The Religious Right community has declared war against the nomination of Gov. Sebelius for the HHS Secretary. The reasoning? Ostensibly, abortion.
Let’s address this head on. Gov. Sebelius, as a Catholic, has repeatedly stated her pro-life convictions. What she opposes, as do many who hold pro-life values, is the criminalization of abortion for the patient or doctor. Instead, she has advocated for the common ground, real-results approach of reducing the number of abortions through reducing unwanted pregnancies and promoting adoptions.
Here is Gov. Sebelius’s record during her tenure as governor:
- Abortion has dropped 8.5% from 2002 to 2007 in Kansas (see reports here)
- Teen pregnancy has dropped 7% from 2002 to 2006 (see reports here)
- Funding for adoption support increased by $2.1 million
- She signed law doubling the adoption tax credit
- She signed law aiding in the adoption process
In addition, Gov Sebelius signed into law Alexa’s Law, legally protecting the unborn child in the case of a crime against the mother — a law which goes well beyond even the similar Mosaic law found in Exodus 21:22. And this Dr. George Tiller you keep hearing about? It so happens that Gov.-Sebelius-appointed state attorney general is prosecuting him for violating late-term abortion state laws.
The personal smears need to stop. For those who relish the culture wars (and for those entrenched political interests whose very fuel is the culture wars), the “criminalize abortion” ideology will always matter more than any actual progress on reducing the number of abortions in this country. For the rest of us who desire a constructive political debate where substantive policy goals (such as health care!) and practical solutions drive the conversation, I suggest ignoring the Right’s character assassination attempt on Gov. Sebelius.
ALSO: Fellow Kansan and Catholic Sen. Brownback is supporting the nomination. If even Sen. Brownback, whose office allowed his name to be used in the recent fundraising letter that hit a new low by attacking the faith of his own Congressional colleagues, is supporting her, I think that is a good indication of how misguided (and pointless) of a battle this is for the Right.
ALSO: Did anyone else notice the overtly shoddy reporting done by the The Hill in the article i linked to up top? Not only does it just take the Religious Right’s opposition dump largely at its word while giving very little voice to the larger, more reasonable pro-life community not represented by the voices of the likes of Tony Perkins, but it even seems to state — or at least strongly imply — that Catholics United is a “pro-abortion rights” group. That is simply not true and is very poor reporting.
THANK YOU Mr. Boswell and this web site for the service you provide to the majority of us Christians who try not to jump to conclusions. God has said “Judge not lest you should be judged”. He would also want us to try to work together instead of tearing others apart.
“The Christian Right” does not speak for ALL Christians!!!
I think this site was helpful for many in making the decision to vote for President Obama.
Thank you for puting Christianity in perspective. Rebecca
[...] accusation that Sebelius has ties to George Tiller (Alan Boswell has debunked this false charge below) but she actually claims that abortions have increased in Kansas under Sebelius’ term [...]
They say there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. I decided to do a little looking regarding the claims about Governor Sebelius’ record regarding abortion and teen pregnancy, and from the best I can tell, her record is wholly unimpressive in light of greater societal statistics in both categories. For instance, if I’m reading the Guttmacher Institute report correctly, the abortion rate across the USA dropped 9% in 2005 alone (USA Today, Jan. 16, 2008, “Overall Abortion Rates Continue to Drop”)–which makes Kansas’ 8.5% drop across six years seem rather puny by comparison. Further, I looked up teen pregnancy rates, and found that they were also down nationwide in such a way that Kansas’ record is nothing special whatsoever–but I guess Mr. Boswell wasn’t all that interested in context in this article.
Further, there are any number of factors which play into states’ rates in these areas, and to attribute gains/losses to the influence of a governor is a stretch, it seems to me. Yes, I’m happy that she is a supporter of adoption–credit where it’s due. But this piece sure seems to leave out some “inconvenient truths” in seeking to paint a more favorable picture of Ms. Sebelius. We should stop the smears–agreed. We should also tell the truth instead of putting out contextless statistics that paint misleading pictures.
I’m not sure your facts our correct here. Though I see how you could read the USA today article that way. Here is Guttmacher’s numbers – http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
I will saw, though, that Guttmacher has a statistical problem in that they only do 18-44. While the averages correlate well to the full population. The standard abortion rate state is not actually representative of our National abortion rate due to the age problem.
But you can See that Gov. Sebelius did in Kansas in 4-5 years what it took us to do in 20 years on the national level.
I have found that when I say, “Can I touch your belly then?” people say sure! So I have just become really mean about it. When a hand comes near my belly, I grab it and move it away. I also don’t understand when people ASK if they can touch my belly and I say “no”, why would they ask me why and get upset? If you really wanted to touch my belly, why didn’t you just go after it instead of asking a yes or no question where you have a 50/50 shot of getting an answer of “no”!