The New York Slimes, the Church, and Children

Even as we Christians celebrate the great mysteries of our redemption, I am compelled to state the following: The New York Times has gone completely off on a limb accusing Pope Benedict of being complicit in shielding a particularly gruesomly perverted US priest from justice.

The priest in question abused around 200 deaf boys in his care in the 1950's-1960's. These really are sickening and heartbreaking stories. But the Pope has nothing to do with them. First of all, they were investigated by local police at the time who did not find grounds for prosecuting; however, the priest was removed from his position and only occasionally functioned as priest thereafter.

Second, it took 20 years for the local Bishop to make the Vatican aware of his crimes, and a Church trial was in fact begun against him by the Vatican office headed by then-Cardinal Ratzinger. Only when it was clear that the priest lay dying did Ratzinger's deputy decide that it would be impossible to go ahead with the trial, and instead he was completely removed from active ministry; he died a few weeks later.

All this is perfectly clear from the NYT's own documentation, which is available on their website. It provides no support for their assertions about the Pope. This is not journalism. This is harrassment.

And as pointed out by Rorate Caeli, who the Hell do the NYT think they are to all of a sudden set themselves up as some kind of children's rights campaigners? As this article documents, they have for decades campaigned for the legal right for parents to destroy their children before they have even seen the light of day, and they have even defended the most gruesome and detestable form of abortion, that which is commonly termed 'partial-birth abortion', which even some usually pro-abortion Democrats in the US Senate a few years ago found so "close to infanticide" that they felt compelled to abolish it, Roe or no Roe. (see e.g. this book, p. 43 ff.)

Partial-birth abortion is a form of abortion where the infant is literally partially born before it is aborted, i.e. killed. The cervix of the mother is dilated, and the baby is pulled out into the birth canal until its legs are outside the mother but its head is still inside. Then the baby's skull is pierced and its brains sucked out. Before its abolition in 2003, this procedure was often performed even on perfectly healthy infants of 20 weeks gestational age and above.

And people who defend such barbaric and inhuman procedures have the gall to claim the moral high ground over the Catholic Church???

State Morality and the Myth of Moral Relativism

From time to time I slip into 'blog apathy' and simply can't bring myself to write posts, which is why I haven't posted since November. Things have also been rather hectic in my life recently (nothing sinister, merely purely professional challenges that I am quite happy to tackle). But the world is moving fast and lots of things are going on. No time to comment on them all, but an issue that has been addressed more and more frequently in the British Catholic blogosphere is the government's bill to teach sex education to children as young as five - including information on contraception from eight years of age and on abortion from 11 years. Initially these provisions were made mandatory also for 'faith schools' - such as Catholic schools which absolutely could not in good conscience teach a curriculum that said contraception and especially abortion were perfectly legitimate options. After much consternation, including a sharp comment from Pope Benedict, an amendment was introduced that opened up for such schools to be able to present the views of the denominations they are affiliated with - but they would still be required to present opposing views in addition to their own, including providing information to little girls about how they can have sex without getting pregnant and how they can have their babies killed if it happens anyway!!

Though the government will deny it, what it is doing is passing moral judgments in the manner of religious authorities. It is not possible to divorce sex & relationship education from morality: no matter whether you teach that abortion is acceptable or unacceptable, you are expounding a particular morality. Even if you desire to remain 'neutral' by presenting both sides of the argument and leave it to the pupils to decide you are still sending the message that both are legitimate options in their own right. This shows the flaw of Moral Relativism - though it purports to be 'neutral' and 'balanced', by arguing for the moral equivalence of multiple paths of moral reasoning, it is itself passing a moral judgment that it is perfectly legitimate for a person to abitrarily select one such path or the other. As such the very concept of Moral Relativism is self-contradictory, because it itself presupposes the existence of the very Absolutist principles it claims do not exist (it is readily demonstrable that the statement "Everything is relative" is self-contradictory because it is Absolutist - as long as one believes in logic).

(Interestingly, secular schools are not required - or even allowed - to present more than one side of the arguments on S&R issues. This does not seem particularly 'pluralist'. Indeed, most contemporary Western governments do not even base their policies upon moral relativist reasoning intended to represent a genuine plurality of viewpoints, but rather increasingly upon an agressive 'secularism' which embodies a distinctive morality of its own that a priori excludes the legitimacy of other viewpoints. Thus the 'secular' view that contraception and abortion are legitimate options is made the norm, and the 'religious' view that they are not is merely tolerated, and then only to a certain degree. This 'secularism' is thus an ideology in itself that seeks to exclude and destroy opposing ideologies and as such it is irrational to tout it as a common platform for all of society.)

Obama's Stall on Stupak Betrays His Duplicity

I thought the Stupak Amendment deserved a post for itself. This bill, introduced by pro-life Democrats, attempted to exclude most (though by no means all) abortion coverage from the health care bill of the US House of Representatives. I am not betting that it will get past the Senate, especially since President Obama is seeking to roll it back - this despite the fact that all polls show that the American people were overwhelmingly in favour of the amendment . He even has the gall to claim that it violates the status quo on abortion - which it does, but in the opposite direction of what he claims: since the status quo is that no federal money whatsoever goes to abortion (at least not inside the US), by allowing federal insurance to cover abortions in case of rape and incest it will in fact expand federal funding for abortions infinitely. But even this is not enough for the President, whose rhetoric about seeking 'common ground' on abortion rings more hollow by the minute.

His assertion that the amendment "restricts women's insurance choices" is a red herring since he is putting up a system that will create federally-sponsored health insurance ex nihilo; even if they do not cover abortions, they still will expand insurance coverage to many people who have never had it, so where is the restriction? Ah, unless of course he is betting on a great number of people who now have private insurance trading it for the public option - something left-wing legislators are hoping will eventually lead to a single-payer European-style system, a system which Obama has previously supported but now publicly claims he is not working for.

Either way, it just goes to show that the man can't be trusted. No more than your average politician, anyway. This is a guy who calls himself a 'Democrat' but doesn't care what the majority of the population wants or does not want.

(Actually, the amendment part aside, it was remarkable that the bill could get through the House at all since 72% of the US public opposed it in its current form. Not surprisingly, since the Speaker wanted to hide from them what was in the bill before it was voted on - even breaking a clear promise to publish it.)

