Like I was saying about that Barack Obama fellow

A few days ago I scoffed at Sen. Obama's laughable claim, made in an interview with Christianity Today, that "I don't know anybody who is pro-abortion." Turns out that last week, while celebrating 35 years of Roe v. Wade, the Senator posted the following remarks on his website:

"Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice, and have consistently had a 100% pro-choice rating with Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America.

"When South Dakota passed a law banning all abortions in a direct effort to have Roe overruled, I was the only candidate for President to raise money to help the citizens of South Dakota repeal that law. When anti-choice protesters blocked the opening of an Illinois Planned Parenthood clinic in a community where affordable health care is in short supply, I was the only candidate for President who spoke out against it. And I will continue to defend this right by passing the Freedom of Choice Act as president.

"Moreover, I believe in and have supported common-sense solutions like increasing access to affordable birth control to help prevent unintended pregnancies. In the Illinois state Senate, when Congress failed to require insurance plans to cover FDA-approved contraceptives, I made sure those contraceptives were covered for women in Illinois. In the U.S. Senate, I've worked with Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO) on a bill that would make birth control more affordable for low-income and college women, and introduced the Senate version of Representative Hilda Solis' bill to reduce unintended pregnancies in communities of color. As President, I will improve access to affordable health care and work to ensure that our teens are getting the information and services they need to stay safe and healthy.

"But we also know that Roe v. Wade is about more than a woman's right to choose; it's about equality. It's about whether our daughters are going to have the same opportunities as our sons. And so to truly honor that decision, we need to update the social contract so that women can free themselves, and their children, from violent relationships; so that a mom can stay home with a sick child without getting a pink slip; so that she can go to work knowing that there's affordable, quality childcare for her children; and so that the American dream is within reach for every family in this country. This anniversary reminds us that it's not enough to protect the gains of the past – we have to build a future that's filled with hope and possibility for all Americans." [emphasis added]

(Read more like-minded comments on the NARAL website's page for Obama.) Yes, "hope and possibility for all Americans," except for those who are unfortunate enough to experience the bloody "reproductive justice" supported by Sen. Obama. Hey, I'm not saying that he's pro-liar, just that he's a consistent and strong supporter of not telling the truth about his support of abortion when it doesn't suit him.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of vigorous debate going on at some Catholic blogs about whether or not Catholics should vote for Sen. Obama. Christopher Blosser summarizes some of the debate over at Catholics in the Public Square, which apparently began with reaction to Carolyn Kennedy's endorsement of Obama. Be sure to read it if you are interested in how people will twist themselves in pretzels trying to offer vague, pseudo-philosophical "arguments" about "the audacity of hope" (as one Obama supporter puts it) that the Senator from Illinois is offering America.

In related news, Ted Kennedy has now endorsed Obama for President, offering up a heaping serving of empty, polemical rhetoric:

"With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion.

"With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race, gender against gender, ethnic group against ethnic group, and straight against gay," Kennedy said.

..."I believe that a wave of change is moving across America," Kennedy said.

I believe the correct term is "wave of nausea," and I'm quite certain it has now reached me here in Oregon.

Comments

[Christopher]

"With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion."

Does that mean Obama will cease referring to the "potential life" of the unborn?

[Jackson]

They're all demagogues.

[Nick Milne]

I don't know what his "Freedom of Choice Act" entails, but I felt a sort of chill when I read the words.

[RJ]

Throughout my career, I've been a consistent and strong supporter of reproductive justice

Yep, this is what happens when we confuse first principles, or better yet the order of the Commandments. Put man before God and the whole order of reality is out of whack, and we are reduced to some confused utilitarian ethic. Obama reduces justice to a some right of power which over the unborn. Justice should be about rendering one his due, but since his view of reality is so skewed, it becomes a matter of might over right. Misreprensentation and distortion always follow sophistry.

[Steve]

Barack needs to drop the 'change Washington', 'setting a new tone', and being 'a change you can believe in', and read Saved in Hope, and stand for true human rights as established by protecting innocent human life in all of its stages from birth to natural death. What is so disgusting is that he actually seems to believe his own hype and faux-hope.

[Stephen Sparrow]

"I believe the correct term is "wave of nausea," and I'm quite certain it has now reached me here in Oregon."

That wave has travelled a lot further than Oregon Carl. Seems to me 90% of politicians the world over are clones of each other. Why do we put up with them?

[Ed Peters]

A Kennedy endorsement: The Kiss of Death.

[Alexis]

I hope Pope Benedict excommunicates Caroline and Teddy - although with Ted, that should have been done years ago.

