This is the last post of the day and I had intended to hone in on the comments in President Obama’s final State of the Union address that were so affirmative–except that they did not include the unborn child.
For example
So, my fellow Americans, whatever you may believe, whether you prefer one party or no party, our collective future depends on your willingness to uphold your obligations as a citizen. …To stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us.
But then over the course of the day I ran across posts at pro-abortion sites that were, shall we say, hugely uncomfortable that President Obama had not discussed (in his interminably long speech) “reproductive rights.”
For example, there’s Julie Zeilinger’s “Why Obama’s Omission of Abortion at the State of the Union Matters.”
To be sure Zeilinger gives Mr. Obama props for having “supported women’s reproductive rights both rhetorically and in terms of policy” during in his two terms as president, including his recent veto of a bill (in NRLC’s words) “that would block most federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood, and repeal many parts of Obamacare, including the program that provides tax-based subsidies for about 1,000 health plans that cover elective abortions.”
But….
Many noticed a glaring omission in the president’s speech: He failed to address the dire state of women’s reproductive rights in the United States, including the many blatant attacks waged on them both during Obama’s presidency and in the years sure to come.
Zeilinger rehearses the numbers as crunched by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and comes to the conclusion, “Reproductive rights are a pertinent, even dire, issue for millions of Americans.”
SIGN THE NEW PLEDGE: I Pledge to Vote for a Pro-Life Candidate for President
Zeilinger doesn’t speculate why Obama was silent on abortion/reproductive rights. (We will, below.) She just ends with this lament:
This State of the Union address not only reached a huge audience, but set the tone of Obama’s legacy as well as his plan to address other issues in his last year as president. Leaving out the recent attacks on reproductive rights, and how he will continue to address them, seems like an unsettling oversight.
As always, context is imperative. The Abortion Establishment and its many blogosphere defenders are on High Alert. They read some (not all) of the tea leaves the same way we do and their antennae are listening for any evidence of less than 100% total and absolute commitment to their radical agenda.
For instance, NARAL trashed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) today for saying in an interview that she is not for abortion on demand or for abortion used as a method of birth control. Sounds like “twisted GOP talking points,” even if Pelosi raised them only to say she disagrees with them.
And then there is the aforementioned Obama veto of H.R. 3762. No fanfare, no whoop de doo, just a quiet veto message. That (as they say) did not go unnoticed.
Then there was the DEFCON 1 response to Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s answer to a question about younger women and their, ahem, lack of enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton. As you may remember from NRL News Today, Wasserman Schultz was asked by the New York Times Magazine
Do you notice a difference between young women and women our age in their excitement about Hillary Clinton? Is there a generational divide?
To which Wasserman Schultz responded:
Here’s what I see: a complacency among the generation of young women whose entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided.
Talk about stirring a hornet’s nest…
My point is a very, very simple one. We are told a hundred times a day and two hundred times on Sunday that being pro-abortion is a winning position for candidates, including presidential candidates.
That isn’t true, and never has been. Why else bundle abortion up into “reproductive health,” except to make it easier for the likes of Hillary Clinton to make the preposterous argument that if you are against abortion you are really against Pab smears.
I understand the abortion crowd’s hypersensitivity. Why? Because they have plenty to be worried about.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
