A Decent Shot at Life

It was a spur of the moment deci­sion; I saw the book on the shelf today at work and deter­mined that at the end of the day, before going home, I would buy it, that I would give it a read and get to know this man for myself from his own words — not the words of friends, blog­gers, or that other media.

The book? The Audac­ity of Hope by Pres­i­dent Barack Obama. A few peo­ple will be proud that I’m read­ing this book by a man I so adamantly wish wasn’t our nation’s most pow­er­ful leader. My con­ser­v­a­tive friends will prob­a­bly think I’m off my rocker for read­ing through it (to sati­ate at least some of them, I plan on read­ing Ann Coulter’s Guilty next).

I’m not very far into Audac­ity at all — I’m some­where in the mid­dle of the “Pro­logue” of all things — but I came across a few of the President’s words which stood out to me, serv­ing as a reminder of just why I didn’t vote for him:

…gov­ern­ment couldn’t solve all their prob­lems. But with a slight change in pri­or­i­ties we could make sure every child had a decent shot at life and meet the chal­lenges we faced as a nation. The Audac­ity of Hope, p. 7

I appre­ci­ate the President’s admit­ting that the gov­ern­ment can­not solve all of our prob­lems. The gov­ern­ment attempts to solve too many of our prob­lems as it is, espe­cially at the fed­eral level. In that regard, I agree with politi­cians, such as Con­gress­man Ron Paul, who advo­cate for a sub­stan­tially more lim­ited fed­eral government.

The words that caught my atten­tion, though, were the President’s hope that “with a slight change in pri­or­i­ties we could make sure every child had a decent shot at life.”

Pres­i­dent Obama is shift­ing pri­or­i­ties in Wash­ing­ton alright, but it isn’t toward any sem­blance of giv­ing “every child a decent shot at life.”

Unless of course by deter­min­ing to make abor­tion even eas­ier and acces­si­ble and thereby reduc­ing the num­ber of chil­dren being born, the gov­ern­ment would be more able to tend to those chil­dren who do “make the cut” and are not slain by the abortionist’s sword. But some­thing as con­vo­luted as that couldn’t pos­si­bly be true, right?

I am ashamed that the gov­ern­ment has stood idly by for decades while help­less infants are being mur­dered; where is their “decent shot at life,” Pres­i­dent Obama? I’m sure you’re thank­ful you were given a shot at life, Mr. Pres­i­dent. What about the chil­dren who have lost their chance since abor­tion was legalized?

“3,500 Abor­tions Daily” image cour­tesy of NCinDC as allowed by Cre­ative Com­mons license.