No We Can't by James M. Kushiner

No We Can't

The Delusions of Backing the Abortion Regime

Chicago's Grant Park on November 4, 2009, was the site of a jubilant election-night rally and victory speech by Barack Obama. Toward the end of his speech, he said, "So tonight, let us ask ourselves—if our children should live to see the next century . . . what change will they see? What progress will we have made?"

Within sight of Grant Park, on July 20, 2012, Tonya Reaves, 24, entered a Planned Parenthood Clinic on Michigan Avenue. She underwent a "dilation and extraction" (D & E) abortion. Afterwards, she started bleeding. She bled at Planned Parenthood for five and half hours before an ambulance carried her to Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Reaves underwent another D & E procedure there after doctors discovered that Planned Parenthood had botched the abortion. She continued to bleed. She was taken for more surgery at 10:12 pm and pronounced dead at 11:20 pm.

Chicago's Planned Parenthood "clinics" are not regulated by the State of Illinois' Department of Public Health. The website of the Michigan Avenue facility says that surgical abortions (including D & E) are not performed there but referred elsewhere. Reaves died from a second-trimester surgical abortion by a Planned Parenthood clinic that claims not to do them.

There will not likely be any repercussions for Planned Parenthood. The organization, like abortion, is untouchable on the left. Founded by the racist Margaret Sanger, it now receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually from Washington, with a license to kill, 24/7, 365 days a year. Its sex education program encourages non-marital and teenage sex. Minor girls who have obviously been victims of statutory rape routinely get abortions from Planned Parenthood without notification of authorities, including parents.

Worse Than Delusional

Despite this, President Obama is a fierce supporter of Planned Parenthood and abortion. He sees no problem with using the tax dollars of Christians to subsidize both. Planned Parenthood sees no problem spending $1.4 million to help Obama get re-elected.

Robert P. George wrote cogently in 2008 about "Obama's Abortion Extremism" (www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2008/10/133). As a legislator, Obama refused to support a ban on partial-birth abortion or legislation to grant medical care to infants who survive abortion attempts.

Everything Obama has done since becoming president confirms George's stark warning to Christians. Nothing Obama has done vindicates Christians who voted for him, who claimed that his policies in the long run would be more pro-life. George rightly called this sort of thinking "delusional." Continued Christian support is worse than delusional and certainly shameful.

Planned Parenthood has killed many people across from Grant Park, including Tonya Reaves and her baby. Well, abortion is a bloody business, death-works by design. Our nation is deep into it, and speeches about progress will not cover it up or remove the bloodstains.

—James M. Kushiner

James M. Kushiner is the Director of Publications for The Fellowship of St. James and the former Executive Editor of Touchstone.

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