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Obama ad, "Vote for them," displays complete hypocrisy

Obama ad, “Vote for them,” displays complete hypocrisy

“Vote for them.” An Obama ad, paid for by Obama for America and uploaded to YouTube by whitehousetelevision, couldn’t be more hypocritical. While encouraging voters to care about their friends and the people around them, the ad neglects to mention the most obviously forgotten group of people – the unborn. Watch it for yourself:

Granted, an ad like this is no surprise from the Obama campaign. However, one would think the president wouldn’t want to make his hypocrisy so evident. Care about people who can’t get married like the rest of us, but don’t give a thought to people who can’t even live like the rest of us? What? Use your vote as a voice for people who supposedly don’t have all their rights intact, but don’t use it for people who soon won’t even have their bodies intact? Speak up for the claimed minority, but don’t speak up for the truly unheard group? Hypocrisy is written all over this ad.

The worst part, however, has to be these lines, spoken over the written words “Romney: End Funding for Planned Parenthood:”

Are you going to tell them they can’t make decisions on their own bodies anymore because you didn’t think your vote counted? Why not have a different conversation about how you voted for them?

First, I’m not sure why a man appears on the screen right after that statement. I mean, I thought men weren’t supposed to have a say about abortion. I thought abortion was about a woman’s body. Not sure how a man enters that picture for abortion-supporters unless, of course, you’re trying to cover the truth, confuse the issue, and be disingenuous.

Second, I’ve still never heard a good explanation about how an unborn child is just an extension of his mother’s body. I mean, really, anyone who’s studied basic biology ought to know that a woman can’t have four legs, two noses, and two brains – even if she is pregnant.

And for those who would say that the true issue is all the other “services” Planned Parenthood provides, that’s just a smokescreen. Women can get cancer screenings, STD testing, and other true health care at county health offices. I’ve used county health services for my own family. I know they’re available. Planned Parenthood is not the end-all answer to the world’s health problems, no matter how often abortion-supporters would like to make that claim.

So yes, let’s have a different conversation indeed. Let’s try a conversation about the truth. A conversation about the people who really need to be spoken up for, the people who truly need to be voted for. Let’s vote for them – the innocent unborn who are targeted to die. That, my friends, is whom we all should be casting our votes for.

   
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  • Sparky

    Kristi – didn’t they teach you in law school that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition? Hack…

  • David

    Oh, grow up. Things aren’t black and white, and you’re presenting your premises–that one group of people is more valuable–as conclusions. I’d expect better from an attorney.

    • Kristiburtonbrown

      Where did I say any one group was more valuable? That’s actually what the commercial is implying. I would hope we can all agree that one group of people’s right to actually live is more important than pretty much any other right than another group is being denied.

      • David

        First of all, sorry for the immaturity on my end in the initial comment, it was uncalled-for.

        Anyway. Fair enough, but your reply reflects my point: the statement “one group of people’s right to actually live is more important” is a conclusion based on your personal beliefs. In fact, defining the unborn as a “group of people” is itself a conclusion.

        As an attorney, I know that you’re more able to weigh the concerns of policy against those of the individual than most people are. The question of the “rights of the unborn” is separate from the question of equal rights for those of different sexual orientation. Why? Because it implicates issues of substantive due process regarding the mother and the scope of governmental power in dictating what people may do with their body.

        Equality in marriage, on the other hand, faces objection on largely religious and cultural grounds, just as interracial marriage was prohibited before Loving v. Virginia. There are no real rational grounds to deny a particular group of people both personal opportunity and real financial and lifestyle benefits (visitation, tax benefits, and insurance coverage, to name a few). The only reason it hasn’t already been taken care of in the courts is that sexual orientation isn’t defined as a protected class.

        So, I must respectfully disagree with your hope. Additionally, you’re implicitly stating that the group of unborn is more valuable, as their rights trump any other. I mean, I get it: from your perspective, “living at all” is unarguably more important than “being able to get married.” In a vacuum, I would agree. But this debate does not occur in a vacuum, and it is largely a zero-sum game: any increase in the rights of the unborn is a decrease in the rights of the mother. I understand that, again, your subjective ranking of various rights means that you’ll always believe that is more important. But, again, as an attorney, you should recognize that sometimes the true issue is larger than what it may seem, and that religious beliefs have no place in legislative debate.

        As to the argument that this isn’t based on religion, there is no other basis for prohibiting abortion. After all, can I claim an unborn child as a dependent? Do they count as a member of my household? Is a murderer charged with two counts if the victim was pregnant? Nowhere else in the world of law are the unborn treated as independent entities from the mother. You may wish that they were, but they aren’t. For both pragmatic and ethical reasons, until a child is born, they are not a child. And I say this both as a parent and as somebody who strives for morality whenever possible.

