The Church of Jesus Christ

I am pro-life. I do not support abortion, believing that murder of the unborn is still murder. Since we are created in the image of God, their is something sacred about human life – at all stages.

I know of a man and women, very dear to me, both disabled by a lifetime of work. They dutifully paid their disability insurance, but when it came time to claim it, they were denied and told to fight the lawyers. They did not have the money for good lawyers and quickly lost any hope of appeal. They live on a meager social security check. The gentleman has CPD and is quickly fading. Hospice has been called it. In what should be the twilight of their life, he is rushing headlong into the midnight abyss. They have to live on the kindness of others for a variety of things – food, clothing, help here and there – and many times eat things that have aggravated his diabetes because they cannot afford the food – potatoes, rice, come in bulk and go a long ways.

They have lived with the Bush Medicare plan, finding themselves out of funds for much need prescription medication in May or June. Their already strained budget is now faced with buying more medication at costs that allow them to purchase a little here and a little there.

In this country, where our technology has far outstripped our compassion, they are being forced to pay to live. Sometimes, they have to eat. Sometimes, when he is in pain and unable to breathe, they skip the food and buy the medicine.

They have no children to help them, and are essentially alone in this world, except for a few church folks that help when they can.

They are paying to live when life is so abundant here. They have the same right to life as the unborn.

There is a young woman who has found herself with child (which is the polite way of saying that she messed up). She is now faced with raising her 5 year old son while having this child. She is working, but the jobs are scarce, do not pay a living wage, and with winter coming, the hours are sure to be cut short. We worry about her, knowing that many believe that abortion is an option in tough economic times. She has no family to speak of, and the father cannot be counted on to come through in a pinch. She is in a job that offers no insurance, no paid sick leave, and no other financial help. If she is able to get another job, she has to worry if she will ever see her son – as it stands now, she sees him roughly 2 hours a day.

Yes, we can look at her as something immoral, but even Christ looked past that. She is faced with two options, really. Abortion or having the child. If she has the child, then will she be able to feed it? Clothe it? Shelter it?

I know of a coal miner that goes to work every day to feed his family of 6. It is the only job in the region that pays enough – with good benefits – to feed his family. He works long hours, missing family and church because he cannot request time off. He works in conditions worthy of Chinese slave labor camps because he has no voice on the work place. He knows that as coal prices sky rocket, and the companies skip safety for production, that the likely hood of something serious happening to him increases exponentially – yet, it is his life or the starvation of his family.

So he goes to work everyday, in mines, forgotten by the world and fills his lungs up with coal dust that will kill him unless the roof crushes him first. He has no chance of a union, no voice on the work place. His last attempt to unionize saw five of his friends fired and blackballed from the industry while he was threatened with his job and sent to work in even unsafer conditions because he was seen talking with a pro-union supporter.

Yes, for these people, I am going to vote pro-life tomorrow. For the elderly couple that have to choose to either die of starvation or of a chronic illness; the mother who fears abstract poverty if she has another child; the coal miner who is forced to work unsafe because he has no union – I am voting pro-life tomorrow. And for you. I am voting pro-life.

Tags: coal, coal miners, faith, God, labor unions, medicare, politics, poor, poverty, pro-life, religion, union