Politics is one of my interests.  The debates, the strategies and in past years Tim Russert, his white board and Super Bowl excitement have always been fun for me to watch.

This year is very different for me.  You see late time we voted for a president I was (of course) four years younger (21 that is) and had just had my first child.  It was ever present in my mind that a my choice for candidate had to be pro-life.  

This year is much different for me.  I’ve added two additions to my clan and have come to increasingly value the unborn, the mothers considering abortion and the fathers that desperately wish for their children to live and not be cast out.  While I’ve always been against abortion in theory, I’ve never been as enraged about this battle as I am this year.

For this post, I want to focus on the flaw in thinking that a vote for the candidate who is pro social justice, environmental protection, against any war, etc… but supports abortion and a women’s right to choose is a responsible, educated, rational or somehow ubber philosophical decision that only the most learned of scholars could truly understand as being somehow pro-life.  

The premise is this, Obama (let’s get this clear right off the bat) has very pro-life stance because of his position on universal health care (which by the way, if you think things are bad now, wait and see what happens if UHC would actually come to pass), his stance on environmental issues and overall tone of ending war and protection of the poor.  However, he very clearly is a liberal as they come on issues related to a women’s right to choose – aka the murder of millions of babies through doctor assisted homicide.

The argument is Utilitarian.  The greatest good of this candidate will be offset their flaws. 

The rebuttal is this, the foundation of all sanctity of life discussions has to first be brought back to why the discussion of social justice, ending war, environmental protection, etc… is even important in the first place.  The reason is this, because human lives and their quality of life matter (I will never disagree with that statement).  So then, we now need to define human life.  Human life is separated from the rest of the animal kingdom by two things; the ability to reason and an created (thus having a beginning), everlasting soul.  The often quoted verse of the Bible, Jeremiah 1:5 states “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed yo a prophet to the nations.”  If a baby or fetus were to not have a soul or meaning until it was a certain age of gestation, what is that line and how can we define it.  If it is the magical push through the birth canal that finally gives a baby purpose, what is so magical about that ride that creates the meaning.  If it is the second trimester, why?  Because all of the sudden the mother can feel it kick?  If we want to push the limits, we could argue that life begins only after the child can reason (which is the other defining characteristic of human life), which would actually render many humans of varying ages meaningless.  No, none of these answers are concrete.  The concrete answer is that life begins at conception at that single moment when supernaturally the soul is imparted into a little body of cells at the precise moment that a sperm and egg fertilize.

Now therefore, social justice issues are important because quality of life is important.  Quality of life is important because human lives are important.  Human life has to be defined as starting at conception, therefore the foundation of pro-life-ness is clearly resting on the unborn people.  The reason any of the ancillary issues surrounding pro-life-ness are even worth fighting for is because humans are important and human life starts at conception.  

Conversely, a person who is not pro-life in the most basic form (sanctity of human life in the womb) cannot be holistically pro-life.  If you are not willing to fight for the foundational support of your “principles”, your stances will eventually wash out.  

To all those who say that a vote for Obama is serving the greater good and he has moral value and perhaps biblical principles in his fight – look at the foundation.  His foundation is flawed because he will not recognize that abortion is wrong and therefore his pro-life leanings in other areas are nothing but waisted air.  If you do not value life at its beginning, you will never truly value life in its various stages.  

Further, anyone who calls themselves a Christian must ask, is the foundation of Christ’s ministry on earth?  It was to save lost souls and rescue a humanity that has fallen.  The primary focus of Christ was to save souls, that’s what He died for.  He didn’t die feeding the hungry (and yes, I do believe that we fight for human rights at all times and everywhere we can).  We should first, protect life that God has created and second fight to change the hearts and minds of those lives after physical birth by preaching the word with the faith that God will use that as a continuing catalyst for social changes and the promotion of true justice.

Therefore, if you take these arguments to their logical conclusion, you cannot vote for a person who supports abortion no matter how relatively pro-life their other stances may look.  It is philosophically a erroneous conclusion and is a revealing a lack of biblical discernment.