Murder of Pro-lifer Exposes Pro-choice Bias

So, it happened. Just a few months after the US went berserk over the murder of abortionist George Tiller, an anti-abortionist protestor has been shot dead. And yes, it has been confirmed that the murder was due to the fact that the murderer did not like his protests.

Now, it does sound as if this murderer was a complete nut. He certainly doesn't seem to have had any connection with any Pro-choice organization. Pro-choicers are making a great deal out of this - while in their uproar over the Tiller shooting they conveniently downplayed the fact that his murderer was also a nut without any formal connection with Pro-life organizations, choosing instead to blame the Pro-life movement as a whole for the killing.

At that time, some people opined that the Department of Homeland Security had been right to issue warnings about the prospects of violence perpetrated by "right-wing extremists". The National Organization of Women labeled the act a case of "domestic terrorism". President Obama issued a condemnation, while the former president of Planned Parenthood called on him to "immediately outline an action plan to increase federal protection for providers and clinics".

It will be interesting to see how this current episode plays out in the media over the coming days. As of today, CBS has not reported the story. I wonder if the media will be publishing allegations about "left-wing domestic terrorism" and whether the President will make a statement.

But one thing is the news media. When Dr. Tiller was murdered, I looked through a considerable number of internet forums where pro-lifers were derided for not being strong enough in their condemnations and even for being hypocrites when they condemned the murder. Well, now if you click into the combox at the über-liberal Huffington Post, you will discover some nifty comments such as these:

"If some weirdo was waving signs depicting aborted fetuses outside my kid's school, on a regular basis, I'd be a bit peeved, too. In my case, I'd probably just give the twisted f*ck a well-deserved stomping, but many people lack my exceptional self-control."

"Being in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing sometimes brings about an abrupt end."

"To use a school for his vile tirades, I say he got what was coming to him. Now if only the protesters outside funerals and churches could only get a little of the same. No pity here!"

"One less birther pro life crazy."

"Sorry, some people are a waste of time and space and there are only so many strawberries to go 'round."

CMR has more from earlier in the day. Now, most of the comments at the Huff are civil and condemn the killing. So did most of the pro-lifers who commented on the Tiller murder. A great deal were, in view of Dr. Tiller's very publicized and unapologetic work to end the life of little babies in the womb, rather indifferent but stated as a matter of course that violence was never a solution to the problem of abortion. A few expressed real hatred of Tiller and even glee at his murder. This was very sad to see and was rightly picked up upon and condemned. However, the above comments show clearly that pro-choicers need to acknowledge that there are problematic people on their side of the aisle as well. They must acknowledge that hypocrisy and disgusting attitudes towards other people is certainly not the prerogative of Conservatives or religious people. Each side must acknowledge its failings so we move beyond name-calling and start tackling the real issue at hand, which is not whether the persons on this or that side are morally superior, but which value we should assign to the lives (for they are alive) and rights of the babies in the womb - or foetuses or whatever we want to call them. The morality or otherwise of abortion is not determined by the virtues and failings of those who are for and against it, but by its objective nature.

Just Following Orders

I don't even know how to begin reporting this revolting and outrageous story. So without further ado:

"Doctors left a premature baby to die because he was born two days too early, his devastated mother claimed yesterday. Sarah Capewell begged them to save her tiny son, who was born just 21 weeks and five days into her pregnancy - almost four months early. They ignored her pleas and allegedly told her they were following national guidelines that babies born before 22 weeks should not be given medical treatment."

"Just following..." Now where have we heard that one before?

But it gets better. Listen to this nasty bit of nitpicking:

"Medics allegedly told her that they would have tried to save the baby if he had been born two days later, at 22 weeks. In fact, the medical guidelines for Health Service hospitals state that babies should not be given intensive care if they are born at less than 23 weeks."

So - two (2) days later and the doctors would have agreed that he would have had a chance of survival - even though the 'guidelines' say this is not so until a week later? If they are willing to show a latitude of 7 days, why not 9? This is simply a disgusting show of bureaucratism. You can laugh at this kind of thing if it happens at a post office where the clerk complains that your stamp slants at 2 degrees too much, but here we're talking people's lives!

There is no doctor with respect for his job and profession who makes decisions on whether to intervene or not based on arbitrary limits composed by bureaucrats. Doctors may, and very often do, decide that treating a particular patient is not feasible - but they do it by drawing on their theoretical knowledge and clinical experience and applying it to that particular individual patient in front of them! Doctors are not machines, where you insert patient data into one end and out the other pops a prescription. And any doctor who acts like he is such a machine is not fit for his profession, which is not so much a job as it is an art, as the ancients acknowledged.

And now for a bit of background knowledge on this curious 'guideline':

"Guidance limiting care of the most premature babies provoked outrage when it was published three years ago. Experts on medical ethics advised doctors not to resuscitate babies born before 23 weeks in the womb, stating that it was not in the child's 'best interests'."

We'll return to that phrase presently. Now spot the non-sequitur here:

"More than 80,000 babies are born prematurely in Britain every year, and of those some 40,000 need to be treated in intensive care. The NHS spends an estimated £1 billion a year on their care."

So bloody what? I bet the NHS spends about the same amount on wages for top-level managers and 'commissions' like the one that crafted these rules.

"Medical experts say babies born before 23 weeks are simply too under-developed to survive, and that to use aggressive treatment methods would only prolong their suffering, or inflict pain."

Except that, like so much of what 'experts' say, that's not true:

"But weeks before they were published in 2006, a child was born in the U.S. which proved a baby could survive at earlier than 22 weeks if it was given medical treatment. Amillia Taylor was born in Florida on October 24, 2006, after just 21 weeks and six days in the womb. She celebrated her second birthday last year."

And now the clincher:

"Doctors believed she was a week older and so gave her intensive care, but later admitted she would not have received treatment if they had known her true age."

Time to revise the guidelines, you might think? Oh no. Remember, there's money involved.

"However, experts say cases like Amillia Taylor's are rare, and can raise false expectations about survival rates. Studies show that only 1 per cent of babies born before 23 weeks survive, and many suffer serious disabilities."

