Culture,  Politics

James Kushiner on the Election of Barack Obama

There’s been a lot of discussion about the future of the pro-life cause in light of the election of Barack Obama. The most pointed remarks I’ve read come from Touchstone‘s James Kushiner:

‘The irony about the election of our first black president, an irony which I wish did not exist, is that while blacks have risen from the indignities and injustice of slavery in which their bodies were sold and consumed as property, and have endured segregation and second-class citizen status and racial discrimination, and have now one of their own elected to the highest office in the land, this very president-elect, Barack Obama, will increase the death toll among black human beings if he fulfills his promise to enact a Freedom of Choice Act, which will serve as a firewall around Roe v. Wade, the Dred Scott decision of our times. Helping to fund abortions also will likely disproportionately increase the number of black victims consumed by this holocaust. Someone might point out that policies about abortion, too, in this post-racial age of enlightenment, should be colorblind, so anyone who cares about the skin color of its victims is a racist, and that appeals to blacks about not aborting black babies is an appeal to a presumed racism on their part.

‘Discrimination based on the color of one’s skin is not now the burning issue of our time, however. It’s that we’ve forgotten the value of human skin in the first place. The human skin of the baby in the womb, the human skin of the severely disabled (candidates for “selective” abortion), the human flesh and blood of the elderly, and the bodies of those near death, from whom we cut organs while they are, yes, still, alive—this human flesh is abused and sacrificed on various altars. Resting on the hard-earned laurels of enlightened colorblindness, many have forgotten, or deny, the sanctity of the very flesh about which we say we are so indifferent as to its color.’

3 Comments

  • Paul

    Denny,

    1) The guy is poised to take office in 10 weeks. You can either pray for him to have a change of heart and direct your students and readers to do likewise, or you can sit and pout.

    2) Once again, this isn’t a race issue as much as it’s a class issue. It’s hard to take someone seriously who can’t see that.

  • Robert

    This man is right. This is EXACTLY why as a black man I did not vote for Obama. The fact that millions of black babies have no chance at life outside the womb is troubling. The democrats want to keep black people poor and dead (babies). While I am glad to see we have finally broken the color barrier in the White House, I really wish it were a man with more conservative values on the abortion issue.

  • Harrison Lewis

    Amazing and absolutely off based. Obama has a plan to reduce abortion by supporting pregnant women who would likely give up their babies. You guys should go and research few facts before ignorant statements are made. Obama is not killing “black babies.” Black women are much less likely to have an abortion than white women……

    The comments that I have heard from the Evangelical Right (note that I didn’t say Christian Right) are based on political ideaology and partisan bickering mixed with racial intolerance. Please, start walking and stop talking. Go out and adopt some babies before you judge Obama and accuse him of murdering babies. He has two children that he is raising with Christian values not political ideaology.

    Mr. Kushiner is confused and has no idea of the black struggle in this country that persist today.

    Robert, as a Professional black male, I resent your statement. I campaigned for the Democratic ticket and met Barack, Hillary, and McCain. The Republican party is only interested in keeping the Rich, Rich; if not making them Richer. In fact, McCain wanted nothing more than to continue Reagan economics based on further fattening the wealthy and hoping for trickle down ecomonics. It did not work then and it will not work now. I work for a fortune 250 company and I see the micro-inequities on a daily basis. In fact, my company has a very big initiative to address the desparities that are still going on today in the corporate and medical setting.

    If you value human life so much, go research healtcare desparities in this county. If you are so conservative talk about the black children in orphanages without adoptee parents. Why are so many of you Evangelicals running to China to adopt childrend when their are are a disproportinate number of black babies waiting on homes in our own country.

    My point is……. fool me once, fool me twice, but you will not fool me again. Rebublicans hijacked christianity during two election (Bush 2000 and Bush 2004). This got us a bridge to no where. You did not reduce the amount of abortions or number of children in orphanages. You did not make us any more the richer (unless you were already rich). You did not make us a more tolerant nation (you divided us). Christ came not only to give life, but give it more abundantly. I am no, I am not speaking finacially when I say abundantly.

    PS. forgive my spelling.

    Best Regards,

    Harrison Lewis

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