Sunday, October 19, 2008
Casting a pro-people vote
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B. Chelsea Adams
Adams, of Riner, is an English teacher at Radford University.
Sarah Palin is pro-life except when the mother's life is threatened. John McCain is pro-life except in the case of incest or rape. My friend Joan is pro-life except if the baby is somehow damaged. My neighbor Meg is pro-choice except as a method of birth control. My co-worker Eve is pro-choice except when a parent forces a daughter to have an abortion. My uncle is pro-choice except if the fetus is viable.
With all these exceptions, it seems our positions, pro-life or pro-choice, are closer than we sometimes think. My students often write papers stating they are pro-life and then list a page of exceptions. I then wonder if they aren't pro-choice. As a mother, grandmother and prepared childbirth educator, I have always thought of myself as pro-children, pro-mothers and pro-people. When I consider my position pro-people, I not only think we should work toward fewer abortions, I remember the abortions that occurred before Roe v. Wade that were done in unsafe conditions by people who weren't doctors. I remember women who died or nearly died.
When I consider myself pro-people, I feel the need to be environmentally responsible, providing clean air and water, and putting in protections for safe food, toys and appliances. I want to work to make sure my grandchildren have a planet and that climate change doesn't prevent that.
When I consider myself pro-people, I want to provide health care for everyone. I don't want the children of mothers who cannot afford prenatal care to die before they are born. I don't want our country to have one of the highest statistics in the Western world for infant death in childbirth. I don't want to see people of any age suffering or dying because pre-existing conditions prevent them from acquiring health care or because they cannot pay for the care they need.
When I consider myself pro-people, I think about the wars. I wonder what we have accomplished in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Our newscasters often forget to tell us how many Iraqi and Afghani men, women and children have died so far. We already feel the pain of the many American lives taken prematurely, and we worry about the thousands of soldiers who return home injured physically or mentally. Their lives, and those of their loved ones, are forever changed. We already know returning soldiers do not receive adequate care and their tours of duty are too numerous. Each time Iraqis are interviewed they say that their lives are not better since our occupation of their country. Afghanistan is a harder question, but isn't Osama bin Laden in Pakistan?
When I consider myself as pro-people, I think that there is more than one issue to consider that addresses the preservation of life.
Since I consider myself as pro-people, I will vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
