Apr 29 2009

A courageous, principled Christian does the right thing

Category: abortion,higher education,Obama — harmonicminer @ 9:00 am

Mary Ann Glendon: An Open Letter to Fr. Jenkins, President of Notre Dame, re: Obama receiving honorary degree

April 27, 2009
The Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
University of Notre Dame

Dear Father Jenkins,

When you informed me in December 2008 that I had been selected to receive Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, I was profoundly moved. I treasure the memory of receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1996, and I have always felt honored that the commencement speech I gave that year was included in the anthology of Notre Dame’s most memorable commencement speeches. So I immediately began working on an acceptance speech that I hoped would be worthy of the occasion, of the honor of the medal, and of your students and faculty.

Last month, when you called to tell me that the commencement speech was to be given by President Obama, I mentioned to you that I would have to rewrite my speech. Over the ensuing weeks, the task that once seemed so delightful has been complicated by a number of factors.

First, as a longtime consultant to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, I could not help but be dismayed by the news that Notre Dame also planned to award the president an honorary degree. This, as you must know, was in disregard of the U.S. bishops’ express request of 2004 that Catholic institutions “should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles” and that such persons “should not be given awards, honors or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.” That request, which in no way seeks to control or interfere with an institution’s freedom to invite and engage in serious debate with whomever it wishes, seems to me so reasonable that I am at a loss to understand why a Catholic university should disrespect it.

Then I learned that “talking points” issued by Notre Dame in response to widespread criticism of its decision included two statements implying that my acceptance speech would somehow balance the event:

• “President Obama won’t be doing all the talking. Mary Ann Glendon, the former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, will be speaking as the recipient of the Laetare Medal.”

• “We think having the president come to Notre Dame, see our graduates, meet our leaders, and hear a talk from Mary Ann Glendon is a good thing for the president and for the causes we care about.”

A commencement, however, is supposed to be a joyous day for the graduates and their families. It is not the right place, nor is a brief acceptance speech the right vehicle, for engagement with the very serious problems raised by Notre Dame’s decision-in disregard of the settled position of the U.S. bishops-to honor a prominent and uncompromising opponent of the Church’s position on issues involving fundamental principles of justice.

Finally, with recent news reports that other Catholic schools are similarly choosing to disregard the bishops’ guidelines, I am concerned that Notre Dame’s example could have an unfortunate ripple effect.

It is with great sadness, therefore, that I have concluded that I cannot accept the Laetare Medal or participate in the May 17 graduation ceremony.

In order to avoid the inevitable speculation about the reasons for my decision, I will release this letter to the press, but I do not plan to make any further comment on the matter at this time.

Yours Very Truly,

Mary Ann Glendon

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Apr 25 2009

Janet Napolitano says, “I’m sorry”.

Category: abortion,illegal alien,states rights — amuzikman @ 9:34 am

I see where Janet Napolitano has finally apologized to veterans for the outrageous “right-wing extremist” report issued by her agency. Apparently she claimed the report was issued “prematurely”. So, I guess that means they meant to say the same thing, only a little later.  Some apology.  It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.

So that’s one apology to a group from the American Legion.  If I were king for a day I’d give her a printout containing the home addresses of every veteran who has returned from Iraq or Afghanistan.  Then I’d give her a Greyhound Bus schedule and tell her not to return to Washington until she had personally visited and apologized to each and every one.  But that’s just me….

Anyone want to wager who’ll be the recipient of the next apology?  There are so many from which to choose.  Perhaps the next group will be all those who hold life to be sacred.  Then she could proceed to apologize to all those who believe in the rule of law, especially laws that protect our nations borders.  Finally she could wrap it up with a sincere “I’m sorry” to everyone who thinks the 10th amendment to the Constitution is actually valid.

Now I realize that’s a lot of apologies and she may be a little overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task.  But she can always go to her boss for advice on how best to proceed.  He’s really excellent at the art of apology, just look at how well he did on his recent international trip.  Obama apologized to anyone who would listen for what an “arrogant” nation we have been – especially to all those poor little totalitarian regimes out there.

Yes, I’m confident Janet Napolitano will be able to successfully complete her apology tour with help from “The Messiah”.  And we can all rest easy knowing our president has placed someone of impeccable competence and character at the helm of the federal agency charged with the protection of our country from terrorist actions.

On second thought maybe she should apologize to every citizen of this nation.  Then she should resign in disgrace. (Don’t hold your breath!)

