I'm an atheist. I've had an abortion. I'm not offended by what Obama said on the 700 Club! [View All]

I'm not only not offended, I approve of what he did.

There, I said it.

Obama is pro-choice, for ALL women. His record shows it. He appeared on a popular religious program to discuss, among other things, his position on abortion. His PRO-CHOICE position. He didn't go on there and pretend to be anti-choice. He did a brave thing and he stuck by his principles.

When he said women were prayerful when making the decision to abort, he was addressing his comments to the people watching the 700 Club. He wasn't talking to me. I frankly don't need to have it spelled out to me that Obama includes non-religious women like me when he talks about his views on reproductive freedom.

Here's why I'm glad he did it: Believe it or not, some of the women who watch the 700 Club have probably had abortions. For medical reasons or otherwise. Yes Virginia, Christian women have abortions. All the time. In fact, I'll wager that since the majority of women in the U.S. identify as Christian, it follows that the majority of women who get abortions are probably Christian. Many of those women probably pray about it, because that's what religious people tend to do when they are faced with tough decisions.

And what if some of those devoutly Christian women who had gotten abortions, for medical reasons or otherwise, were watching the 700 Club that day? What if, for the first time, they saw a politician who professed to be Christian talking about how he trusted them to make the right decision and knew that they had prayed about it? How often do you suppose they hear anything like that coming from conservative politicians who profess to be Christian? You know, the ones who proclaim that pretty much all abortion is murder and that later-term abortions are mostly done for "convenience"?

And yes, Obama needed to say "prayerful" instead of "thoughtful" or whatever secular term you'd prefer in that context for him to be effective. Because for the people he was talking to on the 700 Club that day, the issue of abortion is inextricably linked to their morality and thier faith. It's not that way for me, but like I said, Obama wasn't talking to me that day.

Just another POV about the whole thing.