Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Obama, Catholics & Abortion

Syndicated columnist Cal Thomas has a great piece on Senator Barack Obama's clever ploy to appear open minded towards the pro-life movement while simultaneously occupying his radical pro-choice position.

Here are a couple of excerpts:

The Obama campaign has formed the "National Catholic Advisory Council," co-chaired by Democratic Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and former Democratic Congressman Tim Roemer of Indiana, both Roman Catholics. Casey's late father, Gov. Bob Casey, always claimed he was barred from speaking to the 1992 Democratic National Convention because of his strong pro-life views. Obama has said he wants to change his party's antipathy toward pro-lifers, though not its pro-choice position.

This is a crafty political move on Obama's part. It could not only strike at the heart of the Republican base, but it will reveal how seriously politicians are when they claim to favor legal protection for the unborn, but act as if they are pro-choicers. Obama has said that while he strongly favors "a woman's right to choose," he is open to hearing other opinions. That's nice, but hearing and acting are two different things. And why are two pro-life Catholics giving moral cover to Obama who, when he had the chance, did not even join with several of his Democratic Senate colleagues in voting to ban the horrid practice of partial-birth abortion, in which the brains of a fully developed baby are extracted as the child emerges from the womb?

How can a Catholic in good standing and good conscience endorse someone who violates a basic tenet of the Catholic Church? The lust for power and position, apparently, has become so strong that some people are willing to sell not only their own souls, but also the beating hearts and souls of unborn children to the highest political bidder.

Good questions. The old adage, "Politics makes strange bedfellows" certainly applies here.

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