The so-called “pro-life” movement must explain its glaring hypocrisy when it defends the “unborn” — with everything from lobbying to extremist elements backing the assassination of abortion providers — while working almost as tirelessly to rob other “innocent” human beings of their “right-to-life.”
Last week, Governor Donald Carcieri and wife Sue — both proud to be demonstrably “pro-life” — made headlines on a related topic.
Governor Carcieri declared, at about the same time as a pro-life protest at the State House, how he wants to balance the state budget, in part, through a $67 million Medicaid cut.
Half that amount will keep elderly and disabled Rhode Islanders from the nursing home care they need: the rest cuts medical benefits for children and for their mothers on welfare. The latter are mostly single moms — the women that Sue Carcieri and her ilk encourage not to have abortions.
Regarding the governor’s disdain for “out of wedlock births” and one-parent families, Linda Katz, policy director of Rhode Island College’s Poverty Institute, told the ProJo that Carcieri has “a very 50’s model of what a family looks like with mom home cooking . . . and dad [going] off to a job. Then you don’t have to pay for childcare.”
Given the numbers of working couples, single parents, and stay-at-home dads in Rhode Island and beyond, Carcieri’s “vision doesn’t meet the economic realities of the state” or the nation, for that matter, Katz said.
The governor and his wife live in the real world of politics, surrounded by staff, advisors, contributors, and intimates who don’t always match the spotless image of two-parent, monogamous, or otherwise exemplary families or individuals. From that circle, Carcieri accepts money and counsel. He then preaches morality to the rest of us.
People who have experienced an unintended pregnancy, and chosen an abortion to deal with it — and those close to such people — step up the grand State House staircase, and into the governor’s office, every day.
In legislative chambers and inside the executive suite, walk people — married and single — who take part in homosexual sex, who openly sport a comatta on the side, or who are a comatta.
The church in which the Carcieris fuel their vision of family life has been exposed for sexually abusing or overlooking the sexual abuse of children. Now, through the governor and his wife, it pretends to define good and evil.
Being “pro-life” is not a part-time job of political convenience. To be credible it must be a commitment to all life: in utero as well as already born.
Those who wish to define morality must either be pure or ready to defend the company, the counsel, and the contributions they keep.
Society is as tired of libertines railing about two-parent families and the “sanctity of marriage” as it is sick of homophobic lawmakers and preachers seeking gay sex in public men’s rooms.
Carcieri’s anti-life Medicaid proposal throws innocent people under the bus to save $67 per Rhode Islander.
Certainly, the governor’s high-rolling friends can cough up a few bucks in tax revenues. Surely, churches can kick in to save mothers and children, the old and the sick, in the spirit of the beatitudes.
Mothers do their best to raise their child(ren.) Other hard-working individuals care for their elders or disabled loved ones. All must be part of the broader “pro-life” agenda, which, right now, seems too obsessed with the surgical suites where women seek private solutions to personal matters under constitutional public law.
Related:
Rhode Island’s great communicator, Someone I used to know, Thoughts on the 36th anniversary of Roe V. Wade, More 
- Rhode Island’s great communicator
The Governor's message mastery is a prime asset — and a leading challenge for democrats — in the 2006 campaign
- Someone I used to know
Nobody can accuse Democratic 1st District congressional candidate Chellie Pingree of being blindly loyal to an old pal.
- Thoughts on the 36th anniversary of Roe V. Wade
To commemorate that anniversary, the Maine Choice Coalition, along with the Maine Civil Liberties Union, the League of Young Voters, and the Portland Phoenix, are teaming up to screen the film I Had An Abortion at SPACE Gallery on Wednesday, January 28.
- Tormenting Teddy
After 32 years in the US Senate, Ted Kennedy remains a force to be reckoned with, both for his legendary family history and his considerable accomplishments.
- Kennedy, Catholic Church, and Politics of Compromise
US Representative Patrick Kennedy's confrontation with Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin over abortion and health-care reform has soaked up quite a bit of ink.
- Chafee protects his liberal flank
US Senator Linc Chafee — in the ideological hot seat, as always — had to make another tough strategic decision, deciding to vote against confirming Judge Samuel Alito.
- Save it for the next one
If you had to come up with his name, you could always Google “governors, irrelevant.”
- Choice in Court
With two conservative justices joining the bench, and swing-vote justice Sandra Day O’Connor now gone, the US Supreme Court announced early this week that it will consider the constitutionality of a federal ban on the procedure commonly known as “partial-birth abortion.”
- Hard sell
Over the past eight months, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey (who wants to be governor) has methodically distanced herself from her boss and fellow Republican, Governor Mitt Romney (who wants to be president).
- Carcieri’s no-show at Follies raises eyebrows
Suffering the merciless slings and arrows of the Providence Newspaper Guild’s Follies has become a time-honored rite of passage for the state’s politicians since the festive event was first held in 1974.
- A beautiful lie
In an era when “conservative” can mean favoring federal deficits and government intrusion into private lives, and “liberal” has become synonymous with support for states’ rights and opposition to activist judges, terms like “pro-choice” and “pro-life” have drifted into foggy territory.
- Less
Topics:
This Just In
, U.S. Government, U.S. State Government, GLBT Issues, More
, U.S. Government, U.S. State Government, GLBT Issues, Special Interest Groups, Crime, Abortion, Sexual Offenses, Don Carcieri, Sue Carcieri, Linda Katz, Less
