Questioning Michele Bachmann’s Foster Parent Claims

Originally posted at American Thinker.

In order to understand liberalism, all one needs to do is take note of what the left applauds versus what they attack.  Case in point: Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann – wife, mother to five biological children and foster mother to 23 teenagers – has now become the focal point of left-wing attacks as they prepare to diminish her stature by attacking her family.

Michele gave a stellar performance at the Republican debate.  It was in that forum that she announced her decision to “seek the office of the presidency of the United States of America.”  The only woman on the platform, Michele voiced strong convictions, attacked government regulation, called the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill “over-the-top,” and promised if elected to repeal Obamacare.  Michele praised the Tea Party and described it as a “wide swath of America coming together…to take the country back.”

Yet, despite articulating strong opinions on varied subjects, Michele’s gutsy and possibly prophetic proclamation that Barack Obama is a “one-term” president wasn’t nearly as courageous as a pro-life statement she made with unabashed personal conviction and commitment to truth.

What could be worse for pro-choice America than a woman with a brood of children, smiling and firmly proclaiming without obfuscation, wavering, or uncertainty the following belief: “I am 100 percent pro-life. I’ve given birth to five babies, and I’ve taken 23 foster children into my home. I believe in the dignity of life from conception until natural death. I believe in the sanctity of human life.”

Michele Bachmann bore five biological children and didn’t stop there – she and husband Marcus welcomed into their home the at-risk offspring of other mothers who also chose to grant their babies the gift of life.  Not only that, but the Minnesota congresswoman also shared her commitment to the “dignity of life from conception until natural death,” which is a view that – especially on the cusp of Obamacare, the costs of which are sure to run over budget – is not only ill-timed, but most assuredly unappreciated.

Moreover, Bachmann openly proclaimed as “sacred” and “holy” something which, after almost 40 years of unrelenting indoctrination, many Americans have now come to accept as a clump of cells – another statement sure to be considered unconscionable in pro-choice circles.

Michele placed a target squarely on her own back when she dared to tie the right to life to the Declaration of Independence, demoted government from bestowing “inalienable” rights, mentioned the Creator, and emphatically declared “only God can give [life] and only God” should take it away.

In conclusion, Mrs. Bachmann even managed to inject sanity into the conversation when she noted that 2% of rape/incest abortions “get all the attention” while 98% of convenience-based abortion is “where the real battle” lies in the fight against the unfettered slaughter of the unborn.

As it turned out, the Republican debate provided a public forum for a conservative woman to school enlightened society on what many believe to be the reproductive attitudes of a troglodyte. If Mrs. Bachmann continues to voice such extreme opinions, she will fast become as distasteful to liberals as Sarah Palin, the pro-life mother of a Downs Syndrome son, whose presence and principles – especially when toting around what the world deems less-than-perfect offspring – have made her an object of unrelenting mockery.

For years, Palin has struggled against cruel rumors that Trig, her special needs baby, isn’t her and husband Todd’s son, but rather daughter Bristol’s.

Taking a page from the Demean the Maternal Claims of Pro-Life Women playbook, Michele Bachmann’s motherliness is also now being called into question by those who wish to undermine her foster parenting claim, saying “She makes it sound like she got them at birth and raised them to adulthood, but that’s not true.”

Following the debate at the Republican Leadership Conference, a CBS News reporter broached the foster parent subject with Michele in what appeared to be an effort to coax the Minnesota congresswoman, who claims she “raised” 23 foster children, into admitting she hosted most of the kids for a limited amount of time.

Those who accept “the right to privacy” as the right to destroy innocent life suddenly have become sticklers on the proper definition of the word “raised.”

Although Michele Bachmann has never once implied that she cared for 23 children simultaneously, with grace and poise the congresswoman responded to the inquiry in the following way:

Well in the situation we were in we took children as teenagers. Their family was facing a challenge and they weren’t gonna be able to be at home with their parents and we took them in as teenagers and our job was to see that they graduated from high school and were successfully launched into the world.

Challenged further for precise time frames, Michele, who said she considered having each and every child in her home a “privilege,” calmly expanded her clarification: “It really varied depending on the children and we’ve never got into specifics about the children because we always wanted to observe their privacy and that of their families, as I’m sure you can appreciate.”

It seems that when pro-life women promote motherhood, those who defend abortion as a “privacy” issue feel more than justified in prying into their personal lives if doing so provides a solid platform upon which to falsely portray a female conservative Christian politician as a fraud.

It’s almost certain that Michele Bachmann’s parenting experience wouldn’t be a topic of discussion if instead of “raising” unwanted children, she shared the opinion that women “facing challenges” would be better off exercising their right to choose in an abortion clinic.

And so, the debate over whether Michele Bachmann raised or did not raise foster children proves once again that liberalism exposes its dark underbelly not so much by what it applauds as by what and whom it attempts to tear down.