I actually happen to think that 1 percent is not too bad. Anyway, the job of doctors is first and foremost to save lives, and this we should always try to do if at all possible. Only when it is not possible, or when intervention is arguably riskier than non-intervention, do we settle for next best, i.e. alleviate suffering. In fact, the most unsettling thing about this story is perhaps that the doctors didn't even want to do that - they allegedly wouldn't even see the baby once it was born. Because they were afraid that they would be overcome by the impulse to treat it, perhaps? Anyways, to refuse to treat anyone out of hand on the basis of purely arbitrary criteria is beneath a doctor and an insult to the people he is supposed to serve - as human beings, not as so many appliances on an assembly line.

I was made aware of this story by Matt Archbold over at CMR, who, though a little off the top sometimes, is always good for some incisive comments. Like this, referring to the 'best interests' comment in the guidelines:

"Pardon me but I get a little tired of hearing the government decide what's in the 'best interests' of people."

And further:

"Pro-choice punks are all about allowing the mother to decide if the baby's allowed to live or die until the mother actually decides she wants the baby to live. Then and only then does the government jump in and say sorry, now we actually care about what's in the best interest of the baby. Then the mother doesn't get to choose. And guess what? The government decides it's in the best interests of the baby to die."

He even goes so far as saying this proves that Western civilization has turned into a "death cult". I won't go that far, but it certainly shows that when you're a poor little foetus, there is just no way you can win in this world.

Macchiavelli: a Liberal Hero

I find it extremely ironic that Liberals always complain about cynicism and foul play on the part of Conservative politicians yet they have no problem playing politics as if they wrote the playbook.

Case in point: AP reports that an amendment to the health reform bill currently being reviewed in the US Congress which would have set strict limitations to coverage for abortion was voted on in the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House on Thursday. The amendment had been proposed by Republicans fearful that a reform resulting in near-universal health coverage would be used to drastically expand access to abortion.

Several Conservative Democrats joined the Republicans in voting for the amendment, and it was initially approved. But then, just a few hours later, something strange happened: the committee Chairman, a Democrat, invoked some House rules which made it possible to vote on the amendment a second time. And all of a sudden, one of the Conservative Democrats (Bart Gordon, D-Tenn.) who initially had voted in favour was now against the amendment, and another who initially hadn't voted now also voted no, sending the amendment crashing by the slimmest possible margin of 29-30.

I wonder what Rep. Gordon was offered or threatened with during that lunch break?

(Via CMR)

US Nurse Forced to Assist at Abortion

The New York Post reports that a nurse from Brooklyn was coerced into assisting at an abortion against her religious convictions:

"It felt like a horror film unfolding," said Catherina Cenzon-DeCarlo, 35, who claims she has had gruesome nightmares and hasn't been able to sleep since the May 24 incident.

The married mother of a year-old baby was 30 minutes into her early-morning shift when she realized she had been assigned to an abortion. She begged her supervisor to find a replacement nurse for the procedure. The hospital had a six-hour window to find a fill-in, the suit says.

Bosses told the weeping Cenzon-DeCarlo the patient was 22 weeks into her pregnancy and had preeclampsia, a condition marked by high blood pressure that can lead to seizures or death if left untreated.

The supervisor "claimed that the mother could die if [Cenzon-DeCarlo] did not assist in the abortion."

But the nurse, the niece of a Filipino bishop, contends that the patient's life was not in danger. She argued that the patient was not even on magnesium therapy, a common treatment for preeclampsia, and did not have problems indicating an emergency.

Her pleas were rejected, and instead she was threatened with career-ending charges of insubordination and patient abandonment, according to the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

Feeling threatened, Cenzon-DeCarlo assisted in the procedure.

She said she later learned that the hospital's own records deemed the procedure "Category II," which is not considered immediately life threatening.

"I felt violated and betrayed," she recalled. "I couldn't believe that this could happen."
A native of the Philippines, Cenzon-DeCarlo moved to New York in 2001 and started at Mount Sinai on the East Side as an operating-room nurse in 2004. During her job interview, an administrator asked Cenzon-DeCarlo whether she'd be willing to participate in abortions. She flatly said no.

The nurse said she put her beliefs in writing.

The day after the procedure, Cenzon-DeCarlo filed a grievance with her union. Later that week, she was cornered by two supervisors who told her if she wanted any more overtime shifts, she would have to sign a statement agreeing to participate in abortions, the suit says.

The next month, Cenzon-DeCarlo was assigned to one overtime shift, rather than the eight or nine she usually received, the suit claims.

Although the Brooklyn resident is still working at Mount Sinai, she's asking a court to order the hospital to pay unspecified damages, restore her shifts and respect her objections to abortion.

"I emigrated to this country in the belief that here religious freedom is sacred," Cenzon-DeCarlo said. "Doctors and nurses shouldn't be forced to abandon their beliefs and participate in abortion in order to keep their jobs."

This story is deeply troubling. Even if we were willing for a moment to pretend that abortion does not objectively constitute murder, it is undeniable that subjectively she was coerced to assist at a murder; for that is what she sincerely believes to be the case. No wonder she's been having nightmares since the incident. No person should be put in such a situation.

One of the very last things George W. Bush did before leaving office was to sign a sweeping conscience protection clause which guaranteed the right of any healthcare provider to refuse to participate in treatment which they found morally objectionable. And one of the very first things Barack Obama did upon taking up office was to annul this clause by executive order, that is literally with a stroke of a pen, ostensibly because it had not been "properly reviewed." The Obama administration is instead working on a new clause which will certainly be more modest and will most probably involve some kind of exception for medical emergencies - otherwise the prompt scrapping of the Bush clause would make little sense.

Most Liberals view the right to abstain from compulsory military service as something sacrosanct. The US does not at present employ the draft, but back in the days of the Vietnam war deserters and draft dodgers were viewed as heroes among the Left. In their view, no-one should be forced to kill or even be taught to kill another person if it conflicts with his beliefs - as long as this happens in the context of a war. But on the hospital ward this fierce demand for respect for conscience is largely absent. Why? It seems to me that for Liberals, there is one right that trumps all other rights, even that of the right to respect for conscience, and that is the right to have your life look as you want it to, with a minimum of suffering, even if it requires killing other people to achieve that end.

(Via CMR)

Obama's Science Czar was (is?) a Eugenics Nut

... because this is absolutely too mind-boggingly awful to prevent commenting on. A "Czar", btw, in American political terminology denotes an executive official in charge of a specific area of public policy. The position is ad hoc and appointed by the government, meaning that unlike other officials such as the Surgeon General a Czar does not have to undergo confirmation by Congress or any other democratically elected organ (save for the President).

