My son is kindergarten, and was totally freaked out to learn from a classmate that Obama kills babies.

No offense to the right-to-life crowd, but what kind of sick &^%$ tells their kids that? Even if you believe that abortion is murder, why would you cast it in such terms to a kid who is five? Do you not see any particular harm in your child thinking that the president wants to (or would be willing to) kill babies?

Grrrr.

Well I can see that this would bother you because it isn't true. I don't believe that Obama has killed or will kill any babies himself. But he does think that others should be allowed to kill fetuses or embryos(i.e. unborn babies). Why wouldn't you tell the truth to your child? And in what other terms would you put it?

Are you serious? I'll pretend you are.

We haven't talked to him about it mostly because he's five, and not yet capable of discussing the complex philosophical, legal, moral and religious issues that surround abortion.

He also believes in Santa Claus, and we haven't told him the truth about that. Nor have we discussed the merits of the candidates' health care plans.

You're not serious.

The post is chock full 'o' logical fallacies: it's anecdotal, it's based on a child's hearsay, and it assumes that's the position of abortion opponents.

Here's an introduction to Obama's support for post-birth abortions.

Don't you understand that the subject is inappropriate for 5 year olds? They can't possibly understand the issues - they don't know anything about how embryos are made, much less anything about the process of development they go through during gestation. Nor do they have a concept of consciousness, the question of what makes us human, of the philosophical arguments about what exactly endows us with which rights and when, of the medical risks of pregnancy and medical ethics and medical decision making, of the problems of single motherhood, of abuse, of rape, of poverty, of drug abuse, of incest, of the stigma of young motherhood, of peer pressure, of bad decisions. They can't know how common early pregnancy loss is. They don't know about the painful decisions faced by people who find out about fatal genetic defects in their fetus. They don't know that you're not even required to put your own health at risk, even in the most minor fashion, in order to save a fully grown adult's life, even your own child's, so they can't understand that outlawing abortion is actually endowing the fetus with MORE rights than adults...

You say "baby killer", they think of *picking up a newborn baby and killing it*. That's not the whole story. Yes, it's a sick f*** who tells a 5 year old that "Barack Obama kills babies".

Inquisitor:

Well I can see that this would bother you because it isn't true. I don't believe that Obama has killed or will kill any babies himself. But he does think that others should be allowed to kill fetuses or embryos(i.e. unborn babies). Why wouldn't you tell the truth to your child? And in what other terms would you put it?

You could tell the truth, that Obama doesn't want women to have babies if they don't want to. If he wants more detail (and he's five, so he won't) you can tell him that sometimes people want to stop a baby from coming because they are not ready to take care of it, but some other people want to make them have the baby even if they are not ready.

Anecdotes are not logical fallacies, of course. The question was, "Who would teach a kid to say such a thing," not, "What is the position of abortion opponents?"

There are, of course, many answers to the second question. Do you have an answer for the first?

Well, my friend's little girl in first grade came home in tears one day because was told by her teacher, along with the rest of the class that McCain didn't want kids to learn and that he wanted to allow people to bring guns to school and kill them all. I knew education schools at major universities were populated by shitbags like Bill Ayers but come on! What the fuck? This is the kind of sick shit that will continue with the blessing of the Whitehouse now that that son of a bitch Obama is President. I also love his version of the Young Pioneers that he's going to unleash upon us all sometime within the next four years.

This country has caught a terminal case of stupid and I'm about to sell everything and move to Mexico. Maybe the fallout won't reach south of the border when Iran nukes a major city.

Sam47, I think that's a horrible story! Why would anyone, on either side of the fence, mention abortion or complex political issues to a 5 year old, in any context? When young kids hear this stuff, it can make them afraid or have nightmares no matter how much you assure them it's not true. I don't think you have to explain anything to your son other than "don't be afraid, it's not true."

I think the problematic thing is that a five year is unlikely to accept the complex rationalizations that his parents have convinced themselves of.