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By Karen Testerman
With the apparent nominations for the President of the United States final, the question in the minds of many is “Now what?” We watched as the candidate of our choosing moved out of the final picture. So, as some have said, “here we are again having to choose between the lesser of two evils.” However, let’s really look at the candidates from the two major parties.
On one hand, we have Senator Barak Obama from Illinois, a good looking, young black man of mixed ethnic background. A junior senator, he’s articulate, energetic with a winning smile. He’s befriending the “right” people and building his coalition.
From the other side we have Senator John McCain from Arizona, a former prisoner of war with obvious battle injuries, an “old white guy” with a long service record not only in the military, but in the U.S. Senate. On first glance he doesn’t “wow” the crowds.
However, as Nicole C. Mullins relates in her song, “Color is skin deep, true beauty lives on and on.” So does it really? Let’s look beyond the surface of these two men and the picture that the media paints.
The inner qualities of the person who fills the position of President of the United States matter. That person will set policies that affect you and me through the quality of the persons they present for approval to fill various positions of national leadership. One of those primary vacancies that likely will be afforded the next President is in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Strict constructionist judges will fulfill the duty of interpreting the Constitution of the United States, not to impose legislation from the bench. Do you realize how the decisions of these justices affect your daily life?
Three decisions in particular should be considered. The recent 5-4 decision granting foreign nationals access to the habeas corpus privilege guaranteed citizens of this country, the 5-4 decision that returned the NH Parental Notification law to the lower courts for process, and the decision removing abortion from state jurisdiction throughout the United States.
Life is a fundamental right upon which this country was founded, identified in the Declaration of Independence. If you have children, you have basic implied constitutional rights as a parent, and if you are a citizen of this country, you also have certain rights that come with that citizenship as long as this nation remains sovereign.
As noted by Michael Gerson in the Washington Post
“Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called ‘too close to infanticide.’ Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois State Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be ‘punished with a baby’ because of a crisis pregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.”
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