New poll/Old poll
The new poll question is up:
A congressional candidate running on a pro-life platform was recently exposed as paying for a lover’s abortion in 2001. In 2004 it was deemed newsworthy that presidential candidate Dr. Howard Dean once served on a Planned Parenthood board. Should one’s abortion history be a part of political campaigns?
Here are the answers to last week’s poll. You were allowed up to 3 choices…
Click on one of the maps below to enlarge to find your personal brightly colored flag. Note that if you made multiple choices, only 1 shows up on the map:
As always, make comments to either this or last week’s poll here, not on the Vizu website.
Jul.06, 2008 5:08 am |
Polls |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Only when their actions are inconsistent with their words (i.e hypocritical). An outspokenly pro life politician who gets an abortion or forces their girlfriend/mistress to get an abortion should be called out for deliberately misleading their constituency. But if a politician doesn’t make a platform of their abortion views it wouldn’t really matter what they have done or not done in their personal lives in regards to abortion.
I’m with JKeller on this. A person’s reproductive tract is generally his or her own private business. However, lying about one’s positions in public invites examination.
I’d like to draw a distinction: Howard Dean’s position on the Planned Parenthood board was a public act. Mike Erickson’s paying for a girlfriend’s abortion, however hypocritical, was a private one.
With someone like Erickson, I wouldn’t think it appropriate to bring it up unless he were campaigning, however peripherially, on abortion. If he hadn’t had abortion on his platform, then it would have been a private matter between him and his ex.
With someone like Howard Dean, however, I see nothing wrong with bringing up his public history with employers and other organizations as part of the campaign, even if he had made no other mention of abortion himself. I’d feel the same way about a politician being on the board of an oil company. Serving on the board of an organization counts as an endorsement of their views.
“Change school immediately”
Wouldn’t you need to move to do that? What about people who can’t afford to change schools? It means extra driving, probably, a new schedule. It would be hard for working parents to do that.
And don’t let them hang out with the “preggos”? Really? What if a girl is rapped? Are you saying she should abort, drop out of school and avoiding everyone for nine months, or be ostracized?
Oh the old poll, I think the “Talk to my teen” response was the obvious answer. Good grief – obviously most pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike would pick it.
Jess, I think the poll refers to those specific girls who instigated the pact.
obviously most pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike would pick it.
Aw, next thing you know, we’ll all hold hands and hum.
I really didn’t care for the choices of either last week’s or this week’s poll.
For last week, talk to your teen is the only answer I choose. I didn’t agree with any of the others! Banning your child from associating with the pregnant teens only marginalizes the teens and supports the idea that abortion, to get out of this problem, is the way to go. Pregnant teens need extra love and support from outsiders and responsible peers. Your child can be a positive influence on their friends, someone who will help them develop healthy habits and outlooks on life. In addition, parents should be the primary ones teaching birds and bees anyway, whether or not a school has any sex education classes. That’s part of the responsibility of being a parent.
Finally, for this week’s poll. I think it’s a combination answer. For pro-choicers, active participation helping abortion groups like PP should be publicized. Personal history with abortion just confirms dedication to abortion. For pro-life politicians, recent involvement in abortion should be a public matter. Involvement in abortion a long time ago can be overlooked, if recent history shows a conversion to truly supporting life (heck, some of the best pro-life speakers are those with a St. Augustine-esque history with abortion). But if one claims to be pro-life while shuffling a pregnant lover to PP, you don’t deserve my vote.
If somebody says or implies that they were always “pro-life” or that they began at some point, and if they had an abortion or paid for one after that point, then it’d be silly to say voters shouldn’t know about it.