{"id":2082,"date":"2011-06-25T15:27:14","date_gmt":"2011-06-25T19:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?p=2082"},"modified":"2011-06-25T15:29:55","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T19:29:55","slug":"teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html","title":{"rendered":"Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/06\/tom-behand.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2108\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2108\" style=\"width: 271px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/218\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2108\" title=\"tom behan2\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/218\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"271\" height=\"257\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2108\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Tom Behan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<p>High school student\u00a0Tom Behan has been writing to Barack Obama daily since the President took office, but it has been a while since he&#8217;s gotten any answer.<\/p>\n<p>That doesn&#8217;t surprise him, since he&#8217;s not a fan of the Commander-in-Chief&#8217;s position on abortion. And that&#8217;s what the Cinicinnati-area high schooler writes about &#8212; daily in longhand.<\/p>\n<p>He has penned a steady stream of daily correspondence to the White House defending the unborn. Although he says that he hasn\u2019t received a response for about the last 500 letters, this hasn\u2019t stopped the high school senior, who has vowed to write one letter every day, by hand, until the day Barack Obama steps out of the Oval Office.<\/p>\n<p>When Obama won the November 2008 general election, \u201cI was way too young to vote,\u201d Behan\u00a0told the Internet anti-abortion group\u00a0LifeSiteNews.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Behan had just turned 15. However his beliefs about abortion were firm.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt just angered me how people in general want to get rid of their children, and my sister was trying so hard and she couldn\u2019t,\u201d he said. She had suffered two miscarriages. \u201cSo it kind of fueled this passion that never stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the very first letter, Behan inked his vow to keep writing until the end of the 44th presidency. The notes are shorter now, but Behan says that the first 300 or so each filled a sheet of paper front and back. Today the letters are approaching the 900 mark.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously I\u2019ve got the president\u2019s address stuck in my head now,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>The responses, back when he used to get any, disappointed him, he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first ones that I got back were like, \u2018Thank you for your support of the president and his inauguration\u2019 and stuff. And I\u2019m like, okay obviously he didn\u2019t read it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He says he got about a half-dozen of those followed by a few general notes of appreciation, and then six or seven praising feedback on the \u201cheart-wrenching issue\u201d of abortion, before they stopped.<\/p>\n<p>If he could get just one message across to President Obama, what would it be?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019d talk to him about how much pain abortion has caused, not only to the mother who often later regrets it, but also to other people watching,\u201d Behan said. He also said he would mention that an estimated one third of his generation has been killed by abortion.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s one third of human potential that has just been eradicated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s wrong, he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 High school student\u00a0Tom Behan has been writing to Barack Obama daily since the President took office, but it has been a while since he&#8217;s gotten any answer. That doesn&#8217;t surprise him, since he&#8217;s not a fan of the Commander-in-Chief&#8217;s position on abortion. And that&#8217;s what the Cinicinnati-area high schooler writes about &#8212; daily&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1],"tags":[379],"class_list":["post-2082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter;  - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter;  - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 \u00a0 High school student\u00a0Tom Behan has been writing to Barack Obama daily since the President took office, but it has been a while since he&#8217;s gotten any answer. That doesn&#8217;t surprise him, since he&#8217;s not a fan of the Commander-in-Chief&#8217;s position on abortion. And that&#8217;s what the Cinicinnati-area high schooler writes about &#8212; daily&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-06-25T19:27:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-06-25T19:29:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter;  - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter;  - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","og_description":"\u00a0 \u00a0 High school student\u00a0Tom Behan has been writing to Barack Obama daily since the President took office, but it has been a while since he&#8217;s gotten any answer. That doesn&#8217;t surprise him, since he&#8217;s not a fan of the Commander-in-Chief&#8217;s position on abortion. And that&#8217;s what the Cinicinnati-area high schooler writes about &#8212; daily&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html","og_site_name":"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","article_published_time":"2011-06-25T19:27:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-06-25T19:29:55+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html","name":"Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter; - On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg","datePublished":"2011-06-25T19:27:14+00:00","dateModified":"2011-06-25T19:29:55+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/files\/2011\/06\/tom-behan21.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/2011\/06\/teen-mails-obama-daily-abortion-letter.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Teen mails Obama daily abortion letter;"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/","name":"On the Front Lines of the Culture Wars","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Rob Kerby","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2082"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2110,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2082\/revisions\/2110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/on_the_front_lines_of_the_culture_wars\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}