{"id":76,"date":"2008-10-19T20:33:19","date_gmt":"2008-10-19T20:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/10\/differing-views-on-abortion-ra.html"},"modified":"2008-10-19T20:33:19","modified_gmt":"2008-10-19T20:33:19","slug":"differing-views-on-abortion-ra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/2008\/10\/differing-views-on-abortion-ra.html","title":{"rendered":"DIFFERING VIEWS ON ABORTION RAISE BIG QUESTIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

The third Presidential debate did provide another example of the candidates’ views on abortion, but both candidates were unconvincing in their responses to Bob Schieffer’s questions on the matter. On whether a potential nominee’s views on Roe would be a “litmus” test for the new President, both Senator McCain and Senator Obama denied it would be.  Frankly, I don’t believe  McCain’s response was truthful.  This is because I am acutely aware of the shenanigans employed by conservative activist groups to guarantee that George W. Bush would only be allowed to get two anti-choice zealots on the court.  Beliefnet’s own Dan Gilgoff <\/a>wrote a fine book in which he describes how the Right decided to fervently support John Roberts as the new chief justice.  Basically, a number of leaders of your team, Jay (and you may have been there) quickly concluded that because Mrs. Roberts was active in the group Feminists for Life, John could be assumed to be an easy anti-choice vote. It is also now well known that Harriet Miers nomination was sunk because her anti-choice record was non-existent and nobody on the Right wanted to risk another David Souter.  Now, how would a President John McCain possibly pick a nominee who had not proven his or her bona fides on abortion?  You folks would go ballistic and demand he go back to the same short list of federal judges you kept throwing around during the Bush presidency.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
On the other hand, I was quite perplexed that Senator Obama answered Schieffer’s question on “partial birth abortion” without making it clear that “partial birth abortion” was a term created on the floor of Congress. It has no legal or medical meaning.  It was just a clever phrase like “death tax”; it doesn’t denote a specific procedure or set of procedures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Senator Obama did say that he was willing to limit “late term abortions”, but would insist that there be an exception for the health of the mother.  This would have been a fine time, however, for him to clarify his earlier statement<\/a> that a mother’s “mental distress” might be an insufficient basis for such an abortion. That view has been read by some as demonstrating an  unfortunate lack of parity between physical and mental illness which continues dangerous and aging stereotypes.<\/p>\n

On the other social issue the two debated, I was quite happy to see that Senator Obama reiterated his opposition to vouchers, and eventually even indicated that they don’t actually work.  I continue to be troubled by both candidates support for “charter schools” which have been much criticized <\/a>by academics.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The third Presidential debate did provide another example of the candidates’ views on abortion, but both candidates were unconvincing in their responses to Bob Schieffer’s questions on the matter. On whether a potential nominee’s views on Roe would be a “litmus” test for the new President, both Senator McCain and Senator Obama denied it would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-politicking"],"yoast_head":"\nDIFFERING VIEWS ON ABORTION RAISE BIG QUESTIONS - Lynn v. 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Lynn","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/32b\/32b0f12cad840c65bff61ad01e2664aax96.jpg","caption":"Rev. Barry W. Lynn"},"description":"Since 1992, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn has served as executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution's religious liberty provisions (www.au.org). In addition to his work as a long-time activist and lawyer in the civil liberties field, Lynn is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, offering him a unique perspective on church-state issues. An accomplished speaker and lecturer, Lynn has appeared frequently on television and radio broadcasts to offer analysis of First Amendment issues. News programs on which Lynn has appeared include PBS's \"NewsHour,\" NBC's \"Today Show,\" Fox News Channel's \"O'Reilly Factor,\" ABC's \"Nightline,\" CNN's \"Crossfire,\" CBS's \"60 Minutes,\" MSNBC's \"Countdown with Keith Olbermann,\" Fox News Channel's \"Hannity & Colmes,\" ABC's \"Good Morning America,\" CNN's \"Larry King Live\" and the national nightly news on NBC, ABC and CBS. On the radio, Lynn serves as host of \"Culture Shocks,\" a daily look at various issues affecting society and the culture. In the 1990s he served for two years as regular co-host of \"Pat Buchanan and Company\" and after that did a weekly syndicated radio program, \"Review of the News,\" with Col. Oliver North. Lynn is a regular guest on nationally broadcast radio programs, including National Public Radio's \"All Things Considered,\" \"Morning Edition\" and \"Talk of the Nation,\" as well as having appeared on national networks such as CBS Radio, CNN Radio, ABC Radio and AP Radio. Lynn began his professional career working at the national office of the United Church of Christ, including a two-year stint as legislative counsel for the Church's Office of Church in Society in Washington, D.C. From 1984 to 1991 he was legislative counsel for the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2006, Lynn authored Piety & Politics: The Right-Wing Assault On Religious Freedom (Harmony Books). In 2008 he coauthored (with C. Welton Gaddy) First Freedom First: A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Religious Liberty and the Separation of Church and State (Beacon Press). Lynn writes frequently on religious liberty issues, and has had essays published in outlets such as USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Nation. Lynn also has op-eds published frequently by the McClatchy and Scripps-Howard newspaper chains. A member of the Washington, D.C. and U.S. Supreme Court bar, Lynn earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in 1978. In addition, he received his theology degree from Boston University School of Theology in 1973. Lynn, who was born in Harrisburg, Pa., and raised in Bethlehem, Pa., lives in Chevy Chase, Md., with his family.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/author\/blynn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lynnvsekulow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}