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How Obama's Catholics Will Dodge the Infanticide Question
Inside Catholic ^ | May 12, 2008 | Deal Hudson

Posted on 05/15/2008 9:32:18 AM PDT by NYer

When Obama's Catholic supporters attacked Catholic League president Bill Donohue for his criticism of their candidate, they did not mention Obama's support for infanticide.

 

The question will inevitably arise for the distinguished group of Catholics supporting Obama as to how they can defend his preference for infanticide in cases where a child survives a botched abortion. The fury Obama's Catholics vented toward Donohue will only force them to face that question sooner than they may have expected.

 

It's clear to me how it will be answered: It won't. Obama's Catholics are already attempting to reframe the abortion issue in their favor. They will do everything they can to divert attention from the fact that their candidate is actually the most extreme pro-abortion advocate ever to be nominated by a political party for president of the United States.

 

The letter to Donohue reveals the arguments Obama's Catholics will use to evade the question of infanticide:

 

► Vocal anti-abortion Catholics are partisan and divisive. Their letter states that the abortion issue is "one that is too often hijacked by partisan operatives who seek only to divide voters." This is perhaps the strangest argument, coming as it does from Catholics who have publicly endorsed a Democratic candidate for president. They are attempting to win voters for Obama, to convince Catholics to vote for a Democrat. That's a partisan act, dividing voters into those who vote for Obama and those who don't.

 

So why would they accuse pro-life Catholics of dividing voters? The only logical reason is that they assume Catholic voters should think as they do. Obama's Catholics see their camp as the true home for Catholic voters, and any Catholic who votes Republican is like the prodigal son who has strayed into a foreign land.

 

► Republicans have done nothing to lower the number of abortions. The letter goes on to ask, "But what have nearly three decades of Republican promises to end abortion accomplished?"  Last January the Guttmacher Institute reported that between 2000 and 2005 the number of abortions dropped 9 percent to their lowest level since 1975.

 

The downward trend in U.S. abortions has provided fodder for the fundraising letters of NARAL and Emily's List. Meanwhile, Obama's Catholics pretend Republicans have had nothing to do with this trend.

 

► Obama's overall strengths outweigh his support for abortion and infanticide. The letter lists issues from the U.S. bishops' conference document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship." These issues include health care, unjust war, racism, discrimination, torture, hunger, and immigration. The letter from Obama's Catholics states, "Across these issues Sen. Obama offers much to the well-formed Catholic conscience." This line contains the essence of what has come to be known as cafeteria Catholicism.

 

It's as if the Obama Catholics are hoping to serve large enough helpings of health care, immigration, and opposition to the Iraq War to fill the stomachs of Catholic voters so they won't notice that Senator Obama supports the "intrinsic evils" of infanticide and abortion.

 

► Obama's policies on health care, poverty, and sex education will reduce abortion. "Senator Obama has reached out to Americans on both sides of this issue and embraces practical proposals designed to reduce the number of abortions in this country." I wonder how many pro-lifers feel that Obama has reached out to them. Aside from that, why didn't the Obama Catholics make any note of Obama's 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood, promising that the first thing he would do as president would be to sign the Freedom of Choice Act?

 

How can Obama's Catholics expect us to take their arguments seriously when their candidate goes out of his way to make a promise like that? They say that Obama "recognizes abortion represents a profound moral challenge," but the only challenge he appears to recognize is doing away with any federal or state restrictions on a woman's "freedom of choice."

 

What's going on here is obvious: Obama's policy agenda was set without any concern for lowering the number of abortions. His priorities were made clear when he spoke to NARAL and Planned Parenthood.

 

► Moral equivalence exists between Republicans and Democrats on Catholic social teaching. Of all the arguments posed by Obama's Catholics, this is the most insidious. They write,

 

Like many other Americans, we have watched as many candidates brought to office on a so-called pro-life platform insisted on policies that have left the lives of millions more of our brothers and sisters at risk from war, uncontrolled pollution, deeper poverty, and growing economic equality.

 

There are two claims embedded in this rhetoric: First, Republican pro-life candidates are not truly pro-life across the board. Somehow, a member of Congress who, for example, promised to sign pro-life legislation-- and did -- is not really pro-life if he supported the Iraq War. We will be hearing much more of this in the months ahead.