The 'Science Czar' is the unofficial title of the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is also Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Thus, he has an important role in determining policy on all matters involving science and technology, including, presumably, research.

Barack Obama's pick for this position is a certain John Holdren, PhD, a physicist who has among other things taught Environmental Policy at Harvard (go figure). This has not prevented him from making a bit of an overstatement regarding global warming, stating that sea levels might rise to as much as 13 feet (the IPCC 4th assessment report on climate change, which is largely viewed as authoritative, predicts 23 inches in its absolute worst-case scenario - it can be accessed here).

But this is not the first instance, nor by far the worst, in which he has seriously overestimated the state of the planet's decline. In 1977, he co-authored a book with Paul R. Ehrlich (author of the influential book The Population Bomb) and his wife, Anne H. Ehrlich, named Ecoscience - Population, Resources, Environment. The book adresses the issue of overpopulation, which it sees as an alarming and imminent danger to all of humanity, including the United States itself (on another occasion, he stated that the US would not be able to support a population of 280 million by 2040; as of 2009 the population is well over 300 million and the problem faced by most people in the area of nutrition is not exactly that they have too little food). To counter this danger, the authors argue for the following propositions:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" - in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of the lives of all human persons - using an armed international police force.

Surely this is exaggerated? Nope. The guy who uncovered it all has provided scans of pages in the book at his website. It is absolutely clear that the authors are endorsing these propositions. But it must be out of context then? Well, reading the quotes in context arguably only makes them scarier. Do read the whole thing; it provides quite the insight into the mind of a certain strand of radical Environmentalist Malthusianism which wants to sacrifice human life and liberty to save the environment and ensure decent living standards for all (remaining) people. Did I say radical? No, it really isn't radical at all since the people who espoused it are apparently much respected in the scientific establishment and teach at Harvard.

The program outlined above is eugenics, plain and simple. There is very little difference between this and the eugenics program launched by the Nazis. The Nazis only resorted to direct killing of adult 'undesirables' at a late stage, but in the beginning the program was comprised of much the same elements: involuntary sterilization of 'undesirables' (mentally handicapped and people with hereditary defects) and forced removal of the children they already had. They, too, employed a police force which interfered in intimate details of the lives of all citizens. If anything, Holdren & al.'s program is even more radical than that of the Nazis. Now, the Nazis' motive was racial hygeine, while the motive of Holdren & al. was ensuring decent living standards for all humans on the planet and preventing environmental degradation caused by overpopulation. The latter are worthy aims, to be sure. But does the end justify the means? Those human persons who will have their rights curtailed, forced to being sterilized, abort their children or see them taken away by the authorities are not going to bloody well care about the motives behind these heinous and utterly despicable acts. They are evil no matter what purpose they are intended to serve (i.e., intrinsically evil).

The blogger whom the story originates with has not been able to identify any statement where Holdren distances himself from these views. Granted, the book was written in 1977, so a lot can have happened since then. Yet it still gives me the creeps that a person who has once displayed such profoundly twisted reasoning is now in charge of the scientific and technological policy of the world's only remaining superpower.

And even more, that this fellow was made a Professor of Energy and Resources at UC Berkeley - in 1978!

(Brought to my attention by the redoubtable Cube)

A Tale of Two Decisions

Via CMR, I was made aware of a book review in the June issue of Psychiatric Services, which I gather is the official journal of the American Psychiatric Association. The reviewed book is named Three Generations, No Imbeciles and recounts the history of an infamous US Supreme Court decision from he 1920's, Buck v. Bell, which assured mental institutions of the right to forcibly sterilize their patients (inmates, rather). The decision was outright fraudulent as the poor woman who had brought the case was supplied a lawyer who "was a prominent sterilization advocate with ties to the institution petitioning for her sterilization" and the expert witness "had a eugenics agenda." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated in his opinion, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." (Holmes was, by the way, in his time viewed as a 'progressive'.) The decision resulted in hundreds of thousands of poor and disabled people being coerced into sterilization for 'social purposes' right into the 1970's.

I am not sure whether it is the book itself or the reviewer who makes the connection to another infamous SCOTUS decision, but it is a very interesting one:

This book also resonates with policy questions about the tension between individual autonomy and protecting people with disabilities. Lombardo sees Buck v. Bell and Roe v. Wade as fundamentally opposed because the former gives the power over reproductive decision making to the state and the latter reserves it to the individual. But Roe v. Wade was used to overturn protective state legislation banning sterilization of people with mental retardation and enabling guardians to impose sterilization on their wards (2). Thus each case has been used to support sterilization of people with mental disabilities. Our continuing social ambivalence about these issues makes Lombardo's book starkly relevant today, when women are using the rights they gained under Roe v. Wade to abort fetuses found to have Down's syndrome and the Supreme Court protects hospitals that follow parents' direction to provide only palliative care to infants born disabled when those infants could have been treated and lived (3). Is it hypocritical to criticize the statement that "three generations of imbeciles are enough" when individuals today decide that even one generation is too many?

This is a meticulously detailed and researched history that should be read not only by those who enjoy history but also because, as Lombardo says, "one of the important lessons of the Buck story [is that] a small number of zealous advocates can have an impact on the law that defies both science and conventional wisdom." As Lombardo shows, the move to sterilize "social undesirables" is far from extinct today.

The complete review is available here.

Reflections on the Murder of Abortionist Dr. Tiller

The American media has been much preoccupied with the murder of the radical abortionist, the gynaecologist Dr. George Tiller. Dr. Tiller was, as abortionists go, rather extreme: he specialised in third-trimester abortions and is reputed to have killed a large number of perfectly viable babies for very spurious reasons. Recently, he was brought before a court to answer charges that he had broken state laws that require parental consent before conducting abortions on minors but was acquitted.

Not surprsingly, a radical anti-abortion activist has been arrested on suspicion of the murder. Blogs and various media outlets are teeming with vitriolic statements against the whole pro-life movement. The State Attorney has even announced that the federal government will provide protection for abortion providers across the country - an enormous overreaction, if you ask me. I don't have the facts at hand myself, but LifeSiteNews reports that it has been eleven years since the last murder of an abortion provider in the US. Hardly an everyday occurrence.

