commondreams.org: Funerals and Abortions

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/19/8391/

By Christopher Brauchli

But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.
— John Trumbull, McFingal (1782)

What does George Bush have in common with prostitutes? For the answer see the end of the next paragraph.

As was observed in last week’s column, photographs of French president François Mitterand’s funeral, showed his widow, mistress and their daughter, all gazing sadly at the casket. Had Eliot Spitzer died while consorting with prostitutes there would have been no photographs of the prostitutes standing sadly by the coffin with Mr. Spitzer’s wife and daughters. That’s because prostitutes don’t do funerals. Here is the answer to the riddle. Neither does George Bush.

George Bush doesn’t even like to be in the presence of coffins even though it is thanks to him that the sad remains of more than 4000 service personnel have found resting places in coffins.

Unlike other presidents who in time of war have shared the grief of families of fallen soldiers by attending funeral or memorial services as time and location permit, Mr. Bush has avoided such displays of respect for the fallen and has barred the media from photographing the coffins of fallen service people returning from Iraq lest the sad sights create hostility towards Mr. Bush’s legacy war. What the American public doesn’t see or recall, Mr. Bush believes, probably hasn’t happened. That explains the most recent events involving Johns Hopkins University.

The Johns Hopkins episode involves “abortion” something George Bush opposes. That is why, for most of the years of the Bush reign, funding from the United States for family planning clinics in Africa that provided abortion counseling was reduced or eliminated even though the reduction in funding meant the clinics would be unable to distribute condoms, devices that are intended to reduce the need for abortion or provide protection against AIDS. Mr. Bush’s most recent attack on abortion was an attempt to remove information about abortion from a prominent Internet site.

Johns Hopkins manages POPLINE, the world’s largest database on reproductive health. According to Robert Pear of the New York Times, it has more than 360,000 records and articles “on family planning, fertility and sexually transmitted diseases. The database is funded by USAID, an agency that imposes severe restrictions on funds being given to any NGO that performs abortions or actively promotes it in foreign countries as a means of family planning.

FULL story at link.