{"id":66083,"date":"2015-07-07T17:07:37","date_gmt":"2015-07-07T21:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=66083"},"modified":"2015-07-11T15:00:19","modified_gmt":"2015-07-11T19:00:19","slug":"jimmy-carter-jesus-approve-abortions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/jimmy-carter-jesus-approve-abortions\/","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Carter: Jesus would approve of some abortions"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

On Tuesday, the Huffington Post interviewed<\/a> Jimmy Carter on his new memoirs and thoughts on issues of the day, which included a\u2026\u00a0curious<\/em>\u2026 passage on how the ex-president\u2019s religiosity collided with his politics (skip to the 14:40 mark; hat tip to NewsBusters<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

[Faith has] always been important in my life. Y\u2019know, I\u2019m a born-again Christian, so-called, I\u2019m a Baptist. I taught Sunday school the day before yesterday, I\u2019ll be teaching again next Sunday, I teach every Sunday that I\u2019m home in Plains [\u2026] my faith has been kind of the foundation of my, you know, encouragement when I was in trouble, when I failed something, and gave me a new opportunity or motivation to reach for greater things in my own life. And I think that it is, um, I\u2019ve never run across any really serious conflicts between my political obligations and my religious faith [\u2026]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

I have had a problem with abortion, you know, and this has been a longtime problem of mine. I have a hard time believing that Jesus, for instance, would approve abortions, unless it was because of a rape or incest or if the mother\u2019s life was in danger. So I have had that struggle, but my oath of office was to obey the Constitution and the laws of this country as interpreted by the Supreme Court, so I went along with that.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

To be fair, Carter has occasionally<\/a> criticized his fellow Democrats for their pro-abortion extremism, but both his words and deeds demonstrate that there\u2019s a long way between \u201cJesus probably disapproves\u201d and the grave evil his faith really condemns abortion as.<\/p>\n

First, Jesus \u201cwould not approve\u201d of a lot of things, but rational Christians are supposed to recognize the difference between things that are sinful because they fall short of God\u2019s personal standards for us or harm our spiritual health, and things that harm others<\/em>. One category belongs to the realm of church and conscience; the other belongs to law. To frame the issue exclusively around Christianity\u2019s approval skims over the fact that disapproved things vary widely in both kind and severity, giving cover to the idea that less religious people care less about abortion.<\/p>\n

Second, where does Carter get the idea that Jesus would carve out exceptions for abortion that just happen to<\/em> match the conventional wisdom of 21st<\/sup>-century American politics? Pro-life Christians are used to the pro-abortion claim that abortion must be biblical because Jesus didn\u2019t specifically mention it (which is ridiculous<\/a> because the Bible doesn\u2019t need to list every conceivable method of murder to oppose it), but inferring something as specific as Carter does with no textual basis whatsoever is a whole new level of absurdity.<\/p>\n

Third, hiding behind Roe v. Wade<\/em> is a cop-out. Carter\u2019s oath was to the Constitution, not to the judges who defiled it<\/a>. As Thomas Jefferson and James Madison said<\/a>, presidents have a coequal right and duty to uphold the Constitution as best they understand it, and for Carter to do anything less than fight to overturn<\/a> Roe<\/em> was the true violation of his oath.<\/p>\n

Accordingly, Carter\u2019s \u201cpushback\u201d against his party\u2019s abortion mania has been lukewarm and inconsistent. According to <\/a>the author of The Real Jimmy Carter<\/a><\/em>, the former president played both sides from the beginning:<\/p>\n

In the [1976] Iowa caucuses, which Carter put on the map for the first time, Carter told Catholic audiences (and a gathering of bishops) that he opposed abortion and supported legislation to restrict it, thus cutting into Shriver\u2019s support. But he told feminist groups at the same time that he supported abortion rights (indeed, he had done so as governor of Georgia).<\/p>\n

During his presidency, the Supreme Court thankfully had no vacancies for him to fill, but he did appoint<\/a> to lower courts the infamously pro-abortion Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Stephen Reinhardt\u2014paving the way for the first two to eventually make the Supremes. As president he also signed<\/a> the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Treaty, which has been exploited by its overseeing committee to pressure countries that ratified it to loosen their abortion laws.<\/p>\n

In 2005, he made the incredibly bold, courageous<\/em> statement<\/a> that \u201csome\u201d Democrat leaders were \u201coveremphasizing\u201d abortion. Be still, my beating heart.<\/p>\n

Given all of the above, it\u2019s no wonder that when Carter reiterated those sentiments in 2012, the Southern Baptist Convention\u2019s Dr. Richard Land declared<\/a> he was \u201cmaking a political calculation\u201d about Democrat prospects in the South. \u201cIt isn\u2019t a moral decision about abortion.\u201d Indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, the Huffington Post interviewed Jimmy Carter on his new memoirs and thoughts on issues of the day, which included a\u2026\u00a0curious\u2026 passage on how the ex-president\u2019s religiosity collided with his politics (skip to the 14:40 mark; hat tip to NewsBusters): [Faith has] always been important in my life. Y\u2019know, I\u2019m a born-again Christian, so-called, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":66084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[19,1191,253,624,4027,259,31,3263,552,144],"yoast_head":"\nJimmy Carter: Jesus would approve of some abortions - Live Action News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Where does Carter get the idea that Jesus would carve out abortion exceptions that happen to match the wisdom of 21st-century American politics?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/jimmy-carter-jesus-approve-abortions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jimmy Carter: Jesus would approve of some abortions - 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