There are two implications of this worth noting:

1. I fear that this murder is providing pro-abortionists with an opportunity to whip up a state of mass hysteria that will make life difficult for the whole pro-life movement. For instance, laws might be enacted which prevented demonstrations to take place within hundreds of yards of abortion clinics, thus destroying the possibilities of helping young mothers to reverse their decision to abort their child (mind you, there have already been instances where people have been prosecuted for doing this). After 9/11, Liberals were falling over themselves to express support for Muslims and reminding everyone that Islam was a 'religion of peace'. Now, these same people label pro-lifers who deplore this murder 'hypocrites'. Double standard anyone?
2. I have even heard some pro-lifers voicing concerns that the rhetoric used by pro-lifers in the abortion debate - calling abortion 'murder' etc. creates opportunities for radicalisation. In other words, voicing the opinion (which has more than a fair share of basis in science as well as in the intuition of most people) that abortion entails the killing of a human person is arguably 'hate speech', and is something which should be avoided for the sake of the harmony of society. This illustrates how futile the whole 'hate speech' debate is. If people cannot call things by what they earnestly believe is their proper name, public discourse devolves into the exchange of insincere platitudes. Labelling a certain person who is convicted of molesting children as a 'paedophile' or even as a 'child molester' also arguably constitutes hate speech as it puts that man in danger of being assaulted. Should we call him a 'person with a compulsion of a sexual nature towards persons below the legal age of consent' instead? And his crime? 'Improper consorting with a person below the legal age of consent while himself being above that age'? In a world ruled by fear of the inflammatory potential of language, public speech becomes neutered and meaningless.

Let it be said once and for all: vigilantism is wrong. According to Christian moral teaching, it is the responsibility of the state to exert justice in this world, and all citizens are to abide by the laws and the decisions of the state. Dr. Tiller was tried before a court and was acquitted. He was not tried for his major crimes, but that is because the state does not view them as criminal. While that is highly unsatisfactory, no person has the right to usurp the power of the state to dispense justice.

It is tempting for persons who feel strongly about any issue to think in consequentialist terms: if I do such-and-such, this will be the outcome; this will save so-and-so many lives, etc. Christian moral teaching does not permit such reasoning. There are actions that are inherently evil and are never permissible under any circumstances. Such is the taking of innocent life. Dr. Tiller was not innocent in the eyes of God, but he was in the eyes of the state, and so the above principles apply. Now, a person may legitimately exert violence against another person in order to prevent that person from killing another. But this requires 1) that the person presents an immediate danger to another and 2) that only the necessary minimum use of force is employed. None of these principles apply to this case. The last observation I will make is that it is under certain circumstances permitted for persons to usurp the authority of the state and effect an armed uprising. However, this is limited to the rare circumstances when there is prolonged and severe oppression of fundamental rights by the state or an occupying power. In the US, the state does not enforce abortion, but only permits it (and, to some extent, encourages it). It is, thus, not the state that is the source of the injustice, but the mothers who abort their children. The state is not liable for their actions and so it may not be attacked because of them. The crime of the state is its failure to protect the most vulnerable of its citizens, but since a democracy takes its legitimacy from its voting citizens, it is ultimately those citizens who are responsible for this failure. Ending abortion may only and will only be accomplished by legal means: pushing for the overturning of Roe v. Wade and for state laws criminalizing abortion, which will only be made possible by educating the public on the issue. There is no other way.

Catholics Persecuted by Catholics

One of the foremost Catholic universities in the US, Notre Dame, decided it would be a good idea to invite President Obama to deliver the address at their graduation ceremony and award him an honorary doctorate, as is apparently a tradition of theirs. The US Bishops didn't agree, with over 70 ordinaries criticizing the invitation - that's about one in four, including the Chair of the Bishop's Conference. Quite a few ordinary US Catholics are enraged as well that the university is not only inviting the most radically pro-abortion President ever to speak (which would not in itself be objectionable) but that they are honouring him as well. An honorary doctorate is an explicit endorsement of a person's politics. The university is playing the tired old record that there are so many other issues on which Catholics agree with Obama. Sorry, but that doesn't really cut it. Increasing federal funding for healthcare etc. is all very well, but it's not really of any use to those aborted people who are not actually around to enjoy it.

This video shows one of the most prepostorous events I've ever witnessed: a Catholic Priest (who is, by the way, 80 years old and fragile) is arrested by the campus police of a Catholic university for demonstrating for the right to life.

Yeah, he was probably trespassing, and he was probably not obeying police instructions, but that's not really the point. The point is that if Notre Dame was true to its Catholic identity, his demonstration wouldn't have been necessary in the first place. Anyway, Obama or not, it can simply not be the case that faithful Catholics are not allowed to voice their support for the unborn on the grounds of a Catholic institution. If this is what passes for freedom of religion in America, I'd take Saudi Arabia any day.

God bless this good Priest, who let himself be humiliated to restore the honour of our great Queen whose name has been so sullied by this sad affair, and to save the lives of her poor children who are condemned to death before they even see the life of day. And may the American public one day realize that what happened at Selma, Alabama is not only part of the same struggle as this, but utterly pales in comparison.

Mexico at War

Mexico is under attack - and no, I don't mean by the inaptly named 'swine flu', which is showing itself to be, as we say in Denmark, 'a storm in a glass of water' (according to the latest update from WHO, initial reports of over 150 deaths were widely exaggerated; only 19 deaths, all in Mexico, have been reported so far). I mean by Socialist politicians who have launched a concerted effort to legalize abortion in state legislation.

In 2007, Mexico City legalised abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. Since then, pro-abortion groups have been lobbying for similar legislation to be introduced in other states, most recently in Queretaro, where a proposal to legalise abortion after rape was defeated. I know many will object to this. It is indisputable that a rape is a deeply traumatizing experience and that as a man I might never realize the full extent of this. However, I also believe it to be indisputable that any human life which results from such a despicable act is a full member of human society, with all the rights that entails. I also find the argument that a resulting pregnancy is necessarily a further, unbearable trauma unconvincing. It is a well-known fact that there is also a trauma connected to abortion, and it is not inconceivable that the birth of a wonderful child may just be what dispels the awfulness of the situation. Good can come out of evil. Besides, the wording of the text seems to have been extremely ambiguous, allowing for abortion simply on the grounds of a purported rape.