        But, see, I have no problem with you arguing that women shouldn’t get abortions. I’m not really in favor of abortion, to be honest. I think that, all else being equal, it’s not the best option. But pro-life doesn’t entail anti-choice; I would never deign to dictate that nobody should have the right to make that choice, simply because I may disagree with it. Furthermore, if abortion is unilaterally evil, then birth control and other reproductive services should be supported, not abolished. The only justification not to is that you’re trying to extend this protection not to the unborn, but to the abstract potential for the unborn to exist. That’s too far, and has absolutely no grounding in fact or law. That would justify criminalizing masturbation, too, and condoms, and any sort of sexual activity not resulting in reproduction. Advocacy should focus on encouraging people to make what you believe to be ethical decisions, not in limiting the choices people have based on those beliefs.

        Thanks for reading.

  • Michele

    I’m sorry, but claiming planned parenthood is a “smoke screen” for abortion is beyond ridiculous. I am currently without insurance as I work a low paying temporary state job. Planned parenthood provides me with free birth control, which then allows me to never have to even consider abortion, because with their help I can be responsible about it.

    Not only that, but I can make a regular appointment with a doctor if something is out of the ordinary (related or unrelated to sex), or it’s time for me to get a Pap smear.

    These are all things I could not do at a “county health office” without paying with money I don’t have or without needing insurance I can’t afford.

    Try thinking about the people in the world who have lives unlike your own, and need services like planned parenthood. Without it, there would be a lot more people needing abortions, and a lot more people doing it dangerously.

    • Kristiburtonbrown

      I stand by my statement that Planned Parenthood’s main business is abortion. I am fairly confident that without abortion, they would either cease to exist or would have to majorly downscale. You yourself are claiming that you get birth control free from PP – clearly that’s not where they’re making their money. Abortion is the money-maker.

      I’m not sure why you missed my statement that I have used county health services for my own family when needed. How do you know my life is all that different from yours? Also, maybe your state is different, but my state’s county health offices give out free birth control and charge people for services based on their income and ability to pay. Doesn’t sound like Planned Parenthood’s the only option for women…

      • Michele

        1) Are you seriously suggesting that Planned Parenthood is somehow using abortion to make a lot of money for themselves? That may be the most laughable anti-planned parenthood argument I’ve heard yet.

        2) You’re also just wrong. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-planned-parenthood-actually-does/2011/04/06/AFhBPa2C_blog.html Please read this. Abortions make up 3 percent of their services. Their federal funding doesn’t even go towards abortion. They also refer patients to other clinics when theirs don’t perform abortions. Why would they send people elsewhere when they could be raking in all that extra dough?

        3) It may not be the ONLY option, but it is a very good, safe, friendly, very available option for people who need it, especially poor people. Take them away, and many people won’t have anywhere else to go.

        • Kristen

          Why is it that people just can’t get that 3% of a bad thing makes the whole thing bad? You wouldn’t eat a brownie that was 3% dog poop. Even a small amount of bad ruins the whole thing.

  • onlyplayalawyer

    Ms. Burton Brown -

    You ask for a good explanation about how an unborn
    child is just an extension of his mother’s body, insisting anyone who has studied basic biology should agree with your assumed position that a woman and her unborn baby are two beings equally capable of life independent of the other’s existence. Actually, anyone who has studied basic biology will tell you that a zygote is not an autonomous, independent being capable of surviving unless the zygote (a) continues to cleave and (b) fully implants in a uterine wall and (c) is not rejected by the body in which the uterine wall exists, which incidentally, is inside the body of a woman. Moreover, continual development of the zygote to fetus to unborn child requires sufficient provision of blood, nutrients and hormones from the body in which development is occurring. Asserting that a zygote has any capacity to develop into a developed person, capable of survival in the dry environment where born people exist (as opposed to the wet environment where fetal development occurs in utero) without relying on the nutrients and physical protection provided by a woman’s body, is a denial of basic biology.

    This is where the argument to confer legal status upon unborn people falls apart and necessarily requires courts, advocates, voters, clergy, and all others debating this issue to choose which has more value – and therefore legal recognition and protection under the rule of law: the woman whose body is necessary for a zygote to develop into an autonomous person capable of survival in the world outside of the woman’s body, or the zygote, which cannot develop without a woman’s body? Once the law recognizes the zygote as deserving of recognition and protection under the rule of law, that automatically subjects the woman carrying the zygote to legal recognition that is less than that afforded the zygote – because the use of the woman’s body is required for the zygote to exercise its subsequently recognized legal freedoms. As an attorney, you’re much better positioned to point to case law that refutes my argument, and I welcome your response.

    When we allow the law to compel one individual to use her body solely for the benefit of another individual, we cannot consider ourselves free people.