The Right to Life...but not health care

Those folks who plaster their bumpers with Right to Life stickers right next to their, now fading, W 04 sticker are a hoot. They are a determined lot, to be sure, and quite the narrowly focused one too. They will demonstrate, yell, write letters to the editor, and participate in all sorts of activities to save the fetus, but, once delivered, they pack up and go home to rant about welfare cheats and those damned tax and spend Democrats.

Apparently the 'right to life' ends at the 9th month. Once the baby is born, it's on its own: good luck kid!

Most Right to Lifers are, interestingly, members of the Republican Party, as were my parents . They, too, railed against abortion and, in the next breath, condemned most of the social welfare programs. They grumbled about public school taxes and thought that Franklin Roosevelt was Mao himself. They didn't like their tax dollars spent on 'those' people. You know who 'they' are.

Very odd, isn't it? Guard the fetus with all of their might, but to hell with the kid after that.

No doubt many 'lifers' thought that George Bush's veto of the Children's Health Plan was exactly the right thing to do: taxes, you know. Don't want my money spent on those kids.

No doubt many 'lifers' cheered Bush's preemptive invasion of Iraq; after all, he killed his own people. Do they grieve for the 3,800 US military deaths? Do they grieve for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are dead, injured, homeless?

I wonder if it is OK to spend a trillion tax dollars on war? What if that trillion was spent on children- health, education, housing? I wonder how different our nation would have been in 10 years if those trillion dollars were spent right here on our families, our children?

I bet that if some 'damned liberal' Democrat wanted to spend a trillion on American children the outcries from 'the right,' the 'lifers' would have echoed from Maine to California.

Tax and spend Democrats! Communists! They want to turn America into a socialist country!

If it weren't so serious, it would be humorous. War is never humorous, neither is lack of care for our children.

“I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.” (Jn 10,10)