On the New Yorker blog, Hendrik Hertzberg quotes Kathryn Jean Lopez praising Sarah and Todd Palin’s “choice” not to abort their Down Syndrome baby, Trig.

Hertzberg said this language of choice and the praise for Palin’s particular choice implies that pro-lifers share the pro-abortion assumption that abortion is just that—a choice. Hertzberg said if pro-lifers truly believed that abortion was murder, they shouldn’t praise Palin for not aborting any more than they should praise Hertzberg for not gunning down his co-workers:

What this demonstrates is that even in the minds of anti-abortion zealots, abortion is now implicitly viewed in the same light as divorce: an unfortunate choice, a reprehensible choice, a choice that may even contravene the will of God, but still a choice. And, again implicitly, the choice that Sarah Palin had every right to make. In both directions.

I guess I don’t see Hertzberg’s point. Of course pro-lifers believe in moral choice. They just believe there’s a right and a wrong choice, right?

The Bush administration is working on a proposal before the president leaves office to prevent recipients of federal money from discriminating against health care workers who refuse on moral grounds to perform abortion or sterilization procedures.

The Department of Health and Human Services will issue the rule in the coming days. President-elect Barack Obama plans to undo the rule, but that will require several months.

Obama has said the proposal will raise new hurdles to women seeking reproductive health services, like abortion and some contraceptives. Michael Leavitt, the health and human services secretary, said that was not the purpose.

Others had different objections:

The Ohio Health Department said the rule “could force family planning providers to hire employees who may refuse to do their jobs” - a concern echoed by Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Under the Civil Rights Act, an employer must make reasonable accommodations for an employee’s religious practices, unless the employer can show that doing so would cause ‘undue hardship on the conduct of its business.’

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, who heads the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement yesterday highlighting the concerns of his fellow bishops about the future of abortion-related issues under President-elect Barack Obama’s administration. The statement cautioned Obama that even though he won 52 percent of the Catholic vote, his election was not a referendum on abortion:

The recent election was principally decided out of concern for the economy, for the loss of jobs and homes and financial security for families, here and around the world. If the election is misinterpreted ideologically as a referendum on abortion, the unity desired by President-elect Obama and all Americans at this moment of crisis will be impossible to achieve. Abortion kills not only unborn children; it destroys constitutional order and the common good, which is assured only when the life of every human being is legally protected. Aggressively pro-abortion policies, legislation and executive orders will permanently alienate tens of millions of Americans, and would be seen by many as an attack on the free exercise of their religion.

Although opponents of California’s same-sex marriage ban believe the race is too close to call, it appears Proposition 8 is headed for victory.

Here’s a roundup of ballot measure results elsewhere in the country:

• Arizona and Florida passed marriage amendments.
• Arkansas voters approved a measure banning unmarried couples from serving as adoptive or foster parents.
• Colorado rejected the personhood amendment.
• South Dakota voters defeated an abortion ban measure.
• Washington became the second state to allow physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
• Michigan legalized marijuana use for medical purposes and approved expansion of stem cell research.
• And a California measure requiring doctors to notify parents before performing an abortion on a minor appears poised for defeat.

Update: AP reports that California voters have approved a ban on same-sex marriages.

I have become something I once reviled: a single-issue voter. I used to think that a wise voter tries to discern each candidate’s intentions on major issues, and then casts his vote based on an assessment of who will do the greatest overall good—or the least evil. I thought those voters who support a candidate based on a single issue—whether he will increase school funding, say, or lower taxes—were shirking their duty to consider the full ramifications of putting someone in office. What good is electing someone who is “right” on one thing, I thought, if he gets everything else disastrously wrong? This was the reasoning I used as I congratulated myself for wisely apportioning my votes based on utilitarian calculations.

Now I suspect this sort of calculation misses something. I’ve become convinced that a nation which sanctions the extinguishing of unborn children, and further, the outright execution of near-term infants, doesn’t deserve admiration even if it gets every other policy right.

I used to include abortion as part of my voting calculus, mind you, but only a part. What if a candidate is pro-life, for example, but favors disastrous tax and trade policies that would consign people to lower living standards? Or what if he wants to use our military in pursuit of ill-defined foreign policy goals? Shouldn’t these things factor into my equation?