Apr 25 2009

Welfare spending doesn’t reduce abortion

Category: abortion,Obama,religion,Uncategorized — harmonicminer @ 8:59 am

WAY too many Christians voted for Obama, believing or pretending to believe that his social policies would “reduce abortion,” even though he has supported the most radical pro-abortion policies possible.  These Christians seem to have fallen for the canard that a more fully funded “social safety net” would reduce the felt need for abortion, and that such policies would be more effective in reducing abortion than straightforward legal restrictions and limitations.   Some of these Christian groups have touted studies that do not, in fact, demonstrate the relationships they claim between social spending and reduced abortion.  Here is a takedown of “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good”:

An August 2008 study released by the group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good had Obama supporters (and some editorial boards) swooning. Analyzing state level abortion data from 1982 to 2000, it purportedly found evidence that increased spending on various welfare programs resulted in substantial reductions in state abortion rates. The spin given to the results was that many pro-life laws, such as those requiring parental notification for abortions performed on minor girls, had little effect. So the paradoxical message to pro-life voters was that they could best advance their interests by electing pro-choice Democrats instead of pro-life Republicans.

Not surprisingly, this study had a substantial impact on the debate over sanctity of life issues during the 2008 Presidential election. Self proclaimed pro-lifers who support Democratic Presidential nominees can be found in every election cycle. However, this study gave Doug Kmiec, Nicholas Cafardi, and others intellectual legitimacy in arguing that pro-life voters should vote for liberals, even if they favor abortion-on-demand and its public funding, in order to advance the pro-life cause. At last, there was a methodologically sophisticated study which allegedly demonstrated that the welfare policies favored by Democrats were more effective in preventing abortion than the pro-life laws supported by Republicans. It seemed too good to be true.

It was. In November, with no public announcement, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good removed this study from their website. A replacement version was uploaded shortly thereafter. The replacement version differs from its predecessor in a number of interesting ways. First and foremost, one of the authors of the August study, Professor Michael Bailey of Georgetown University, removed his name from the November version. Joseph Wright, a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame, is the sole author of the current study.

More importantly, the results of the new version fall well short of the original press release. The original study argued that three welfare policies had significant effects on state abortion rates. First, family caps, which deny welfare recipients extra benefits if they have additional children out of wedlock, increased abortion rates. Second, increased spending on the Women Infants Children (WIC) program reduced abortion rates. Third, increased spending on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) also reduced abortion rates.

However, after the original study was released, the authors discovered that they used incorrect abortion data for the years following 1997. Furthermore, after some dialogue with me, the authors decided that it would be appropriate to eliminate data from states, such as Kansas, where abortion reporting was inconsistent over time. These changes have had a substantial effect on the study’s findings.

The new version provides evidence that welfare policy has no more than a marginal effect on the incidence of abortion. In fact, the new regression results indicate that none of the three welfare policies which the authors previously argued were effective tools for reducing the incidence of abortion have a substantial abortion reducing effect. Wright clearly states that “WIC payments are not correlated with the abortion rate in the 1990s.” Additionally, the regression results consistently indicate that the presence of family caps has only a marginal effect on state abortion rates. Furthermore, while Wright argues that increased AFDC/TANF spending reduces state abortion rates, his regression results raise serious doubts about the reliability of this finding.

Wright runs a series of regressions using only data from the 1990s which shows that increases in AFDC/TANF spending is correlated with statistically significant abortion declines. However, regressions run on data from 1982 to 2000 find that AFDC/TANF spending only has a marginal impact on the incidence of abortion. Furthermore, when Wright runs regressions on data from the 1980s, he finds that AFDC spending actually increases the incidence of abortion and the coefficient approaches conventional levels of statistical significance.

For social science findings to be reliable, the results should be fairly consistent across time. These findings certainly are not. Furthermore, Wright makes no effort to explain why welfare spending has such disparate effects on abortion rates during different time periods.

Furthermore, many of the flaws in the previous study’s analysis of pro-life legislation are still prevalent in the current version. Wright states that parental involvement laws, like the other state laws restricting abortion, have little impact on overall abortion rates. However, since parental involvement laws only directly affect minors, Wright should have mentioned that analyzing their effects on the overall abortion rate is not a methodologically sound way to gauge their actual impact.

Similarly, Wright continues to argue that informed consent laws are ineffective. However, he fails to acknowledge the substantial differences in the effects of nullified and enacted informed consent laws. In truth, by the criteria he sets forth on page 6, his results provide evidence that informed consent laws are effective. However, he makes no mention of this in the paper.

Unfortunately, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good continues to miss the boat and mislead the public. There exist plenty of peer reviewed studies which find that public funding restrictions and parental involvement laws reduce the incidence of abortion. However, instead of acknowledging the positive impact of pro-life legislation and constructively working with pro-lifers to promote social policies that will further reduce abortion rates, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good seems primarily interested in providing moral, political, and theological cover for supporters of Barack Obama and other Democrats who support “abortion rights.” Unfortunately, their latest study indicates that their original findings have been unable to withstand serious scrutiny.

