Blogs For Victory

Archbishop Chaput states the case:

When Jesus tells the Pharisees and Herodians in the Gospel of Matthew (22:21) to ”render unto the Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s,” he sets the framework for how we should think about religion and the state even today. Caesar does have rights. We owe civil authority our respect and appropriate obedience. But that obedience is limited by what belongs to God. Caesar is not God. Only God is God, and the state is subordinate and accountable to God for its treatment of human persons, all of whom were created by God. Our job as believers is to figure out what things belong to Caesar, and what things belong to God – and then to put those things in right order in our own lives, and in our relations with others…

…As Christians, we can’t claim to love God and then ignore the needs of our neighbors. Loving God is like loving a spouse. A husband may tell his wife that he loves her, and of course that’s very beautiful. But she’ll still want to see the evidence in his actions. Likewise if we claim to be ”Catholic,” we need to prove it by our behavior. And serving other people by working for justice and charity in our nation’s political life is one of the very important ways we do that…

…I believe that Senator Obama, whatever his other talents, is the most committed ”abortion-rights” presidential candidate of either major party since the Roe v. Wade abortion decision in 1973. Despite what (pro-Obama Catholic) Prof. Kmiec suggests, the party platform Senator Obama runs on this year is not only aggressively ”pro-choice;” it has also removed any suggestion that killing an unborn child might be a regrettable thing. On the question of homicide against the unborn child – and let’s remember that the great Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer explicitly called abortion ”murder” – the Democratic platform that emerged from Denver in August 2008 is clearly anti-life.

Prof. Kmiec argues that there are defensible motives to support Senator Obama. Speaking for myself, I do not know any proportionate reason that could outweigh more than 40 million unborn children killed by abortion and the many millions of women deeply wounded by the loss and regret abortion creates.To suggest – as some Catholics do – that Senator Obama is this year’s ”real” prolife candidate requires a peculiar kind of self-hypnosis, or moral confusion, or worse. To portray the 2008 Democratic Party presidential ticket as the preferred ”prolife” option is to subvert what the word ”prolife” means. Anyone interested in Senator Obama’s record on abortion and related issues should simply read Prof. Robert P. George’s Public Discourse essay from earlier this week, ”Obama’s Abortion Extremism,” and his follow-up article, ”Obama and Infanticide.” They say everything that needs to be said.

I understand the argument – while Obama is pro-choice (so-called), he’ll provide those social services for pregnant women which will convince them that they can, indeed, carry the child to term. There are two flaws in this argument:

1. It pre-supposes that the vast majority of abortions are the result of mere lack of resources for pregnant women.

2. Even if it is verified that lack of resources are at the bottom of most abortions, Obama’s support for the inhuman “Freedom of Choice Act” would still disqualify him for pro-life support because it would prevent any regulation of abortion at all, including the ban on the horrific barbarism known as “partial birth abortion”.

We can’t really know why abortions occur because the abortion-industry fights desperately to prevent any sort of comprehensive, independent study of the matter which would allow us to understand who is getting abortions and why they do it and, of course, what physical or psychological problems might result from it (yes, I know there are studies – but the sort of study we need to render a judgment on this has not been done, and will never be done if the abortion industry has anything to say about). My best guess on the matter is that most abortions result from an attitude rather than a need – there is a huge network of groups around the nation who will provide pre- and post-natal care, parenting classes and adoption services for any pregnant woman who is contemplating abortion but wondering if there’s a way to bring the baby to term. Give this support network, I don’t buy the argument that an increase in resources would have a large effect on reducing abortions – there might be a marginal improvement, but nothing which would justify a pro-life person supporting a pro-abortion candidate, supposing that candidate steps up and offers vastly increased resources for pregnant women.

To be sure, I want vastly greater resources applied to the issue – with the preference for faith-based groups dispensing the aid, as they are most likely to be both genuinely caring and cost-effective with taxpayer dollars. But to decrease the number of abortions requires a mental and moral shift in that portion of the population of the United States which obtains abortions. It requires, in my view, a lack of respect for life, a lack of respect for self and a feeling of despair to get an abortion – we have plenty of such people in the Unite States because we’ve spent decades now propagandizing for the culture of death, the degradation of the self and that life is a hopeless misery. With the relentlessness and ubiquity of the propaganda, it is absolutely no surprise that we have a large number of abortions – but the key to the fact of abortions is the lack of respect for life, which lack of respect was greatly accelerated when the Supreme Court rendered its unconstitutional Roe decision.

Ultimately, to lower the number of abortions will require a renewed respect for life, and self, and an end to despair. Given this, we of the pro-life community daren’t offer our support for those who advance the cause of abortion. It would be one thing to offer up some support to a person who merely refuses to ban abortion or restrict it, its quite another to support someone – like Obama – who have pledged themselves in advance to support the most extreme pro-abortion positions.

In the battle for life in 2008, the only rational choice for a pro-life American is to support Senator John McCain and governor Sarah Palin. Only they are pledged to a stout defense of life and to advance laws, regulations and judges who will allow the pro-life community to slowly, bit by bit, change America back into a nation with an inherent respect for life.