Those other issues certainly affect a country’s safety, prosperity, and greatness. But I’ve come to believe that a nation that tolerates destruction of innocents deserves neither safety nor prosperity nor greatness. We’ve descended into barbarism, and it poisons how we treat the elderly, the incapacitated, even ourselves. We shouldn’t be surprised, having made life a utilitarian calculation, that more and more humans become inconvenient.

It’s certainly true that there are other issues that ought to concern Christians, like the sanctity of marriage, and how we treat the mentally ill, the elderly, and children who have been born. But abortion is, in my view, the touchstone. Get this one wrong and your moral compass can guide you in nothing else.

There are complications. Does it really matter, for example, if a county supervisor is pro-life? Maybe so. Years ago the late-term abortionist George Tiller expanded his murderous facility in Wichita, Kan., with little trouble, even as local authorities harassed pro-life groups. The battle over abortion is being waged locally, and it makes all the difference in the world whether officials welcome abortionists with open arms, gutlessly tolerate them for fear of legal trouble, or actually get down to the business of scrutinizing their activities with a fine-toothed comb.

Even worse in the Wichita case, the city’s mayor during this period advertised himself as pro-life. Hence an additional problem for the single-minded voter: Many candidates claim this label, yet they have no intention of taking action. The ones who will act, meanwhile, may be far less electable. Voters who don’t care about abortion can tolerate a candidate who pays lip-service to the Bible-thumpers. But there’s a danger they’ll write him off as a nut if he devotes significant energy to the cause once in office.

There’s also the challenge that a genuine and committed opponent of abortion may win office, work to end this abomination, and simultaneously arm regimes that slaughter innocents in other countries. If we oppose the murder of unborn infants not because they are cute, but because the execution of innocents is evil, then we have to apply this standard throughout our politics. I always thought the single-issue voter didn’t have to think, but maybe that’s not the case. There are indeed complications.

Yet there is also painful clarity that comes with single-mindedness. Jobs, highways, schools, economic growth—none of these matter if we’re willing to sanction murder to get them. Perhaps my mentality is a recipe for political isolation for Christians, for the losing of elections, and maybe even a loss of national greatness. I worry that the alternative, however, is to lose something far greater, which is our ability to discern good from evil, and to act accordingly.

This past week was Heritage Week at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky. At a special chapel service Thursday, Dr. Russell D. Moore, the dean of the School of Theology, delivered the following message:

“Joseph of Nazareth Is a Single-Issue Evangelical: The Father of Jesus, the Cries of the Helpless, and Change You Can Believe In” (Matthew 2:13-23)

In writing about Russ Moore’s sermon at his For His Renown blog, Jim Hamilton said it best:

“The abortion thing is about much more than American politics, so if you don’t want to be confronted with the spiritual realities and worldview issues at stake, don’t bother with this sermon. … If you’re not interested in what the gospel has to say to those who have suffered from having had or performed or counseled others to have abortions, don’t bother with this sermon.”

If you are interested in such things, and I know most of you here are, I strongly encourage you to take time this weekend to listen to this passionate, courageous, and inspiring message that is so relevant and significant for our times.

In case you missed it over the weekend, Sarah Palin delivered a decidedly pro-life speech in Johnstown, Pa., Saturday. I can’t recall a candidate for major political office ever dedicating this much time addressing this vital issue.

Even though he has a 100 percent pro-choice Senate voting record, a new website is alleging that Barack Obama is the most pro-life candidate in the race for president. The Pro-Life, Pro-Obama site, started by a group of Christians with the pro-Obama Matthew 25 network, argues that Obama’s proposed programs will do more to reduce abortions in America than the policies of John McCain. 

“After 35 years, a new approach is needed,” writes Douglas W. Kmiec, the site’s spokesman. “Too many unborn lives are being lost as we wait for judges to get it right.

“Barack Obama’s strengthening of support for prenatal care, health care, maternity leave, and adoption will make the difference,” maintains the former professor and dean of the law school at The Catholic University of America.

But it’s an assertion that has greatly angered pro-life leaders: “The Matthew 25 webpage is a desperate attempt to attract pro-life Christian voters to Obama by misrepresenting and redefining the pro-life cause,” charged Carrie Gordon Earll, senior bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family Action. “It’s an insult and affront to every true pro-lifer in the country.”

It’s all about survival of the fittest, writes Nicholas Provenzo of the Center for the Advancement of Capitalism. He argues that mothers, like Gov. Sarah Palin, have a moral obligation to abort if they discover their child has Down syndrome, because resources spent on a lifetime of care could be directed to more worthwhile causes.

Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child’s life upon others. …

So while anti-abortion commentators such as Michael Franc of the National Review sees Down syndrome’s victims as “ambassadors of God” who “offer us the opportunity to rise to that greatest of all challenges,” for many, that opportunity for challenge is little more than a lifetime of endless burden. In this light, it is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept. After all, the choice to have a child is a profoundly selfish choice; that is, a choice that is an expression of the parent’s personal desire to create new life.

Meanwhile, a mother who made the “selfish choice” to have a Down syndrome baby blogs about the unglamorous but glorious task of giving birth and raising her daughter, including the day she was told the news by her doctor:

She said that the results had come in and she was sorry to say that the baby was positive for Trisonomy 21. I sat down and just said “okay.” It was as if the breath had been sucked out of my chest. She let the pause continue for a few minutes and then proceeded to tell me that since I was now 19 weeks, she needed to tell me about my “options” if I was interested in terminating the pregnancy. I immediately said that “There are no options, she is our baby and she is coming as is.” The doctor let out a relieved breath and said, “Well, I am very glad to hear that.” I couldn’t help but instantly feel sorry for her. What an awful job she has, not only to tell people this kind of news, but to have to discuss the alternatives. Although I knew that there was no other decision, my mind did run past the thought of “Is it cruel to give her a life with pain?” The decision was to walk in Faith that our baby was a gift from God, whether or not we understood the gift.

HT: Reformation Faith Today

According to a report from the Guttmacher Institute, a Planned Parenthood-related think tank, abortions in the United States fell 33 percent between 1974 and 2004. This is great news. Sadly, rates remain high among minority women and older women.

As a matter of fact, if your default image of a female seeking an abortion is a teenage girl who finds herself in an “unplanned pregnancy,” chances are you are at stuck in a 1960s or 1970s paradigm. According to the report:

The teen abortion rate dropped from 33 percent in 1974 to 17 percent in 2004. Fifty-seven percent of abortions in 2004 were among women in their 20s. Most abortions (89 percent) in 2004 occurred during the first trimester. Abortions performed at seven weeks or sooner after pregnancy increased from 16 percent in 1994 to 28 percent in 2004. Sixty percent of abortions in 2004 were among women who already had children, up from 50 percent in 1989 and 46 percent in 1974.

To date, the majority of abortions occur among minority women who are between the ages 18 and 29. The report also suggests that teens are having abortions less because of the increase use of contraceptives.

The report misses a few additional trends among teens. First, more and more teen girls, in our “it’s-cool-to-be-as-silly-as-Jamie-Lynn-Spears” era, are having babies on purpose because it’s “cool,” and many girls have expressed using babies as a means of receiving unconditional love. Second, for many teens today oral sex has become the preferred method of sexual engagement. As such, many “abstinence-only” programs are missing the mark, as well.

Because of the concentration of abortions among low-income women of all races, and minority women in particular, the study suggests that the solution lies in government working to increase the use of contraceptives among that group. This is misguided, as well.

While the reduction is welcomed news, being less bad is no reason to celebrate. No one would pat me on the back if I said, “I’ve made progress: I only beat my kids three days a week instead of seven.”

Sadly, evangelicals continue to miss the mark on this issue because too many of our efforts target teens. It’s no longer 1978. The abortion problem in America is sustained primarily among fully grown, adult women—many of whom are married or are in committed relationships. If evangelicals really want to fight against abortion, efforts must be doubled at reaching adult and low-income women and men of all races in “da hood” or “the trailer park.”

The abortion industry targets the very communities were evangelicals do not live and often avoid at all costs: low-income and minority communities (except for weekend “missions trips” and during Thanksgiving and Christmas). Until evangelicals creatively move toward low-income and minority women and men in love, instead of condemnation for being “white trash” or inner-city “welfare moms,” the abortion industry will continue to have its way with people in vulnerable positions.

This new report is actually a call for the church to think more missionally about her presence in certain communities. We cannot expect to affect the demand for abortions if those whom are mostly likely to obtain them are not in our homes and churches. The abortion crisis will be most creatively attacked if your church can answer this question: What is our church doing to love adult, low-income whites and minority men and women? Put your actions where your mouth is (James 2:14-17). Protest and lovingly invest.

Protesting abortion and voting for pro-life candidates is, at best, only scratching the surface on the supply side. How are we tackling the demand side?