Democrats on Abortion: Only "Potential" for Life Begins at Conception

LifeSiteNews ^ | 4/14/08 | John Connolly

[wagglebee]

GRANTHAM, Pennsylvania, April 14, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both tried to downplay their positions on abortion at the Compassion Forum, a nationally televised event at Messiah College on April 13.

During the event, which was intended to provide the opportunity for candidates to discuss how their faith and moral convictions bear on their positions on important issues, both candidates were questioned on religion, evolution and abortion, among other things.

Obama chose conciliatory wording for his abortion stance. "The mistake pro-choice forces have sometimes made in the past, and this is a generalization...has been to not acknowledge the wrenching moral issues involved," he said. "And so the debate got so polarized that both sides tended to exaggerate the other side's positions. Most Americans, I think, recognize that what we want to do is avoid, or help people avoid, making this difficult choice. That nobody is pro-abortion - abortions are never a good thing."

Obama has tried to entice women voters away from Hillary through his strong stance on abortion, and promised last July that the first thing he would do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, nullifying any state's law against abortion.

"This public statement shows how radical Senator Obama is on the subject of abortion and how out of step he is with the American public," said Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition. "For example, Senator Obama opposes a ban on Partial-Birth abortions. Every poll shows most Americans want that barbaric procedure overwhelmingly prohibited. Senator Obama, while an Illinois state senator, opposed legislation which would have prevented the killing of an infant that survived a late term abortion. He also recently said, while speculating on the issue if one his daughters became pregnant, that he would not 'want them punished with a baby.'

"Senator Obama's radical support of abortion and making it a top priority as President puts him in conflict with evangelicals and Catholics who support building a culture of life," continued Rev. Mahoney. "This issue becomes even more focused during the Presidential campaign season and on the eve of the Pope's visit to America. The Christian Defense Coalition intends to make Senator Obama's embracing of abortion a major topic on the campaign trail."

Hillary also tried to downplay her position on abortion and when life begins, admitting along the way that the stance of the Democratic party has been out of touch with religious voters.

"I believe the potential for life begins at conception," Clinton said. "For me, it is also not only about a potential life. It is about the other lives involved.…I have concluded, after great, you know, concern and searching my own mind and heart over many years…that individuals must be entrusted to make this profound decision, because the alternative would be such an intrusion of government authority that it would be very difficult to sustain in our kind of open society."

She also said she would "continue to do what I can to reduce the number of abortions."

Obama was unable to give a positive answer on his views about when life begins at the forum.

"This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on," he said. "I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs?…What I know, as I've said before, is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we're having these debates."

See Previous LifeSiteNews Coverage:

Obama Declares He Doesn't Want His Children "Punished with a Baby"
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/apr/08040105.html

Obama: "Biggest Mistake" Was Vote to Help Terri Schiavo
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08022805.html

"Philosopher of Abortion Movement" Says Obama A Better Choice than Hillary
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/feb/08021910.html

Clinton to Obama: You're not as Pro-Abortion as Me
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/jan/08010702.html 

Biography Reveals Hillary Clinton Séance, Religious Devotion to Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/sep/07092405.html

[wagglebee]

Barack and Hitlery are truly devoid of souls.

[wagglebee]

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[KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle]

She also said she would "continue to do what I can to reduce the number of abortions."

Translation: "Bill... I want you to go out tomorrow morning, first thing, and get a vasectomy."

[markomalley]

markomalley on democrats: there is only the potential for intelligence with democrats.

[aruanan]

Genetically speaking, there is a time before which an individual of a sexually reproducing species does not exist and after which it does, be it ever so humble. From that moment to the moment of its dissolution it passes through definable stages of development and degeneration. Here are some that apply to us: zygote, embryo, fetus, newborn, infant, toddler, child, pre-adolescent, young adult, mature adult, old-aged. Upon this continuum of development place an asterisk where “it” becomes “human” and perhaps another where its humanity ceases as far as the empirical world is concerned. Many would place the asterisks at conception and death (death defined as the irreversible disruption of the continuum). I do. It is this creature appearing at conception and disappearing at death that is human.

If “human being” is a later stage of an individual’s existence, then what is the name for the being started at conception and ended at death? On the individual level, the pro-life view calls it human whether conscious or not, crippled, retarded, senile, diseased, sinful, intelligent, female, or male. The second view permits “quality of life and “value to society” to define the parameters of being human and those who have the power to do so to define those terms, whether a woman and her physician, N.A.R.A.L, or Big Brother.

[NonValueAdded]

And we all know how RATs like to snuff out potential.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

So let me get this straight...

If a a zygote was discovered on Mars, that was clearly the result of two separate cells combining...the headline "Life Found on Mars" would NOT be trumpeted across all major news outlets?

[wagglebee]

EXCELLENT POINT!

[Edison]

Let me see what other potentials are in my life....the potential I might get a hole in one, the potential I might win the lottery or that one of my kids become a professional athlete. I’m not banking on any of these but when I heard my wife was pregnant, I was pretty certain the potential part was out of the picture. The potential part occurred a weeks earlier.

[TruthShallSetYouFree]

And I suppose, by that definition, that a full-term partial-birth abortion only snuffs out "potential life." Tell that to the kid as you are putting a pair of scissors into his skull so that you can vacuum out his brain umm, his extraneous cranial matter.

[WorkingClassFilth]

These beings are monsters - there is no limit to the blood they would shed to acquire power, keep it, or eliminate their enemies. They a feeling their way to the language of a final solution.

[arthurus]

Life does not begin at conception. Or at birth. Life is continuous from God Said. An individual HUMAN life begins at conception. The egg and the sperm are not dead nor are they inanimate substances like iron or sodium chloride. They are living protoplasm. Life is in them.

[trisham]

They know in their hearts this is wrong.

[wagglebee]

They know in their hearts this is wrong.

You are assuming that they have hearts, it is quite possible that you are mistaken.

[TeleStraightShooter]

Most Americans, I think, recognize that what we want to do is avoid, or help people avoid, making this difficult choice.

Choice?
Is BHO is talking about the choice to make a life or take a life?

[trisham]

Perhaps. Yet even the hardest of hearts and minds can be changed, can come to see the truth. I believe this with all my heart.

[muawiyah]

Just thinking that the “potential for life” present in their blastocyts kind of flickered out quite early in the cycle.

[Right Cal Gal]

“That nobody is pro-abortion - abortions are never a good thing.”

This from a man who thinks giving babies who survive abortions “a place to die” is a righteous thing.

Obama IS the anti-Christ.

[muawiyah]

No they don’t. Both of them are classically formed sociopaths. There’s no “heart” there ~