In fact, the efforts to legalise abortion have prompted a backlash from pro-life forces, which have been successful in introducing pro-life amendments to the constitutions of at least seven states. The Mexican Supreme Court, while ruling 8-3 that the Mexico City law was constitutional, split 4-4 on whether the constitution provided a general 'right to abortion' or whether this was up to the decision of states (in the nature of things, the minority from the former ruling did not vote on this issue).

One of these amendments, from the state of Baja California, has been brought before the Supreme Court. The callousness of pro-abortionists never ceases to amaze me. The amendment lays down that "from the moment in which an individual is conceived, he enters under the protection of the law, and is treated as a born person for all corresponding legal effects, until his natural or non-induced death." I can't possibly imagine who could be against affording this most basic right of equality before the law to all human persons, especially those most vulnerable and unable to seek legal assistance. But the Human Rights Commisioner of the state clearly does not want to do that, and cites among his reasons that it impedes the freedom of women to use contraceptives! This is quite astonishing because it represents a rare admittance of the fact that some contraceptives - among them 'the pill' - have abortifacient properties. So this guy is actually saying that we had better accept that human beings are killed in the womb than discontinue the use of such contraceptives! The Cult of the Sacred Orgasm strikes again.

Via LifeSiteNews.

Americans Evenly Divided on Abortion

According to a recent Pew Research poll, support for abortion in the US has declined dramatically since August - by a full 8 percentage points - meaning that Americans are now almost evenly split on the issue. Last August, support for the legality of Abortion in all/most cases was at 54%, while the opposition was at 41%. Now, the figures are 46% and 44%, respectively.

This is a massive indictment against the unambiguously pro-abortion stance of the present Democratic administration. President Obama has expanded federal funding for abortion and research on embryos, and Hillary Clinton has confirmed that the government will support 'reproductive rights' across the globe. However, as the poll shows, this goes directly against the trend seen in the general population. The Democrats are always banging on about their 'democratic' and 'inclusive' credentials, but what's so democratic about this?

Interestingly, there has been an equivalent increase in support for gun rights.* Strangely, it looks as if Americans are veering more to the 'right' simultaneously with, or immediately after, electing a Democratic President and Congress. Regrets, anyone?

*I want to make an observation about gun rights, because in Europe this kind of thing is easily dismissed as a sign of the crankiness of 'right-wing' Americans, along with opposition to abortion. The reason why very few people in most European countries own guns is not because we're idealistic pascifists but because our governments have historically posed strict restrictions on gun ownership - mostly to prevent popular uprisings. The US developed in completely different circumstances where it was in many places absolutely necessary to own a gun due to a lack of law enforcement and presence of hostile indigenous tribes. This, along with a general (and not unfounded) scepticism towards the state and a set of ideals extolling the freedom and autonomy of the individual, has contributed to create the conviction that it is a basic right of citizens to possess the necessary means to defend themselves from violent attack - a right which the Supreme Court has ruled is inherent in the Constitution. Greater control over gun ownership is difficult to accomplish without curtailing this civil right, which is the reason why many Americans are sceptical of such an endeavour.

Via LifeSiteNews.

Schoolgirls to Obtain Morning-after Pills by Text Message

I fully understand that people worry about teenage pregnancy. In my opinion, people are not well suited to either have sex or be parents until they have gone through the turbulent years of adolescence and developed a reasonably stable sense of their own identity and an appreciation for the identity and dignity of others. It is even more worrying when very emotionally immature persons, even pre-teens, are having sex - they are being profoundly irresponsible and are doing damage to themselves and to others by not knowing how to set limits for their own behaviour, and in the case of girls they are often exploited by older teens or even grown men.

But how does one discourage this type of behaviour? The Oxfordshire County Council thought it would be a brilliant idea to set up a text message service where school pupils in some of the areas most affected by teenage pregnancies could receive easily accessible medical "support" if they thought they had "taken a risk." According to this article from the Times, the service is primarily directed towards handing out 'morning-after pills' to girls who had had unprotected sex or whose contraception had failed.

Now I, and many others, are asking exactly what good that will do? Apart from the obvious but controversial fact that 'morning-after pills' are usually abortifacient and thus entail the taking of an innocent life, this approach is solely directed towards treating the symptoms of a problem rather than the cause. The service may prevent some teenage pregnancies, but it is very likely that more will result from it since it will be come to seen as a handy 'back-up' plan to contraception, meaning contraception will be taken less seriously - resulting in not only more teenage pregnancies, but also more sexually transmitted diseases!

The rationale for not treating the root of this problem is, as far as I can see, that this would entail an admittance of the fact that the 'cult of orgasm' which is so prevalent in our society and is spreading to ever younger ages, is at some level problematic - that the encouragement of teens and pre-teens to delay sexual relations until they are more mature and responsible, and to develop instead within them the idea that relationships ought to be loving, caring, lasting, and not focused exclusively upon sex would amount to a disqualification of the sexual practices of adults themselves, which are often very far from this ideal. Thus the health and well-being of the next generation is essentially sacrificed in order to protect the care-free lifestyle to which the present one has become addicted.

The fact that there is no parental notification involved also makes this scheme a blatant attack upon the rights (and duties) of parents to be responsible for their children's well-being. It boggles the mind that the article states that "Child protection staff will step in if any girl aged between 11 and 13 uses the service." What of children under 11? Is that an impossible scenario? And, the legal age of consent in Britain is 16, so why set the limit at 13? As if girls aged 14 could not be the victims of exploitative relationships.

(On another note: LifeSiteNews reports that one of the schools involved in the pilot project is a Catholic school, and that the County had unilatererally included it in the project, offering it no option not to participate. Is this what passes for freedom of religion in the West?)

The Legacy of Margaret Sanger to be Fulfilled - Or?

Now it's official (as if we didn't know it): Hillary Clinton has affirmed that one of the stated aims of the Obama administration is to advance so-called 'reproductive rights', including the 'right' to abortion, throughout the world.

The same Hillary Clinton recently expressed her admiration for the founder of what would become the largest perpetrator of abortions in the US, Planned Parenthood, saying she was "in awe" of Margaret Sanger and that "her work is not yet done".

