What's More Important to You--Our Children or an A Grade from NARAL?

On Monday, President Obama gave a demagogic speech urging Congress to pass gun control legislation.  In doing so, he asked a hypothetical question, "what's more important to you--our children or an A grade from the gun lobby?" True to form, the President posed a false choice. Ironically, in survey research and legal proceedings, the type of question the President posed is known as a double barreled question, meaning the potential answers are not mutually exclusive.  Protecting children and the second amendment are not mutually exclusive. Many NRA-backed politicians and many NRA members fight for the second amendment in part because they wish to be able to defend their children in the same way that the Secret Service is able to defend the President's children.

How about a question that isn't double barreled, Mr. President and your gun control allies? What's more important to you--our children or a Grade A from the abortion lobby? NARAL Pro-Choice America grades politicians on how "pro-choice" they vote, they and endorse candidates.  President Obama received their endorsement for President twice, even before Hillary Clinton dropped out of the race in 2008. Obama is actually more supportive of abortion than NARAL. In 2006, NARAL did not oppose the Born Alive Infant Protection Act that protected children who survived an abortion. While the Senate approved this by a unanimous voice vote, a nearly identical bill had been presented in the Illinois legislature a few years prior, and Obama opposed it as an Illinois state senator.

NARAL has other allies outside of elected office. Planned Parenthood sees NARAL as a "partner for women's health and rights". Despite the claim that these organizations support women's rights, both have opposed a ban on sex-selected abortion.  To them, it is fine for a woman to choose to have an abortion simply because her unborn baby is a girl, yet they claim to stand for women's rights? In their annual report released in January, Planned Parenthood indicated that they performed a record number of abortions in 2011 and nearly a million abortions from when President Obama took office in 2009 through the end of 2011. The media are pro-choice in their coverage of these horrors of abortion, and they often choose not to cover it. Meanwhile, some media outlets choose to consider children as collectively "ours" as society, not as children who belong to their parents.  First things first, however, in order for children to "belong to us "or to their parents, they cannot belong to the medical waste bin. What's more important to you?

Crossposted here and here.