Creating a Culture of Life

Today, and maybe all this week, it's political.
The issues we face are important ones, and it's silly to pretend we're not thinking and talking about them. These posts aren't brief, because the issues are complex, and I don't want to think about them carelessly.
What I'm offering here is only my opinion, a kind of thinking-out-loud conversation, and you're welcome to join in, whether you agree or not -- maybe especially if you don't agree. Feel free to comment!
The only thing we have to agree on is that we'll have this conversation courteously, and stay friends, even if we disagree.

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I was talking with an extended-family member the other day about presidential politics. He was gloating about Senator McCain's vice-presidential choice. “Want to just concede right now?” he asked, chuckling.
We discussed some of the pros and cons of various issues, and as I shared my point of view about Senator Obama and abortion, the conversation became more serious. He agreed that abortion is a bad thing, but “so is bringing a child into the world who isn't wanted, or whom the parents -- or parent -- can't care for properly.”
He brings up a fair point, but I think he stops too soon.
In my opinion, the answer to that argument isn't to abort the child, but to help that family cope with an unwanted or unexpected pregnancy. That help doesn't have to come from the government, either, although adapting government policies to enable safe adoption more easily wouldn't be a bad start.
Was it President Reagan who talked about a culture of life? I really don't remember if he used that phrase, but I think it speaks to the real answer to the question of abortion.
When we value each life -- see it as something to cherish and celebrate -- we are more likely to find solutions to the difficult emotional and economic problems that come with unexpected or unwanted pregnancies. We make room in our lives for what we value, even if it requires sacrifice of some kind.
How do we create a culture of life?

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In his book Culture Making, Andy Crouch talks about the importance of cultivation and creativity in building a culture, and his definition of culture covers a variety of the ways in which we organize our lives -- including ethnic culture, political culture, religious culture, and so on.
When he talks about cultivation, he is talking about a kind of nurturing, a way of building into something so it grows and flourishes. When he talks about creativity he is talking about finding ways to invent and re-invent anything and everything that has to do with our lives.
Crouch says, “What is most needed in our time are Christians who are deeply serious about cultivating and creating but who wear that seriousness lightly -- who are not desperately trying to change the world but who also wake up every morning eager to create.”
Abortion is a matter of life or death, and we've had decades of angry accusations back and forth between those who define the rights and responsibilities involved, differently. How much better it would be if, instead of trading acccusations we worked together, creating and cultivating a culture that affirms the importance of life, a culture that seeks to create and cultivate abundant life for all babies, even before birth, as well as the mothers and fathers who are their parents!
It would require our best effort, but isn't the effort worthwhile?

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Senator Obama, in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, asserted that common ground on abortion is to work together to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
To me, common ground on abortion would begin something like this: recognizing that parents (not to mention the father-to-be) have a legitimate interest in being informed if their minor-aged daughter is seeking an abortion. Parental notification that recognizes the danger some girls might face from a parent under those circumstances, but that also recognizes legitimate parental interest, might move toward convincing me that abortion-advocates are serious about “common ground.”
“Preventing unwanted pregnancies” sounds too much like a rationale for comprehensive sex education programs and condom hand-outs to me.
Sex education isn't something I'm categorically opposed to. A comprehensive sex education program that begins in kindergarten with lessons on same-sex marriage and technical descriptions of various sexual acts -- now that I'm opposed to, and not just on moral grounds. I don't think kindergartners need that kind of sex education, period.
Perhaps we should help parents understand more about how they might educate their kindergarteners about sex instead. Isn't home a natural place for those talks?
And if it's not, what can we do about that issue, without unquestioningly giving the responsibility for that education to teachers/school administrators/the government?

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This has implications for end-of-life issues, as well.
When each life is cherished and celebrated, that means no elderly person, no special needs person, no person with a life-threatening illness that falls on the wrong side of an insurance adjustor's cost/benefit ratios will have to fear abandonment or worse, encouragement to “just let go.”
There comes a time when it is appropriate for each of us to die, and sooner or later we'll all get there.
Do we really want to rush someone toward death just because it's too difficult or expensive or inconvenient for them to keep on living?
Yet, despite scoffing at the “slippery slope” arguments against abortion, what has happened since Roe-v-Wade is a growing acceptance of euthanasia in our country. It's still whispered about, but a recent case in Oregon proves the point, where a middle-aged man with cancer has been denied treatment by his insurance company because it would only prolong his life, not cure him.
What???

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Creating a culture of life -- just how do we go about doing that? What would it look like?

Abortion and Senator Obama

This rainy evening we are getting Hurricane Gustav's left-overs, and the Republican Party is going about the business of nominating John McCain and Sarah Palin.
Corn is firing, drying down, and fields look like storehouses of gold. We drove past a field of sorghum this week-end, and it looked as if it were on fire.
The temperatures cool off even as political rhetoric heats up.
And so the season changes.

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Last week I listened with great interest as Senator Obama gave his acceptance speech. I think he is an honorable man with some good ideas. I especially like his emphasis on a father's responsibility to his family.
I'm convinced he cares about people, and I believe he would give the presidency his best effort.
But I won't be voting for him.
In his speech -- so quickly overshadowed by Senator McCain's announcement of his running mate, Sarah Palin -- Senator Obama talked about his energy policy, but he did not tell us how he intends to pay for it. Higher taxes? Restrictions on our everyday use of non-approved forms of energy? What changes will his policies make to our everyday lives and our budgets? He gave very few details about that part of his energy policy. That concerns me.
It seems too much like one more political pocket-picking.
I thought it admirable that he reached for common ground on thorny issues, but I don't believe working harder to “prevent unwanted pregnancies” even begins to address our differences about abortion -- his compromise falls short, and his voting record on abortion makes it impossible for me to vote for him.
Dennis Byrne writes about one aspect of Senator Obama's voting record on abortion in a column in the August 26, 2008 issue of The Chicago Tribune, reprinted here on Rick Hogaboam's blog Endued, a Blog About Life and God. In that column, Byrne discusses the Senator's resistance in the Illinois Legislature to recognizing any legal rights for a born-alive “product of abortion.”
I agree with Byrne's assertion that “by arguing against the born-alive legislation because it might in some distant and ambiguous way obstruct abortion, Obama implies that the right to an abortion trumps an infant's right to life, even after he is born.”
I don't see how Senator Obama's position on abortion allows him to claim moral leadership.
I believe his position on the basic issue of life is basically immoral.