Many Catholic bloggers are going into bouts of frenzy over Margaret Sanger, stating that she was a eugenicist, a racist with ties to the KKK, and whatnot. Actually, I think they are missing a far deeper point about Sanger. I don't know much about her, but if the information about her on Wikipedia is anything to go by, it turns out she was not such a horrible person after all; in fact, she was quite conservative, even for her time. She was not a eugenicist in the most perjorative sense of the word - while encouraging women to be smart about when to get pregnant and with whom, she abhorred the murderous eugenics programs in Nazi Germany. She regarded other races than the white one as intellectually and emotionally inferior, but then such a view was not a rarity in her day. The most horrible thing she advocated was actually birth control, which, although morally reprehensible and sometimes abortifacient, seldom constitutes outright murder. On all other issues regarding sexuality and reproduction she was very much a product of the century in which she was born. She viewed masturbation as gravely disordered behaviour and had great disdain for chronic masturbators. Her rationale for birth control was not to 'liberate' women, as the feminists of the 60's sought to do, but rather to prevent their immature and irrational sexual impulses (which were of course unavoidable) from getting them into trouble. And she actually opposed abortion in all instances on the grounds that it always constituted a taking of a life.

So it seems that Margaret Sanger, godmother of abortionism and hero of the sex-obsessive Left, was herself an avid opponent of abortion and had a rather more negative view of human sexuality than the Catholic Church does today. In embracing the teaching of the Church, Planned Parenthood and Hillary Clinton would ironically be much more true to the ideals of their great hero than they are now, and even develop a more rounded view of human sexuality and the joys which accompany it than she ever attained.

Abortion Ads to Air In the UK?

Advertisements for murder on prime time TV? You can't make this stuff up.

"Abortion clinics are to be allowed to advertise on television and radio for the first time.

"Condom manufacturers will also be permitted to broadcast advertisements at any time of the day or night."

See the rest of the article here.

To be fair, I'm not sure this is all it's cracked up to be. Given that abortion clinics in the UK operate on the basis of referrals from hospitals and GP's, I think it's unlikely that they will advertise directly. But 'reproductive health services' which, among other things, refer people for abortions, might well do so - and they are notoriously better funded than Christian advisory services which do not refer for abortions. Such services would also be required to state that this is the case if they advertise. All in all, the match between pro-abortionists and pro-lifers will become increasingly uneven.

Apart from that, it is completely inappropriate for condom advertisements to be able to pop up at any time of day. Sure they will be barred from breaks in children's programmes, but given that children typically watch a whole lot more than just children's programmes that is not a great help. Then again, many things should be barred from daytime TV - all forms of depiction of sex, violence, drug abuse etc. But oh no, that would be a disaster for the industry which feeds on our disturbing fascination of these things.

More On the Brazilian Abortions

As I wrote about yesterday, the case of the 9-year old girl who was forced to have an abortion (yes, you read correctly - "forced" - how much say do you think she had in the matter?) after she was raped by her step-father was seriously misrepresented in the media, and the President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, +Rino Fisichella, exacerbated the situation grotesquely by his untimely interference with a number of singularly ill-informed and erroneous comments.

Now, the persons who were actually implicated in this matter has responded with a statement in L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's official newspaper. Among other things, they say (emphases mine):

All of us - beginning with the parish priest of Alagoinha (undersigned) - treated the pregnant girl and her family with all charity and tenderness. The Parish priest, making use of his pastoral solicitude, when aware of the news in his residence, immediately went to the house of the family, in which he met the girl and lent her his support and presence, before the grave and difficult situation in which the girl found herself. And this attitude continued every day, from Alagoinha to Recife, where the sad event of the abortion of the two innocent [babies] took place. Therefore, it is quite evident and unequivocal that nobody thought in "excommunication" in the first place. We used all means at our disposal to avoid the abortion and thus save all THREE lives. The Parish priest personally joined the local Children's Council in all efforts which sought the welfare of the child and of her two children. In the hospital, in daily visits, he displayed attitudes of care and attention which made clear both to the child and to her mother that they were not alone, but that the Church, represented by the local Parish priest, assured them of the necessary assistance and of the certainty that all would be done for the welfare of the girl and to save her two children.

(...)

[Rino Fisichella] believed he could speak about [a situation] he did not know, and, what is worse, he did not even have the trouble of first speaking to his brother in the episcopate, and, for his imprudent attitude, he is causing great scandal among the Catholic faithful in Brazil who are believing that Archbishop José Cardoso Sobrinho was rash in his pronouncements. Instead of seeking his brother in the episcopate, he chose to believe in our openly Anti-clerical press.

They also quote a Catholic obstetrician who has issued this statement:

"...As an obstetrician for 50 years, graduated in the National Medical School of the University of Brazil, and former chief of Obstetrics in the Hospital of Andarai [Rio de Janeiro], in which I served for 35 years until I retired in order to dedicate myself to the Diaconate, and having delivered 4,524 babies, many from juvenile [mothers], I never had to resort to an abortion to 'save lives', as well as all my colleagues, sincere and honest in their profession and faithful to their Hippocratic oath. ..."

Thanks to Rorate Cæli for covering the spilling out of this can of worms.

On the Abortions of Brazilian Incest Rape Victim

I haven't blogged about this case yet... probably because I knew I couldn't come up with anything to say about it.

The story, as related in the saecular media, goes something like this: A young Brazilian girl is repeatedly sexually abused by her step-father from the age of three. At age 9, she becomes pregnant with twins. Her exasperated mother, completely out of it, is convinced by the conscientious doctors that her young girl will die if she doesn't get an abortion. Mother reluctantly agrees to abortion. Evil, narrow-minded Archbishop immediately comes out of his palace, wagging his finger and declaring to the world that poor, helpless mother and conscientious doctors are automatically excommunicated - i.e. cast out of the Church. Big scandal ensues, and two French Bishops and the leader of the Vatican's pro-life academy rush to the rescue of poor mother and doctors, saying that evil, narrow-minded Archbishop was being very cruel and uncompassionate and that the Church shouldn't pronounce judgment in such a case.

Initially, I bought into this version of events. I didn't agree with the abortion (for reasons that shall be explained below) but it didn't seem as if the Archbishop was going about his job in a manner as sensitive as required by the situation. I wondered why he didn't start by expressing his sympathy with the mother and child under those difficult circumstances and then proceed to rationally set out the reasons why abortion was not the right action to take.

