Torture of Life
This past week was the first of Obama’s new Presidency. It was his first chance to prove whether all the campaign talk and rhetoric would actually come to fruition.
I would say this: so far, so good on that.
We expected Obama to end some ties to Bush’s war on terrorism and we expected Obama to promote a pro-choice agenda. Last week both those were immediately backed up.
Earlier last week Obama announced the plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. It is famously known for housing unconvicted and convicted men with ties to terrorism and 9/11. In the midst of this decision, he also condemned the torture of all humans, something Guantanamo was known for.
The day after that announcement Obama allowed U.S. family planning clinics to use their money to provide funds for international family planning clinics. This is known as the Mexico City Policy decision. Essentially the decision allows taxpayer dollars to support abortions around the world.
I thought what Scot McKnight had to say on this was spot on:
“Support of abortion and opposition to torture is a moral contradiction, and I call on the Obama Administration to re-think their position of their stance on abortion.”
The contradiction is found in Obama calling for an end to torture by closing Gitmo (a positive move for our country in my mind), but also supporting the increasing torture of the unborn.
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Tyler Braun.
well it is a contradiction. and i just got the whole idea of the “mexico city policy” yesterday. gitmo, good. his approach, well any politician’s approach to abortion- bad. obama clearly said during the campaign he wanted to decrease the # of unwanted pregnancies. he’s doing it all wrong. let’s not throw money at it, let’s attack the education system and the support system for the majority of unplanned mothers, typically teenagers– the root of the problem. that’s where it needs to start, not a funding debate on such a controversial social issue. politicians are terrible at getting to the root of the problem, they’d rather add band-aids that really just makes every mad, esp. those who oppose such policies.
what a great response!
At its peak, there were over 800 prisoners held at Gitmo. Today, over 600 of them have been released. Over 10% of those released have been found to have re-joined their fight against our country. It’s estimated this number is much higher. The prisoners at Gitmo are given a yearly review of their case, and those remaining are there for very good reasons. Only 3 of those prisoners were ever Waterboarded, and the information received from them provided significant intelligence into the operations of Al-Quada and other terrorists groups that have saved lives. So the question, Tyler, is where do you think these prisoners should be kept if not Gitmo, and do you think they deserve the same Habius-Corpus provided to citizens?
Kirk- I don’t claim to know near as much as I have no doubt that you know about G Bay and the details of those that were held in there. My comment on this being a positive move comes from those 3 cases that were documented. Clearly they were blown out of proportion because Gitmo is known as a place of abuse. But I think perception is important. The idea that the US can win wars because they torture people is a bad thing. I don’t think that the possibility of saving lives is worth torturing the lives of others.
To your question…I know for sure my opinion matters not because I don’t know what the possibilities are. I do think they should be granted rights…maybe not as full US citizens, but I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t be given a fair trial and rights to go with that trial.
“I don’t think that the possibility of saving lives is worth torturing the lives of others”
I’m at a loss for words. Keep in mind who is being “tortured” (which I don’t think is the right word here). These are brutal killers. I have no problem subjecting them to some loud music, and maybe some barking dogs, or a session on the waterboard, in order to protect innocent lives.. lives that are someone’s son, daughter, or wife.
We’ll have to agree to disagree, my friend.
And I’m sure I’ll be called “liberal” by many for this. Kind of sad that being against torture is called liberal to me but I understand that is part of partisan politics.
I just don’t see how Biblically that there can be support of torturing people. I don’t think the question should be if torturing people for saving lives is ok, because the torturing comes first. The question should be whether it would be God honoring to torture people and that is an emphatic no for me.
My purpose for this post really isn’t to argue about torturing people or even about Gitmo…my point is that torturing life at all levels is wrong. Let’s focus there.
If it was standard operating procedure to torture, then I completely agree, Tyler. But it’s not something that happens often at all. Ask yourself how moral it would be to not take all possible measures if we absolutely knew someone had information that would lead to the deaths of thousands of innocent lives. How do you look those families in the eye and tell them we couldn’t force the information out of them because of some vague notion of not “looking bad” to to world? The moral thing to do in this case is to do everything possible to get that information out of them before it’s too late… and yes, that might mean applying some discomfort to the bastard. If that makes me into a meany ,then so be it. I’d rather error on the side of saving someone’s kids.. or my own, from a nasty fate.
