Election Day

Lots of people I know are worried about the election today. I have a pit in my stomach as I type but it's not because I'm worried about the election. However it turns out, I know that God is with us. I know that even if we collectively or individually make an incorrect choice, He is with us. And He is merciful. And that even if what isn't "right" happens, that all of us that believe in God have pretty clear instructions about what we need to do to get to heaven (which is of course the ultimate goal of this life). As a friend of mine said today, "it'll just be harder or easier to do what we need to do depending on who sits in the White House."

What I am worried about are individual people who may be making misguided choices. It's a free country and we all have free will. So whether you look at it from a patriotic perspective or a religious perspective, we get to choose. But I'm really concerned about everyone exercising their right to choose, who aren't putting LIFE first. We deserve a President that doesn't believe that the question of when life begins is "above his pay grade". One would think that if you didn't know that you would ask or at least side with caution.

Some might say that my opinion makes me a "one issue voter" but I don't know how you can say any other issues matter if LIFE doesn't.

We have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in this country. Life is put first for a reason. If you don't believe I (or someone else, or a group of people) have the right to be alive...well, then, what does anything else really matter? What does the economic crisis matter? What does the cost of gas matter? What does global warming matter? What does saving the polar bears matter? After all, who are we "saving the planet" for if not unborn babies? God help you if you mess with a turtle egg or protected eagles egg. We all understand that that is a life. If only human babies had the same protection.

If you believe we have the right to choose and the right to choose means that some people shouldn't be allowed to live, then I am worried. I am very worried. Not for the fate of our country, but for the fate of the individuals who really believe certain people shouldn't be allowed to live. Or, who are willing to overlook the fact that their candidate believes certain people shouldn't be allowed to live because they agree with the candidate on other issues. One wonders what position, if any, held by a candidate would immediately disqualify him or her from running for office regardless of the rest of his or her positions. Apparently life is not one of them.

I am worried about those who really believe it is okay to stop someone else from being alive. Because they are so small you can't see them. Because they are not fully formed. Because they are deformed. Because they are imperfect. Because they are inconvenient. Really, someone shouldn't be allowed to live because it would inconvenience someone else? Lord, have mercy we should all be dead then.

I am worried that the language we use can lead a mother (be she a naive teenagers or an educated, mature woman) to believe that what is inside her is just a "bunch of cells," and I am worried that it is legal to choose to remove those cells (that make up tissue, that make up organs, that make up organ systems that make up an organism that is HUMAN - thankyouverymuch 4th grade science book). I am worried about people being misled by the language we use like "choice" "embryo" "abort" "fetus" "selective reduction" etc.

I am worried about souls. I'm not worried about the babies. I'm not happy they aren't here, but I'm not worried about them. God has willed us all into existence and He will not abandon us, but I am very worried should we, as a country, not ever see the light of the truth that we are taking (or allowing others to take) someones life. I am very worried that many, many people think it is okay to take a life and that there is a candidate that is willing to fight for the right of people to take lives. Or that it is ok to intentionally and deliberately kill one person to potentially save others. The ends do not justify the means. In an exchange on the U.S. Senate floor Barbara Boxer was unwilling to concede that a life should be protected even AFTER he or she has been born! This is because she and many others in the culture of death don't believe it should be. People like the Peter Singer, the Chair of ETHICS at Princeton University advocates that the State should be allowed to KILL children up to the age of 12 for medical reasons if they think that child will not have a quality of life. Apparently some lives are not worth living. It is not a stretch either to lump all of these people and the infanticide they advocate together because we have cheapened life so. It is the "logical"conclusion in a culture of death, as Pope John Paul II called it, that we would determine who should be allowed to live. It is not just abortion. I am even more horrified that a woman, Terri Schiavo, (and many others) was allowed to be staved and dehydrated to DEATH after many years of neglect simply because people felt she had no quality of live and would not want to live that way. She was not some ward of the state, she had loving parents who were more than willing to care for her but were no allowed to. She was not on life support. She simply had a feeding tube. She was dependent on others for food the same way millions of other people around the world are. There are those who would say that the only crime here was that she was allowed to live that way for so long. I remember a 12 year old boy who was arrested, shackled and jailed for simply wanting to give her a bottle of water. He spent more time in jail then many convicted murders. God bless him for having the courage to do what the gutless people who had the power to stop this murder but did not. This would be considered animal abuse if it had been a dog and people would be up in arms.

