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Republicans do not believe life is sacred, not even close; they believe we commit a sin by destroying a microscopic dot of cells, but revel in frying a grown adult until his hair catches fire. No sanctity of life there.

But the inherent hypocrisy of supporting the death penalty while opposing abortion is not the primary problem of this false reverence for life. Much worse are the impacts of policies implemented by our faith-based government through the lens of rigid religious ideologies. Right-wing Republicans led by Bush have prevented federal funding of stem cell research. This research holds promise for curing terrible diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, spinal cord injury, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer. President Bush and now McCain-Palin value a blastocyst smaller than the period at the end of this sentence over the life of a wounded soldier in a wheelchair.

Bush, with McCain's support, continues to decimate funding for family planning in the world's poorest countries in Asia and Africa. We defund any group or organization that even mentions the word abortion. Bush just announced that we will no longer support any clinic that also receives funds from the highly respected British aid group, Marie Stopes International, which operates clinics in the most desperate regions. The clinics we no longer support provide primary health care for millions of women, and are often the only source for childhood immunizations. Due to this tragic action by religious zealots in Washington, at least 150,000 additional unwanted pregnancies will occur, leading to an additional 60,000 abortions that otherwise would not have been performed. That makes Bush and McCain the world's leading cheerleaders for abortion. And if that is not sufficiently anti-life, consider that in many regions of Africa women have a 1-in-10 chance of dying in childbirth, so our policies will be killing women across that continent.

Bush, along with the Catholic Church, opposes the distribution of condoms in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet condoms are the least expensive, most effective means of preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, which infects up to 25% of the adult population in some countries. Bush is condemning entire populations to infection and death, all while smugly claiming the mantle of pro-life.

Let us finally remove this colossal nonsense from our vocabulary, and say what we mean. Republicans are the pro-death party. Only by spouting Orwellian double-speak can they attempt to deny that harsh reality. The late great George Carlin once remarked that god was the leading cause of death. The truth is that Republicans are the leading cause of death, acting in god's name.

Let us not forget the health-care workers who were murdered by anti-choice radicals who share Palin's no exceptions for abortion beliefs. Let us not forget the women and family clinics that were bombed. Let us not forget Eric Rudolph - the anti-abortion terrorist who killed two people and injured 100 others during the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. The same Eric Rudolph who bombed abortion clinics that killed even more people. The same Eric Rudolph who sadistically attacked a gay bar. Let us not forget that the Sarah Palin wing of anti-choice fanaticism victimized America for years, committing crime after heinous crime. What John McCain has unleashed on America with his choice of Sarah Palin is an outright invitation to these cults to wreak havoc all over again.

A Fresh Challenge to the Religious Right's View of Abortion