McCain and Obama debate tonight for the third and last time. Depending on which polls and pundits you believe, either Obama has run away with the election and ought to be inaugurated on November 5th, or McCain remains well within striking distance. There’s little question, however, that many conservatives are disheartened at McCain’s prospects (and when I say “conservatives” I’m not talking about the likes of Christopher Buckley and Rod Dreher.) A feeling of having thrown in the towel afflicts some. “We didn’t want McCain to begin with. He’s blowing it. It’s too bad.”

It’s important before throwing in that towel, however, to contemplate the real consequences of an Obama win. To that end, Robert George has written a compelling and essential essay on Obama’s Abortion Extremism.

For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ”forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.” In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry complains are not happening (because the federal government is not subsidizing them) would happen. That is why people who profit from abortion love Obama even more than they do his running mate.

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama’s extremism. He has promised that ”the first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act” (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed ”fundamental right” to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, ”a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined ‘health’ reasons.” In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would ‘’sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies.”

It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many ”pro-choice” legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a ”punishment” that she should not endure. He has stated that women’s equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing ”pro-choice” about that.

But it gets even worse. Senator Obama, despite the urging of pro-life members of his own party, has not endorsed or offered support for the Pregnant Women Support Act, the signature bill of Democrats for Life, meant to reduce abortions by providing assistance for women facing crisis pregnancies.

And it continues getting worse. Read the whole thing. (And then send it to that 106 year-old nun in Rome, if you have the time and the stamps.)

Of-course there’s more at stake than the promotion of a new level of the culture of death in America, although that’s important enough. In the Weekly Standard, Fred Barnes looks at a whole range of likely consequences of an Obama presidency coupled with dominant Democrat majorities in the House and Senate, from “card check” to the “Fairness Doctrine” and beyond: Worst Case Scenario.

It may not be possible to will McCain to be the kind of candidate he needs to be to pull victory from the expanding jaws of defeat, but no one should get so disheartened that they don’t do the one thing that matters most of all. Vote.

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