I saw someone scribbling out a picture of Obama in a newspaper. This troubled me a great deal. I explained to the girls that is just not appropriate. They argued, "but Obama wants abortion. He believes in killing babies!" I said it's not that simple.

But I mean, really, it is that simple. He believes it is okay to abort a baby. He has promised Planned Parenthood that he will do everything in his power to make sure it stays okay to abort a baby. He suggested at one point he would never want his own daughters "punished" with a baby. So, it's not like I'm arguing he's some great guy.

But really, what I mean when I say it's not that simple, is that we can't leave it at hoping a certain someone doesn't get elected. We can't leave it at scribbling out their face. It is much more important that we PRAY for him than be angry with him or dislike him or even HATE him. It is most important that we pray for his soul. And the souls of others who are buying this misguided philosophy. That we pray they are able to see the truth.

The truth is simply that abortion *is* killing a baby. I mean really if the mother wants it, we refer to it as a baby from the start. It is only when it is unwanted or inconvenient that we start using terms like "fetus" or "abortion." For goodness sake we don't euphamize the terms for a mother who suffocates her 1 month old or say it's okay for her to kill it because she wasn't able to provide for it or it was inconvenient. So we need to pray that everyone WAKES UP and realizes that it's not okay to kill anyone, much less an innocent baby completely dependent on it's mother for mercy and love for it to live. The womb should be the safest place on Earth for a child. What would ever posses a person to think it is ok to kill a child simply because they don't want it or because it is inconvenient. We need to pray that everyone realizes the simple fact that we all have the right to be alive. Regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of ability, regardless of convenience.

I received an email this morning that said, among other things, "Rosa sat so Martin could walk. Martin walked so Obama could run. Obama is running so our children can fly." And I just immediately thought, fly? No, I think the more correct ending is "so that our children can be left to die." And that was my gut reaction, and I wanted to type it out and send in a huff. The man voted FOUR TIMES to allow babies who survive an abortion to be LEFT TO DIE. Left to die on a shelf in a closet all by themselves. No blanket, no medical attention, nothing to ease their suffering as though they were not even human. Again, if this were a cat or dog, this would be considered abuse. But then I realized that is the adult equivalent to scribbling out his face in a newspaper.

It is that simple, but it's not. It's not about me rattling off some cute little catch phrase back at someone. It's about recognizing and respecting the dignity of all human life. Rosa sat because she was tired. She was tired of people believing she was a person of such little value that she didn't even deserve a seat on a bus. Martin walked because he believed that all humans were endowed by their creator with certain unalienable RIGHTS...one of which being the RIGHT to life. I don't see those two heroic philosophies adding up to what Barrack Obama supports at all. Are all Men "created" equal or merely "born" equal? Or even worse, not equal at all?

Now I'm not going to spout off that to be pro-choice is to be pro-death because I really don't believe it is that simple. I don't think that all those voting for Obama want little babies to die. To be sure, there are a few sickos out there that do but the rest have made some rationalization, some justification to put their mind at ease. The simple fact is that *is* what a pro-choice mentality allows to happen. It allows it to happen every day. Almost 4000 times a day. Frankly, I am tired of the mantra, "safe, legal and rare". Legal being the only part that is true.

In so many ways it really is that simple. So I went to the polls tonight and I chose life. As a Catholic, I've been to confession for the shameful times I did not choose life. I believe that LIFE matters more than anything else. And I will continue to pray fervently that everyone in this world will some day (soon!) arrive at that simple conclusion. Everyone has the right to life.

If we don't believe that, we certainly do have reason to worry.