americans who don't want to own slaves, so we don't have any more black slaves on plantations than strictly necessary."

Or imagine a candidate who said in WWII Germany, "I support the right of the German people to gas as many Jews as they want. But we also ought to look at ways of encouraging those Germans who don't want to gas Jews, so the Holocaust will be as small as possible."

Such positions would be unthinkable, because those issues present binary moral choices. Either it is morally permissible for one human being to own another or it is not. If it is morally permissible, why should we restrain it in any way?

But if it is morally impermissible, then it is unacceptable for any human being to be a slave of another human being, period, and we cannot be content until every slave is a former slave because he has been able to claim his inalienable right to liberty.

(Lest you think slavery is a relic of the past, think again. Every year, 800,000 women and children around the world are sold or kidnapped into the sex trafficking industry.)

Either it is permissible to kill another innocent human being solely because of his race or it is not. If it is not, then we cannot rest until every human being of every race is able to enjoy his unalienable right to life.

But the abortion question is of similar moral magnitude, and is likewise a binary moral question. Either a woman carries a baby in her womb or she does not. If she does not — if in fact she carries nothing more than a blob of tissue — then abortion is morally permissible and should not be restrained in any way. Why would we have any interest in making a morally permissible action not only safe and legal but rare?

What other "constitutional right" would we hope would be exercised as rarely as possible? The right to the free exercise of religion? The right to free speech? The right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures?

But if a woman does in fact carry a baby, then that child has certain moral and constitutional claims, and we cannot be content until every baby in every womb is able to enjoy his unalienable right to life.

It should be unthinkable for any evangelical to support a pro-choice position on abortion, or to support a pro-choice candidate, when his Bible teaches him that every child in every womb has been created in the image of God and is a baby, not a blob.

Sen. McCain, in contrast to Sen. Obama, when asked when a child has constitutional rights, interrupted Warren with his answer: "At the moment of conception."

(This, by the way, makes his stance on embryonic stem cell research inherently self-contradictory. An embryo, after all, by definition only comes into being at the moment of conception. Every embryo therefore is a human being in its most nascent form, and, were McCain consistent on this matter, he would oppose the destruction of even the tiniest human beings for medical research.)

McCain consistently triggers the largest applause on the campaign trail when he declares his support for life and marriage. From a purely pragmatic, political standpoint, this ought to tell him something about what American conservatives most value in a presidential candidate. And it should serve as a warning about the damage he will do to his campaign if he picks a pro-choice running mate.

Sen. Obama said the question of when life begins is "above my pay grade." Fine. In that case, he should defer to those who know more about the subject than he does.

A 1981 House committee held hearings to get an answer to the question of when life begins, and took testimony from the nation's premiere medical and genetic researchers. The unanimous conclusion of these experts, who are above Obama's "pay grade," is that human life begins at conception.

Obama said, "If you believe that life begins at conception, then — and you are consistent in that belief — then I can't argue with you on that."

The fact that Obama will not embrace scientific fact on this subject is an indication that he is simply using the "pay grade" ruse as a dodge.

The candidates likewise offer stark choices on the subject of marriage. While Obama gave lip service in the forum to marriage as the union of one man and one woman, he has congratulated Californians on their Supreme Court's ruling legalizing homosexual marriage by judicial fiat, and has expressed his opposition to the marriage amendment that will be before Golden State voters on November 4. He flatly opposes a federal marriage amendment.

McCain, on the other hand, said the California Supreme Court was "wrong" to legitimize same-sex marriage, and added, "We should preserve the unique status of marriage between one man and one woman."

McCain also indicated that he would support a marriage amendment to the federal constitution the moment a federal judge rules that one state has to recognize a homosexual marriage performed in another state. He has expressed his support for California's marriage amendment, and supported the marriage amendment proposal which was on Arizona's ballot in 2006.

The position of the two candidates on Supreme Court nominations is likewise revealing. When Obama was asked which justices he would not appoint, he first mentioned Clarence Thomas. He appeared to be on the verge of saying that it was because Thomas lacked "experience" but caught himself in time to narrowly avoid the self-incrimination that would have flowed from that assessment. Obama's resume is much thinner than Thomas's was at the time Thomas was being considered for high office.

He added, "I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of (the) Constitution," which was likewise his reason for his distaste for Antonin Scalia. He also reminded the nation in the forum that he voted against Chief Justice John Roberts.

Yet these three justices have been consistent and thoroughgoing originalists, whose opinions are well-thought, well-reasoned, and use the plain meaning of the Constitution itself as the guiding principle of jurisprudence. They are precisely the kind of judges we need occupying all nine seats on the bench.

McCain, on the other hand, said that he would not have nominated Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter and Stevens because "some of the worst damage has been done by legislating from the bench."

McCain observed that the next president will nominate two or three justices to the high court, and declared his intention that such nominations "should be based on the criteria of (a) proven record of strictly adhering to the Constitution and not legislating from the bench."

The bottom line: voters of whatever stripe, be they conservative, liberal, evangelical or secular fundamentalist, have a clear choice between these two candidates on critically important issues of morality and justice: the sanctity of life, the sanctity of marriage, and judicial activism.

Pastor Warren has done a great service to the American people in general and the evangelical church in particular by providing a forum in which the candidates staked out starkly differing positions on these foundational issues.

We can only hope that this forum will clear the fog from the glasses of well-meaning but misguided evangelicals and give them the information they need to make a choice on November 4 that is consistent with their most deeply cherished convictions.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bryan Fischer is the Executive Director of the Idaho Values Alliance, whose mission is to make Idaho the friendliest place in the world to raise a family. He has an undergraduate degree in Philosophy (from Stanford University) and a graduate degree in theology.

I watched the Rick Warren interview live on the internet. I think Warren did a good job. Obviously, McCain blew Obama out of the water. As for the comments that McCain “cheated,” I could just throw up. Here’s a guy that actually turned down two chances to leave captivity while a POW due to the code of honor that says, “first in, first out,” yet the media thinks McCain is going to CHEAT to hear an interview. Any guy that would be so honorable to stay in prison would hardly cheat for such a trivial thing.

I didn’t need the interview to know where these two stood and not only is Obama way off target when it comes to the sanctity of human life, but his views certainly border on evil; it is evil to kill a live child that has been born, even if the original intent was to destroy it.

Obama says he wants to confront evil. Well, he needs to confront himself.

[McCain]’s a guy that actually turned down two chances to leave captivity while a POW due to the code of honor that says, “first in, first out,” yet the media thinks McCain is going to CHEAT to hear an interview.

Worthy of repeating.

“What political issue could possibly outweigh this human devastation” of 40 million deaths through abortion? “The answer, of course, is that there is none. … It is time to put away the arguments of political spin masters that only serve to justify abortion killing. We have heard a great deal this year about the need for change. But at the same time we are told that one thing cannot change – namely, the abortion regime of Roe vs. Wade.

“It is time that we demand real change, and real change means the end of Roe vs. Wade.”

Carl Anderson, Knights of Columbus - Annual Report

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Barak’s position is another lesson in cognitive dissonance...

I don’t know when life begins but I do know it’s acceptable to kill it.
In fact - not killing it could be considered a “punishment.”

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