Full Headline:
Human Dignity and the State of the Union
By Jason Jones, 2/1/2010 7:53:40 AM
On Wednesday night, President Barack Obama delivered his first state of the union address, “As we stand at this crossroads of history, the eyes of all people in all nations are once again upon us – watching to see what we do with this moment; waiting for us to lead,” he said. “Those of us gathered here tonight have been called to govern in extraordinary times…For in our hands lies the ability to shape our world for good or for ill.”
The address focused on jobs, energy, and education. And the president was right—we are at a crossroads but the crossroads is not between leading the industrialized world in energy and education but rather leading the industrialized world and the entire world into a culture of life, love and beauty.
Regardless of the economy, President Obama has bankrupted our most valuable possession, human dignity, by his aggressive pursuit of a culture of death:
On his third day in office, President Obama reversed the Mexico City Policy, promoting U.S. funding for abortion abroad.
In March ’09 Obama gave $50 million to the United Nation’s Population Fund, an agency previously denied money because of its involvement in China’s forced one child policy. Following that, Obama lifted the ban against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research; research that not only by its nature requires the killing of human embryos but also has no proven results.
Again in March, Obama struck down conscience clause protections for physicians who do not want to perform abortions.
Finally, President Obama filled his administration with abortion advocates—in the White House staff, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice and the Department of State.
Furthermore, the one topic that people concerned for human dignity and human rights thought they could see some progress—the death penalty—was only met with silence from a man who loves to talk.
Even when approached by the Innocence Project, a non-profit that clears death row inmates by DNA testing, to initiate a reform last winter--President Obama, who said in 1999, “We need to put more resources into the Public Defender's office, so they can do things like DNA testing and take other means to make sure you've got the right person before you consider the death penalty,” turned down the very people who do precisely what he sought.
Abortion and capital punishment are not the same. Capital punishment is protected by the Constitution and used as a deterrent against crime for the safety of American citizens. We often hear from Democrats and abortion supporters cries of a double standard in an obviously clear cut difference: one in which the state protects its citizens by executing a condemned criminal and the other in which a person is condemned before he is even born. President Obama is not concerned about the death penalty—to date he has not said a single word about it—and Democrats are not concerned about the death penalty. Abortion supporters are also not concerned about the death penalty.
The only reason capital punishment is ever brought up in politics is so that it can be used as a tool to advocate abortion. We only hear cries for mercy for those on death row from Democrats and abortion supporters alike when they’re trying to discount a candidate in an election.
President Obama has asked us, rightly, to lead and shape our world for the better. The only way we can do this is by building a culture of life. Our friends and neighbors are losing jobs but no matter how financially destitute we become there is one thing that we must prize above all others: our inherent human dignity.
It is time for the Democrats and President Obama to make good on their campaign promise of hope and change—it is time for them to speak up for those on death row when constituents aren’t at the polls: we know there’s no hope of a Democratic administration passing legislation to protect the young but the least they could do is begin working towards passing a moratorium on the death penalty.
Mr. Jones is a human rights activist and filmmaker and producer of the award winning film, Bella (2006). Miss Monaghan is Senior Writer for Human-rights Education and Relief Organization (H.E.R.O.) and a 2007 Phillips Fellow.
Return To Top