Scot McKnight’s quote is a thought-provoking and solid argument. I would expand on that by saying that if we are pro-life it should show in our choices to feed the hungry, provide mental and physical health care, assist with sheltering, support research to rid disease, be diligent in our efforts to produce peace in conflict, make access to quality education a reality, work to provide clean water, etc. All of these things make it possible for a person to have life. Not having any one of these things can mean torturous death. When we do not help the needy, we are as guilty as the abortionist for ending life.
I am pro-life. However, Obama’s response on the abortion issue is more complex than his being pro or con, when it comes to funding family planning, internationally.
Yes, the international clinics that were cut by Bush were ones that also considered abortion an option. However, the funding that was dropped also dropped all funding for preventative forms of birth control and prenatal care. The hope, initially, was that the the clinics would opt to stop doing abortions, so funding could return for the other medical care. Without funding at all, the clinics ceased to exist. Therefore, family planning, prenatal care was also drained.
Many of the countries that lost the clinics had few other options for public clinics. I am sure it is easy for us to sit here and say that we should have kept the rest of the funding in place for preventative birth control, just not the portion spent on abortions. However, to do so, we would need to have personnel on hand to monitor that abortions were not being done. Can you imagine the cost of that? Would it have been a reliable means of monitoring?
When the funding is put back into place, internationally, for these clinics, the clinics are back in full operation. Abortion is a sad reality of it. However, so is the far greater reality of women receiving preventative and prenatal care.
For those who have been quick to judge and claim they understand Obama’s reasoning behind restoring dollars to these international clinics, I pose these questions:
How would you suggest providing services of family planning and prenatal care abroad, and ensure that the abortions were not being done with the money?
What would you do differently?
What are you doing to save the lives of those already born?
” I would expand on that by saying that if we are pro-life it should show in our choices to feed the hungry, provide mental and physical health care, assist with sheltering, support research to rid disease, be diligent in our efforts to produce peace in conflict, make access to quality education a reality, work to provide clean water, etc. All of these things make it possible for a person to have life. Not having any one of these things can mean torturous death. When we do not help the needy, we are as guilty as the abortionist for ending life.”
Melinda, my response to your question is this: If we didn’t feed the hungry (student lunch program, food stamps, etc), or provide mental and physical health care to the poor (Medicade/Medicare), or assist with sheltering (section 1 housing, etc), support research to rid disease (CDC budget – 8.6 bill, HRSA budget 7.5 bill fy ‘06), or work for world peace (no country works harder to bring peace and stability to the world than ours), or make access to quality education a reality (per pupil spending over $12,000), orwork to provide clean water (EPA budget 7.1 bill ‘08), then I would whole-heartedly agree that we are as guilty as the abortionist. But the fact is, we do all these things I listed, and far more. Whenever I see someone make the argument that you’re making, with all due respect, it’s just a way to morally equivicate and let slide the pure evil that is baby killing. Sorry, I can’t agree with your reasoning.
I would say this…I think we should care first for human life and then care second for the quality of that human life. We can’t put the cart before the horse. Well…we can, but we shouldn’t.
I’ve been wanting to let this off my chest. Let me first say I know very little about politics…and this may be off topic..but I feel bad for our president. just looking at some comments from people, (sometimes from facebook), I feel that Pres.Obama has a lot on his shoulder..not only he has to do a ‘miracle’ to do lots of clean up from the last few years..repair the economy…I have seen one or two stupid comments from people about not wanting to fall to his ‘charm’..(not suprisingly, Christians) when they are supposed to be supporting him in prayers. People already criticizing his bail out plan…some 800 billion…to help the economy…I think that’s still better than a gabazillion dollars (and wasted lives) spent on the war, isn’t it??
I’d say give that guy a flippin’ break…he already have a really tough job ahead of him…Republicans can’t wait to see him fail….and the other ex-president already got his 8 years..(and support from people)…give our new president our support and prayers…and a chance to at least make some kind of good difference.
Yonas-
I’m not touching anything you said because I’m worried I’d get burned at the stake. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
lol…ok got it, I’d focus more on pink shirts and mojitos from now on.