 

In an attempt to create the impression of moral equivalence between the parties, a second claim is made that a huge imbalance exists between the single concern of a pro-life Republican and the multitude of concerns of a pro-abortion Democrat. Obama's Catholics talk as if a Republican never had a thought about healthcare, immigration, poverty, taxation, and so on.

 

There will be a moment in the 2008 campaign when Senator Obama will be asked about infanticide in front of a national television audience, but there is no answer he can give that will satisfy Catholic voters with a well-formed conscience. Obama's Catholics will not be able to respond either, because there is no answer -- and they know it.

 


TOPICS: Catholic; Moral Issues; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: 2008; abortion; catholicvote; infanticide; obama; religiousleft
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1 posted on 05/15/2008 9:36:08 AM PDT by NYer
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To: Salvation; narses; SMEDLEYBUTLER; redhead; Notwithstanding; nickcarraway; Romulus; ...

Ping!


2 posted on 05/15/2008 9:36:53 AM PDT by NYer (Jesus whom I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God. - St. Athanasius)
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To: NYer; AnAmericanMother; Pyro7480; BlackElk; ArrogantBustard; sandyeggo

Obama Catholics is an oxymoron. Just like “pro-choice” Catholics. Or anti-Israel Jews, for that matter.


3 posted on 05/15/2008 9:38:45 AM PDT by Convert from ECUSA (Hillary, Obama, McCain. Curley, Larry, Moe. Decisions, decisions,)
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To: NYer

Catholics supporting abortion...............makes me want to cry!


4 posted on 05/15/2008 9:38:50 AM PDT by diamond6 (Everyone who is for abortion has been born. Ronald Reagan)
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To: NYer

Does this infanticide in cases where a child survives a botched abortion actually take place?


5 posted on 05/15/2008 9:38:59 AM PDT by stuartcr (Election year.....Who we gonna hate, in '08?)
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To: NYer

Pope Benedict has declared that not all moral questions are of equal equivalence, and that the right to life is paramount. This fig leaf will not work. Not when the Archbishop of Kansas City, KS just told Gov. Sebelius (who is an Obama supporter and on his “Catholic list”) not to try to receive Communion again in his Archdiocese or he would be forced to take “substantive measures.” Those measures are “juridical.”


6 posted on 05/15/2008 9:45:32 AM PDT by Frank Sheed (Fr. V. R. Capodanno, Lt, USN, Catholic Chaplain. 3rd/5th, 1st Marine Div., FMF. MOH, posthumously.)
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To: stuartcr
Does this infanticide in cases where a child survives a botched abortion actually take place?

From this link....

Obama vs. The Right to Life

Whistleblower Jill Stanek, a Chicago nurse, described the practice of killing babies in what is now known as “live-birth abortion.” Illinois tried to stop the practice. But in 2002, as state legislator there, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies who were “accidentally” born alive during attempts to abort them.

Apparently Obama thought so...

7 posted on 05/15/2008 9:48:49 AM PDT by mewzilla (In politics the middle way is none at all. John Adams)
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To: NYer
You cannot separate Church and State when it comes to your vote. I wish more of us understood this.
8 posted on 05/15/2008 10:15:11 AM PDT by Berlin_Freeper (Vote For McCain But Trust In The LORD)
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To: stuartcr; diamond6
Does this infanticide in cases where a child survives a botched abortion actually take place?

Each state acts independently. He often stood alone as an Illinois lawmaker in opposition to protections for babies who survived abortion.
Obama Blocked Born Alive Infant Protection Act

On a recent program discussing the catholic vote, Father Frank Pavone, while not providing the candidate's actual name, noted that one of the candidates favored infanticide. In fact, one of this candidate's supporters wants to see the law changed in order to postpone issuance of birth certificates until a child is 2 to 3 years old.

9 posted on 05/15/2008 10:18:08 AM PDT by NYer (Jesus whom I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God. - St. Athanasius)
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To: stuartcr
Why would you think it doesn't? Babies of 20-24 weeks' gestation are aborted every day -- those are completely formed children, you understand, that are essentially delivered. Naturally some of them are going to survive until they emerge from the birth canal.

