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Pro-Life George Bush?
Posted 2-16-2005
So, George Bush is
"pro-life"? I am going to give you a list of budget proposals advanced by
Mr. Bush, and someone please tell me how they can be conceived as
"pro-life".
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Undercut schools in need
by reneging on $12 billion in funding promised to schools by Bush
himself.
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Eliminate childcare
assistance for 300,000 children by 2009.
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Keep college out of reach
for qualified students by failing to raise the maximum Pell Grants as
promised and by freezing work-study funding.
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More than double the
co-pay charged to many veterans for prescription drugs, in addition to
requiring some vets to pay a new $250 yearly "user fee" for promised
health care services.
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Eliminate Community
Development Block Grants -- a lifeline for cities to build and maintain
clinics, day-care facilities, and housing developments.
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Eliminate the Even Start
literacy program that helps impoverished children and their illiterate
or semi-literate parents learn to read.
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Cut funds from Medicaid
that would pay health care for 1.8 million low-income children.
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Cut food stamp benefits
for up to 300,000 of the working poor.
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Force deeper cuts in
basic domestic programs by adding new tax cuts that will cost $1.5
trillion over ten years. More than half of these cuts would go to
households that earn more than a $1 million yearly, while virtually none
target households earning less than $100,000 per year.
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Balloon the federal
deficit to $1.4 trillion by 2010 due to war spending and new tax cuts.
Now Bush can call himself
"pro-life" as he pays lip service to opponents of legalized abortion. Even
though he's on the record as saying he isn't pushing to over turn Roe v.
Wade. But Bush, like so many others, is misusing the term "pro-life". People
have been disputing the issue of legalized abortion for many years now. But
"pro-life" should not be a label for someone that claims to want abortion
outlawed, yet will support countless policies that harm vulnerable members
of our society.
During last year's election, I
watched voters and even members of the Catholic clergy rationalize their
opposition to legalized abortion as a reason to support Bush, while turning
their eyes from his record as an executioner while Governor of Texas, his
invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, and his cruel social policies. Even with
Pope John Paul himself calling for a non-violent resolution to the Iraq
issue and calling the war "immoral", clergy members and some Catholic voters
conveniently rationalized their support for Bush.
Some people would say that
there can be differing views on the death penalty, war, and helping the
poor, but not on abortion. Oh really? No one on death row is a threat to
society any longer. So that argument based upon Catholic teaching from the
Middle Ages doesn't cut it in modern society. Remember, while Governor of
Texas, Bush executed women and mentally-challenged people and ignored direct
pleas for mercy from the Pope. Iraq, and Afghanistan for that matter, posed
no threat to the United States, so rationalization of those invasions is
impossible. Saddam Hussein's most brutal treatment of his citizens occurred
when he was an ally of the United States before and during his war with
Iran. So, we looked the other way and supplied him with chemical weapons
when he was brutalizing his own people. But when the neocons and Bush said
it was time to invade Iraq, some people could rationalize it as okay.
There really isn't wiggle room
for Bush supporters on the issue of helping the least fortunate members of
our society either. The true sign of a society's advancement and its
compassion is how it treats people in need. The argument I've heard from
some Catholic Church leaders that it all starts and ends with abortion is
wrong. It all starts with the people in need that are already here. If we
cannot help those already here, what are they to do? Pull themselves up by
their bootstraps? Denying help to children already living makes no sense and
it shows insensitivity beyond imagination.
The abortion issue does need
resolved. But, is outlawing it going to do that? How about eliminating the
circumstances that lead to abortions? Better sex education, more effective
use of birth control, and an honest effort to lift people out of poverty
will go much further than preaching only abstinence and outlawing abortion.
I've yet to meet one person that says abortion is anything but a tragedy.
But I've met a lot of people who feel real good about themselves because
they oppose legalized abortion. In Latin America, abortion is illegal yet
the rate of abortion of much higher there than in a country like the
Netherlands where it is legal. So there must be other reasons that abortions
occur. When will a national leader in this country step forward to really
face the challenge in an honest manner?
As for Bush, call him want
you'd like, but a person proposing more harm to those in need cannot be
"pro-life". He's shown his priorities, and they have not even included
overturning Roe v. Wade. He has the votes on the Supreme Court right now
(they elected him in 2000), he's got his party controlling both Houses of
Congress, but is he willing to expend any political capital for that battle?
It is time we stop the chest thumping and the political posturing and be
honest about the society we desire. Is it tax cuts and war, or a peaceful,
compassionate culture that reaches out to those in need?
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