Pro-Life and Pro-Obama?

One of the biggest issues in many people's decision on who to vote for in the presidential race, or any political race for that matter, is abortion. Pro-life and pro-choice are the two extremes and most candidates side with one or the other. This bias quickly makes a decision very clear for many voters. If they agree with the candidate's stance on abortion, it is possible a vote of support will be cast at the ballot. But, disagreement on the issue of abortion is usually a deal breaker. The lines is typically that many conservatives are pro-life and liberals are pro-choice. Therefore, most Republicans are pro-life and Democrats are pro-choice. Could someone that was pro-life vote for a candidate that was pro-choice? Fundamentally, no but this is 2008 and Barack Obama is running for President.

Frank Schaeffer's father, evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, wrote the book Whatever Happened to the Human Race. This book and corresponding marketing created the pro-life movement and the evangelicals followed closely behind. Mike Huckabee was quoted recently as saying that if he had to take one book besides the Bible to a desert island, it would be this Schaeffer's. Schaeffer senior and junior are both pro-life, always have been and probably always will be. Frank's most recent book is entitled "CRAZY FOR GOD -- How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back." This is not a book whose author you would typically think would vote for a pro-choice candidate like Obama. But as Schaeffer illustrates in his most recent article, he is pro-life and pro-Obama. Things have obviously changed and Schaeffer does a great job stating his position on how they have changed and why Obama is the best choice for the President of the United States. Even for Pro-Life Voters!

And as Hayley most recently wrote, Republicans are starting to jump across party lines to campaign and vote for Obama. This wouldn't be so bad if he was a moderate candidate or say, the 16th most liberal senator in the US congress (aka Hillary Clinton), but Obama was voted the MOST liberal senator in 2007. Obama is the best candidate and this election may just go to show, as Schaeffer points out, that there is a difference in thinking about WE versus ME when voiting for president.