They took that little baby that was making little sounds and moving and kicking, and set it on that table in a cold, stainless steel bowl. Every time I would look over while we were repairing the incision in uterus and finishing the Caesarean, I would see that little person moving in that bowl. And it kicked and moved less and less, of course, as time went on. I can remember going over and looking at the baby when we were done with the surgery and the baby was still alive. You could see the chest was moving and the heart was beating, and the baby would try to take a little breath, and it really hurt inside, and it began to educate me as to what abortion really was."

quoted in "Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet"

10 posted on 05/15/2008 10:28:33 AM PDT by workerbee (Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.)
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To: stuartcr
From "Rachel Weeping" "The doctors would remove the fetus while performing hysterectomies and then lay it on the table., where it would squirm until it died. ..They all had perfect forms and shapes. I couldn't take it. No nurse could."

--Joyce Craig, director of a Brooklyn clinic of Planned Parenthood. who assisted in abortion for two months, then quit.

11 posted on 05/15/2008 10:32:44 AM PDT by workerbee (Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.)
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To: workerbee

Thank you for posting those quotes. It baffles me how anyone can deny a child the right to life. During a recent discussion on the upcoming election, someone complained about the senseless loss of young American men in Iraq, thus justifying why they could not vote for McCain. I acknowledged the tragic loss of those lives but commended the young men who chose to serve, vs the thousands of babies aborted each day who were not given any choice. That is truly senseless.


12 posted on 05/15/2008 10:46:36 AM PDT by NYer (Jesus whom I know as my Redeemer cannot be less than God. - St. Athanasius)
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To: NYer

Party above Faith.

A human doesn’t need to have Faith to understand the violence of abortion. Faith will give one the strength to avoid it however.


13 posted on 05/15/2008 10:57:08 AM PDT by Gene Eric
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To: workerbee

Becausei never go into hospital baby wards, that’s why I asked. I understand they are aborted, but we are talking about infanticide after birth.attempted abortion.


14 posted on 05/15/2008 10:59:39 AM PDT by stuartcr (Election year.....Who we gonna hate, in '08?)
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To: workerbee; NYer

An amazing array of quotes about abortion.

The best quotes are those of abortionists who have spoken candidly about the horor they impose on others.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abortion


15 posted on 05/15/2008 11:00:33 AM PDT by Notwithstanding ("You are either with America in our time of need or you are not" - Hillary from Senate well 9/12/01)
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To: stuartcr

The situation arises quit often - and is easy to see how it arises:

The abortionist is attempting to kill inside the mother’s womb a baby who has been developing for 5 to 8 months.

The abortionist has to kill the baby inside the mom - if the baby slips out alive and then they kill him, it is murder.

They abortionist has to prepare the cervix and the birth canal to accept large instruments going in and out and to allow the baby parts - especially the skull - to slip out without destroying the woman’s organs, so he uses medical techniques to create the actual condition of the woman’s private area to the looser state that it is in when a baby is delivered.

So, as the abortionist begins th process of ripping the baby apart, he shoves his instruments inside the woman, and the baby slips out.

Oh shit - a live baby!
But this woman has a right to a dead baby!

Lets just leave him alone on the table in th corner until he’s dead - maybe we might put a towel over him to muffle the noise and hasten the process.


16 posted on 05/15/2008 11:38:40 AM PDT by Notwithstanding ("You are either with America in our time of need or you are not" - Hillary from Senate well 9/12/01)
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To: Notwithstanding

This is heinous.
Obama should be hit on supporting this- and for voting against a bill to assist those babies who survive, not once but four times!!
THE SOB IS GETTING A PASS ON THIS.


17 posted on 05/15/2008 12:13:57 PM PDT by cyberella
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To: NYer

Do you have a link for that info about the birth certificate?


18 posted on 05/15/2008 12:50:24 PM PDT by Jaded ("I have a mustard- seed; and I am not afraid to use it."- Joseph Ratzinger)
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To: NYer

These people are a cancer.


19 posted on 05/15/2008 4:04:20 PM PDT by big'ol_freeper ("Preach the Gospel always, and when necessary use words". ~ St. Francis of Assisi)
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To: NYer
I wasn't anywhere near as offended by ass-brain jeremiah wright as I am by the phrase, "obama's catholics."

Obama, i don't like you.

20 posted on 05/15/2008 5:51:25 PM PDT by the invisib1e hand (my money's on righteous hustle and blue eyed soul.)
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