But guess what - the story told by the saecular media is a fib. Go figure. Like it hasn't happened enough times that the media has lied about the actions of the Church for one to stop believing it.

Turns out, as LifeSiteNews reports (wish I had read their version first), that the mother was initially told that the child was not in danger of death and that abortion was not necessary. The mother, evidently not agreeing with this, then took her daughter to a different hospital where the doctors did recommend abortion. The diocesan authorities also knew of the incident beforehand, so they had probably had contact with the mother, warning her that what she was planning on doing was unjustifiable.

In short, the Archbishop of Olinda and Recife, José Cardoso Sobrinho, acted in complete accordance with his duties as a pastor and in a manner corresponding to the gravity of the situation. The mother was no poor, gullible wretch who merely followed the advice of the doctors; she knew exactly what she was doing and the consequences thereof. And as for the two French Bishops and Rino Fisichella from the Pontifical Academy for Life, they were guilty of the very busybodying of which they had accused +Sobrinho.

So, what is wrong with abortion in the case of a 9-year old rape victim? I think this is a case where most people, even pro-lifers, would believe that there was an exception to the unacceptability of abortion. I fully understand these sentiments, as I have shared them myself for a long time. However, the fact is that abortion is never permissible. Never means never.

How can that be? The little girl was not at fault in any way, rather, a tremendous injustice has been comitted against her. No-one is saying that is not the case. However, this injustice is not diminished by comitting another injustice against the, likewise completely innocent, child in the womb. Two wrongs don't make a right!

But what if the young girl was in danger of dying from the pregnancy? First of all, in the case mentioned the doctors disagreed on that. Second, it would still not be permissible to deliberately kill the innocent child in the womb, because it is not permissible to do evil so that good may come of it! This is a utilitarian mindset which is not only unchristian; it is also completely alien to the whole idea of the unique dignity of man. If treating the mother were to inadvertently cause the death of the child, that would be another matter. But you may not simply choose to kill one person so that another might live. Say you were dealing with conjoined twins, and it was evident that they would both die unless you separated one from the other - but in that case only one would live, the other would die. Would you draw lots and deliberately kill one of them so that at least one might live? The task of choosing which human life is most worth living is simply not ours to make as mere humans. And thank God for that.

I urge prayers for the poor girl, who has been severely traumatized both by the persistent sexual abuse and (as if that wasn't enough) probably by the abortion as well.

Bill Clinton Says Embryos Aren't Fertilized!

No joke. In an interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (who was rumoured to be considered as new U.S. Surgeon General) on Larry King Live, former U.S. President Bill Clinton repeatedly referred to embryos not being "fertilized". For some reason I can't embed the video, but it can be found here.

A transcript:

Gupta: Let's talk about something you talked a lot about in the early part of your presidency, stem cells. There was an order today providing federal money for embryonic stem cell research. First of all, let me just ask you, as someone who studied this, is this going to always be as divisive an issue as it is now? Is this going to be the abortion of the next generation? Or are people going to come around?

Clinton: I think - the answer is I think that we'll work it through. If - particularly if it's done right. If it's obvious that we're not taking embryos that can - that under any conceivable scenario would be used for a process that would allow them to be fertilized and become little babies, and I think if it's obvious that we're not talking about some science fiction cloning of human beings, then I think the American people will support this....

Gupta: Any reservations?

Clinton: I don't know that I have any reservations, but I was - he has apparently decided to leave to the relevant professional committees the definition of which frozen embryos are basically going to be discarded, because they're not going to be fertilized. I believe the American people believe it's a pro-life decision to use an embryo that's frozen and never going to be fertilized for embryonic stem cell research....But those committees need to be really careful to make sure if they don't want a big storm to be stirred up here, that any of the embryos that are used clearly have been placed beyond the pale of being fertilized before their use. There are a large number of embryos that we know are never going to be fertilized, where the people who are in control of them have made that clear. The research ought to be confined to those....But there are values involved that we all ought to feel free to discuss in all scientific research. And that is the one thing that I think these committees need to make it clear that they're not going to fool with any embryos where there's any possibility, even if it's somewhat remote, that they could be fertilized and become human beings.

This wasn't a slip of the tongue. He said it a full seven (7!) times. It sounds like he's got his scientific terms badly mixed up - I think most people, even if they are not scientists, know that an embryo by definition is the result of fertilization - i.e. the fusion of egg and sperm cell.

Even if most people can't be expected to know that, I find it sigularly damning that he, as former President of the United States doesn't - especially as his administration, even he himself, has crafted policies on this matter. If I'm not mistaken, the Clinton administration gave the green light for government-funded experimentation on human embryos to go ahead. One might legitimately ask, based on this interview, whether that policy was based on false assumptions?

Even if Bill Clinton couldn't be expected to know better, Dr. Gupta, who is a prominent neurosurgeon, definitely should. Yet he lets Clinton get away with this gross misconception. And to think that he might have been Surgeon General! The man is a disgrace to his profession.

From Creative Minority Report. The redoubtable Jill Stanek has a story on this as well. Apparently it's not the first time Clinton has said this.

Obama's Missing Powers of Self-reflection

Two days ago, the annual National Prayer Breakfast was held in Washington DC. As far as I can gather, this event mainly brings together politicians and social/religious field workers to discuss peace & justice issues. I don't know how much it actually has to do with prayer.

President Obama attended and presented his new faith initiatives, a Faith Advisory Council and the renaming of the White House Office for Faith Partnerships (started by George W. Bush) to the Office for Faith and Neighbourhood Partnerships. He also said this [emphases mine]:

“There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe to different accounts of how we came to be here and where we are going next—and some subscribe to no faith at all.

“But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.

(...)

“In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.”

Given that Obama is himself an extremely "zealous" supporter of the "destructive" practice of abortion, having vowed to vote for an act intended to lift ALL restrictions on abortion whatsoever and having fought hard against an act intended to end the practice of callously leaving abortion survivors to die, I am not really sure how much he actually "knows".

It's sad - I really liked Obama at first, and thought he was intelligent. Well, he is, but probably too much so for his own good. I follow him on many oeconomic and social issues, but his abortion views can best be described as extremist, fundamentalist. He is, like, the Osama bin Laden of Abortionism! Even the vast majority of the American public disagrees with him on this issue. And if you don't believe me, watch this poll.

I'd much rather have this guy for a Black US President.

Thanks to American Papist.