Key Obama aide: "It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.”

The goal, as reportedly stated by Melody Barnes, who is the President’s Domestic Policy Adviser and the Director of the Domestic Policy Council, is to "reduce the need for abortions."

This from a report by Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA), who took part in private White House meetings with various pro-life and religious groups over the past couple months to talk about common ground for reducing the need for abortion.

Wright writes:

Note what Obama said in his speech at Notre Dame:

“So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions. …”

Abortion advocates object to the phrase “reducing abortions.”  It connotes that there is something bad or immoral about abortion.  Melody’s background as a board member of one of the most hard-core abortion groups in the country (Emily’s List even opposes bans on partial-birth abortion) sheds light on why she was irritated when that was stated as her boss’ goal.

The Los Angeles Times reported in 2004 that Democrats, after losing the presidential election, began rethinking their harsh, no compromise stance on abortion. Their solution?

Change their language but not their position.

And what has been Obama's preferred method of "reducing the need for abortions" in the past? As I wrote back in October 2008, responding to a reader who held that then-Sen. Obama was a valid choice for Catholics because of his desire to reduce the need for abortions:

The reader—who is a Catholic making a case for Catholic support of Sen. Obama—states, "Obama has spoken out and worked consistently to lower abortion rates." Likewise, the NARAL fact sheet mentioned above states, "In addition to his pro‐choice record, Sen. Obama has cosponsored legislation that would prevent unintended pregnancy and reduce the need for abortion." It then lists these three pieces of legislation:

• Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act, H.B.320, introduced on 1/13/99 (Illinois State Senate).
• Prevention First Act, S.20, introduced on 1/24/05 (U.S. Senate).
• Unintended Pregnancy Reduction Act, S.2916, introduced on 5/19/06 (U.S. Senate).

Each of these prominently features the use of contraceptives as an essential means of reducing abortions. The "Sexual Assault Survivors Emergency Treatment Act" states, for example, "Within 120 days after the effective date of this amendatory Act of the 92nd General Assembly, every hospital providing services to sexual assault survivors in accordance with a plan approved under Section 2 must develop a protocol that ensures that each survivor of sexual assault will receive medically and factually accurate and written and oral information about emergency contraception..."

The 2005 "Prevention First Act" has some 95 references to "contraceptives" and "contraception"; it is also known by these titles: "Emergency Contraception Education Act," "Equity in Prescription Insurance and Contraceptive Coverage Act," "Family Planning State Empowerment Act," and "Truth in Contraception Act."

In similar fashion, the 2006 "Unintended Pregnancy Reduction Act" is described in this way: "To amend title XIX of the Social Security Act to expand access to contraceptive services for women and men under the Medicaid program, help low income women and couples prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce abortion, and for other purposes." It also states, "A woman should have equal access to contraceptive services to help prevent an unintended pregnancy and to pregnancy-related care if she does become pregnant."

In 2007 Sen. Obama stated, in support of The Prevention Through Affordable Access Act, that:

We must do more to help low-income women and college students access affordable contraceptive drugs. No woman should be turned away from university clinics and health centers because the cost of prescription drugs is out of reach. Access to contraceptives is essential to lowering the rate of unintended pregnancies in this country, and we need to make sure these drugs are affordable and accessible. I thank Planned Parenthood and this bill’s co-sponsors for supporting this common-sense and necessary legislation. [emphasis added]

In other words, the central component of Sen. Obama's work in reducing abortion rates is increasing the use of contraceptives and access to contraceptives.

In a must-read essay, "The Contraceptive Mentality," originally published in Homiletic & Pastoral Review (in 1982, I believe) Dr. Donald DeMarco wrote:

The first person to draw attention to the "contraceptive mentality" and offer statistical evidence to support its widespread existence was the Jesuit sociologist Stanislas de Lestapis. In his book, La limitation des naissances, published in 1960, de Lestapis provided sociological data that indicated the presence of what he termed a "contraceptive state of mind." In England, for example, the Royal Commission on Population noted that in 1949 the number of procured abortions was 8.7 times higher among couples who habitually practiced contraception than among those who did not. In Sweden, after contraception had been fully sanctioned by law, legal abortions increased from 703 in 1943 to 6,328 in 1951. In Switzerland, where contraception was almost unrestricted, abortions were alleged to equal or outnumber live births by 1955, and so on. Such figures offered compelling evidence for the claim that de Lestapis was advancing, namely, that more contraception does not reduce the incidence of abortion. In fact, the figures suggested that more contraception tends to establish a "contraceptive state of mind" which leads to absolving responsibility for children conceived, which, in turn, leads to more abortion.

In view of the figures de Lestapis noted, and those culled from several other sources, John T. Noonan, Jr., remarked in his widely acclaimed book on the history of contraception that "it was dangerous to create the idea that offspring were to be avoided."

If true, this means that the (likely) Obama approach to reducing the need to abortion will not only fail, it may very well increase the number of abortions.

Comments

[Jack]

More proof that Humanae Vitae was accurate and prophetic. It would be nice if people like Noonan could finally acknowledge that.

[Scott]

Contraception necessarily leads to abortion: it turns sex into a purely recreational activity. If a pregnancy results, the man feels no responsibility. He didn't sign up for fatherhood, he was just in it for some fun. The pregnancy is her "problem." She also was just looking for fun, but now has a terrifying choice to make. And without his support, and usually without any other social support, the child becomes the enemy about to destroy her life. And with Moloch's soothing promises, the choice becomes clear...

[Gail F]

The first time I ever heard about the "contraceptive mentality" was from the couple leading a Natural Family Planning class. They seemed a little embarrassed to explain it, and I thought it was an absurd idea. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense... I don't think this is a concept that seems true or sensible to many people today, because they accept contraception as normal without really thinking about it. Just like the flap over what the Pope said about condoms and AIDS -- many people just thought it was nonsense, although it is of course true. To get people to overcome these biases they don't know they have is one of the real challenges of the Pro-Life movement.

[Jane M]

I would add that one way to make the connection between contraception and abortion even clearer is to point out bluntly that abortion IS backup contraception. Since contraception is trying to thwart nature it inevitably fails, but abortion fails only seldom. (This is of course the reason why you can't save the child who might be born.) Remember that when the statistics on contraceptive failure are believed to be about individual women - 98% looks like good odds. When you realize that failure is about each particular act 98% is actually a promise of pregnancy given enough time. Hence the "need" for abortion.

[Robert Miller]

The real problem pro-life advocates face is that so many people (especially 40s-60s) have become implicated in the "sexual revolution" of the 1960s/1970s. Abortion, even when genuinely deplored, is understood as a kind of back-up guarantee of the "gains" achieved by the revolution. The "contraceptive mentality" is one and the same as the "sexual revolution". And the "sexual revolution" is one and the same as the "culture of death/greed" that is engulfing the West under visible signs of schism in the Catholic Church in the US, economic catastrophe, endemic disease, demographic suicide, Islamic resurgence and the BO presidency.

If we are to advance the pro-life cause we really need to get serious about addressing the root of the evil we are fighting.

[Sawyer]

I'm still waiting for Kmiec to defend Obama on this one.

[T. Shaw]

In other news: The Sun rose in the east this morning; along with two nucular detonations. Who knew? Hope AND change.