PrintOctober 15, 2010
Obama's pay grade has gone up?
President Obama once opined that pre-born babies, and specifically their humanity, were "above his pay grade." Something has changed, possibly his pay grade, because the President recently offered an opinion about the pre-born, specifically about their sexuality. Just yesterday, our increasingly capable President opined that people are born gay:
I don't think it's a choice. I think that people are born with a certain makeup, and that we're all children of God. We don't make determinations about who we love.
Based on this assessment, the President has formed his policies about homosexuality. However, he has thus far abdicated the use of science when forming his abortion funding and abstinence education policies. Now that pre-born issues are within the President's pay grade, perhaps the abortion question should be asked again and the President's relevant policies revisited.
President Obama repeatedly extols the use of science over ideology but seems to selectively apply that standard. There is no doubt about the humanity of a pre-born baby. A baby's heart begins beating about 20 days, hiccups begin 52 days, and organs function eight weeks after conception. There is some developing but inconclusive research about the biological basis for sexual orientation, focused on brain structure, hormones and twins/siblings. The settled science about babies' humanity influences the President less than the developing science about sexual orientation. Might science simply be a tool in service of the President's ideology?
I also wonder about the President's application of a pay grade standard that seems to be unusually precise. Is there really a government pay grade that differentiates between pre-born sexuality and pre-born humanity issues? If there is no such pay grade subtlety, might the President really just be forming policies around his raw ideology?