[Patricia Gonzalez]

I'm so disappointed that Caroline Kennedy has endorsed Obama, and has actually said that he's like JFK. I respectfully disagree -- there's just something "off" about this man, just as there is about all of them. Ms. Kennedy may mean well, but being human, she makes mistakes like the rest of us. I don't vote, being a Canadian, but IMO there's been nothing new on the US political scene since JFK and RFK. Alexis, you're conspicuously lacking in charity toward a woman who has up till now made very few, if any, public pronouncements on any political issue that I can remember. She's just been raising her kids and living her life. It really pains me to see so-called "Christian" and "Catholic" bloggers acting as mind-readers, judging this family so harshly. Sure, they've sinned -- we all have -- so let's pray for all of us sinners, and exercise some good will and charity in our comments. Nobody is perfect, but even a broken watch is right twice a day.

[Patricia Gonzalez]

BTW, I think Pope Benedict is the most competent judge as to whether anyone should be excommunicated -- and no, I don't like Ted Kennedy either. I've always had the impression he's riding on his brothers' coat-tails politically -- and none too skilfully, at that.

[cranky]

I disagree with Teddy constantly, but that doesn't subtract from my admiring his considerable political skills. Would that he put them in the service of what the church teaches.

[Ed Peters]

Excommunicate Caroline, for what?
For that matter, Teddy, for what?

[Christopher]

I don't know what his "Freedom of Choice Act" entails, but I felt a sort of chill when I read the words.

Catholics in the Public Square January 29, 2008.

[Christopher]

Sorry, see:

http://thepublicsquare.blogspot.com/2008/01/freedom-of-choice-act-foca.html

[Brian Schuettler]

Perhaps Mr. Obama should read this book and then reconsider his remarks and his position on the murder of all unborn children, especially those of color:

The following paragraphs are from Blessed are the Barren: The Social Policy of Planned Parenthood, by Robert Marshall and Charles Donovan, (Ignatius, San Francisco, 1991, pp. 1-2):

At a March 1925 international birth control gathering held in New York City, a speaker warned of the menace posed by the “black” and “yellow” peril. The man was not a National Socialist (Nazi) or a leader of the Ku Klux Klan. The speaker was Dr. S. Adolphus Knopf, a member of Margaret Sanger’s American Birth Control League (ABCL), which along with other groups eventually became known as Planned Parenthood. Another doctor at this conference lamented that preventive medicine was saving the lives of “worthless unfits,” and he seriously suggested that euthanasia be used to “dispose of some of our utterly hopeless dependents,” but noted that this could not happen until the public changed its “prejudices” on the subject… Elsewhere Sanger spoke of her plan for sterilizing those she designated as “unfit” as the “salvation of American civilization”. And she also spoke of those who were irresponsible and reckless’’, among whom she included those “whose religious scruples prevent their exercising control over their numbers”. She further contended that “there is no doubt in the minds of all thinking people that the procreation of this group should be stopped”. Whether this was to be accomplished “voluntarily” does not appear to have been a serious policy impediment.That many Americans of African origin constituted a segment the Sangerites considered as “unfit” can be denied only with great difficulty and in the face of policies that affirm this assumption. At one point Sanger expressed a fear that Negroes might think birth control a clever extermination project, but that selected black ministers could dispose of that idea. (It might be very timely to insert "black politicians" immediately after black ministers in this sentence.)

Sanger’s other colleagues included avowed and sophisticated racists. One, Lothrop Stoddard, was a Harvard graduate and the author of The Rising Tide of Color against White Supremacy. Stoddard was something of a Nazi enthusiast who described the eugenic practices of the Third Reich as “scientific” and “humanitarian”. And Dr. Harry Laughlin, another Sanger associate and board member of her group, described Slavic and Italian immigrants as “even inferior to our native Negro population not long released from slavery”. Laughlin also spoke of purifying America’s human “breeding stock” and purging America’s “bad strains”. These “strains” included the “shiftless, ignorant, and worthless class of antisocial whites of the South”.

Laughlin apparently was the inspiration for the Nazi compulsory sterilization law passed in 1933. Under its provisions, nearly two million people were forcibly sterilized from 1933 to 1945. (ibid, p. 135)

As someone pointed out recently, the most life threatening time in the life of an African American is most likely the nine months is his mother's womb.

[Mary]

Let's hear it for equality.

Men who have sexual intercourse without contraception, or whose contraception fails, are on the hook for paternity.

Therefore, women who have sexual intercourse without contraception, or whose contraception fails, are on the hook for maternity.