Pro Abortionist

Obama's Abortion Extremism

Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

Barack Obama's victory may open abortion floodgates (Telegraph)

When a conquering general rides over a battlefield, with colours flying, receiving the plaudits of his troops, little thought is spared for the corpses that have paved his path to victory. So it is with the American presidential election. Now is the moment when post-election Stockholm Syndrome traditionally engulfs the defeated party, which garlands the successful candidate with good wishes.

Unhappily, such sporting, cricket-pavilion conventions are inappropriate in the present instance. The conventional "Now, let us all rally round our new President" provokes the question: "To help him do what?" Barack Obama has declared: "The first thing I'd do, as president, is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing that I'd do." We have no reason to doubt him: he is co-sponsor of the Bill in the Senate.

This legislation would abolish all restrictions on abortion in the United States, overriding state laws, including 38 states' bans on partial-birth abortion. Obama defended partial-birth abortion to the last ditch in the Illinois senate and described himself as "extremely concerned" when the Supreme Court upheld the ban last year.

The practice, euphemistically termed "intact dilation and extraction", is used to kill an unborn baby at five to six months, by removing the infant from the womb feet first, until only the head is undelivered. Scissors are then used to make an "incision" in the back of the head and a suction catheter sucks out the brain until the skull collapses. Hope? Change we need?

That is what the man whom thousands of young people flock to idolise believes is appropriate treatment for America's unborn, for which he has crusaded. He even resisted the Born Alive Bill in Illinois, allowing life support for babies who survive abortions. What kind of individual denies life to some little mite who, against all odds, fights for survival, abandoned in a sluice room - and then characterises himself as the personification of Hope?

This election was an issue of life and death. That is why to deplore Obama's victory is not churlish, but an affirmation of the sacredness of human life, formerly acknowledged by all civilised people, but now dangerously marginalised.

Since the Roe v Wade decision, 46 million Americans have been deprived of lives they never lived. Obama made much play of America's slave-owning past; but he is championing a death cult that future historians will equate with the immorality of slavery when they chronicle these times. By a cruel irony, if Obama's Bill passes, it will disproportionately cull black children: already the abortion rate among black women is 49 per 1,000, compared with 13 per 1,000 among whites.

"He's been sent by God!" claimed an infatuated supporter. Beyond the sinister personality cult of The One, there is a moral imperative to be confronted. Life counts for more than celebrity.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 2008

Obama-Biden presents a dilemma for Roman Catholics

Senator Joe Biden, 65, has twice sought the White House himself. He has immense experience in defence and foreign policy — areas in which Senator Obama fares relatively poorly in the polls compared with Senator McCain – but he is a Roman Catholic with a long record of liberal voting, and a long-standing supporter of Roe v. Wade and a woman's ‘right to choose’.

His selection poses a major challenge for American Roman Catholics. A pro-abortion Catholic choice as a vice presidential candidate may offend and alienate very many Christians for whom the sanctity of life and the belief that life begins at conception are articles of faith. 

The American bishops have made clear that Roman Catholic political leaders must defend the dignity of every human person, including the unborn. But Senator Biden's tenure in the United States Senate has been marked by steadfast support for legal abortion.

In 2004, John Kerry's support for abortion sparked a nationwide controversy over whether Roman Catholics who support legal abortion can receive Communion. The debate was re-activated in 2007 when several bishops criticised Rudy Guiliani, also a pro-abortion Roman Catholic.

The Obama campaign will now have the very considerable problem that everywhere Senator Biden campaigns, the media will be church-watching to see if he can find a priest who will permit him to receive the host. Whilst the private/public division has so far pertained - the notion that politicians can personally and privately oppose abortion whilst refusing to pass laws protecting the unborn - the increasingly widespread view is that this is a manifest hypocrisy.

Bishop Saltarelli, the senator’s own bishop, said: "No one today would accept this statement from any public servant: 'I am personally opposed to human slavery and racism but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena.' Likewise, none of us should accept this statement from any public servant: "I am personally opposed to abortion but will not impose my personal conviction in the legislative arena’." 

He has made it clear that pro-abortion Catholic politicians should refrain from receiving the Eucharist. He said: “The promotion of abortion by any Catholic is a grave and serious matter. Objectively, according to the constant teaching of the Scriptures and the Church, it would be more spiritually beneficial for such a person to refrain from receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. I ask Catholics in this position to have the integrity to respect the Eucharist, Catholic
teaching and the Catholic faithful."

The American bishops have instructed Roman Catholic voters to consider many issues, but have characterised the defence of human life as 'foundational' and have explained that the issue has a special claim on the conscience of the Catholic voter. This means that a political candidate like Senator Biden, because of his strong support for abortion rights, is unworthy of support despite his views on other issues like defence, health care and the economy.

And let us not pretend that this is only a problem for America’s Roman Catholics. The Evangelical contingent – the ‘Religious Right’ - in the United States is a hugely influential and highly vocal contingent. Senator Obama might just have handed the White House to Senator McCain (though Cranmer has never doubted that this will be the outcome of this contest). The choice may have given the world's leaders someone to phone at 3.00am, but the experience of the vice president ensures that it is he who will be on the other end of the line, undermining the president at every turn. Senator Biden does not plug the gaps in the Obama quest to become the most powerful political leader on the planet; he draws attention to them. And neither man will have the blessing the most powerful religious leader on the planet. If Senator McCain chooses his running mate wisely, it is he who will be annnointed.