Sadly, just weeks into his administration, President Obama has already demonstrated considerable disregard for the sanctity of human life. One of Barack Obama’s first acts as President was to revoke the Mexico City Policy. Now non-governmental organizations receiving funds from the U.S. Government can perform and promote abortions overseas. It is unfortunate that the faulty research of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good was used as political cover to help make such a thing possible. As the Obama administration continues its assault on laws and policies upholding the sanctity of human life, pro-lifers need to hold this organization morally accountable.

It’s worth mentioning here that “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good” is far out of the mainstream of Catholic opinion, and that many Catholic bishops have been lions in defense of the unborn. That makes it doubly sad that some Catholics, and other Christians, were led astray by falsehoods in the debate about abortion-on-demand, and so voted for Obama.  I wonder when, or if, we will start to hear expressions of remorse, as the disastrous effect of Obama’s decisions and policies leads directly to many more unjust deaths.

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Apr 16 2009

Hard questions about embryonic stem cell research

Category: abortion,science,theology — harmonicminer @ 9:48 am

12 tough questions from Doug Kmiec, with excellent answers from Robert George.

This is a follow up to an excellent interchange between the two that is covered here.

Some of this is definitely college level reading, and requires you to think about the questions and the answers.  But it is rewarding, and thoroughly worthy of your time and attention.

The short story:  the hard questions do have answers.  This material is what you need to read to know what you’re talking about in the embryonic stem cell debate.

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Apr 12 2009

Listening, in vain, for the sound of feminist protest at sex-selection abortion

Category: abortion — harmonicminer @ 9:11 am

China’s one child policy and abortion of females

The prevalence of sonograms in recent years has allowed parents to learn the gender of their fetus about 20 weeks into pregnancy, Hesketh said, leading to a rise in abortions based on sex. Abortion is legal and widely available.

China bans tests to determine the fetus’ gender for non-medical reasons but they are still commonly done, mainly by underground private clinics in the countryside.

Of course, the abortion “rights” activists in the USA cannot have a thing to say about people aborting girls because they want boys.  They have declared that abortion should be available for any reason, at any time in the pregnancy.  They have declared that the “mother’s” wishes trump all other considerations.

Can they now decry abortions for sex-selection?  China isn’t the only place where gendercide against females has been happening.  Others include India, Vietnam and the Phillipines.

Pro-Life Philippines – Sounds of Feminist Silence

…with gendercide, the feminists are truly caught in a dilemma which shows up their avoidance of this issue which threatens the survival of women. If they ignore the sex selection deaths of their sisters, then they have to take on board their support for the killing of their own gender, whose killing in any circumstance other than abortion they would widely protest. Yet, if they protest the killing of the unborn baby girls, they lose their case for a “woman’s right to choose” abortion for any reason. But the stark reality facing them is that the “woman’s right to choose” could potentially result in the death of most girls, in fact the deaths of feminists themselves. If feminists support a ban on sex selection abortion then they have already been ensnared onto the pro life side and it seems easier to accept discrimination against unborn girls that to accept that. The continuing feminists’ sounds of silence testify to a moral failure to even face the issue, much less comment on it. If women’s rights groups cannot express a wish for their own sisterhood to survive, then what is the point of their existence?

Indeed.

And the silence from pro-abortion groups is deafening

Sex-selection abortion has left mainstream abortion and feminists groups in a bind. The National Organization of Women and National Abortion Rights Action League have been quiet on the subject. Their Web sites yield no substantive discussion of the practice, which has resulted in millions of missing girls. Perhaps these organizations do not want to face the facts regarding abortion.

Pro-abortion groups are fond of saying that abortion is a woman’s choice. It is her electing to choose what to do with her body. How much of a choice is it really, when the women are under immense societal pressure to have a boy? How much of a choice is it for the millions of missing girls?

The popular feminist blog, Feministing.com, dealt with the issue of sex-selection abortion a month ago. Samhita Mukhopadhyay writes that the “Fertility Institutes is benefiting from sexism and hatred against the birth of baby girls in India and the Indian diaspora communities.” Ms. Mukhopadhyay does not appear to recognize the irony in her statement.

There is no one on the pro-life side who would disagree with her, yet groups such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood have yet to take up the cause.

For a very simple reason: to argue that there is anything wrong with sex-selection abortion is to acknowledge the intrinsic worth of the unborn child. The pro-aborts can’t do that, since it undercuts their entire position.

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Apr 08 2009

MD’s must kill babies or quit?

Category: abortion — harmonicminer @ 9:21 pm

Senate Rejects Amendment Protecting Abortion-Conscience Rights for Doctors

The Senate on Thursday night rejected an amendment from a pro-life senator that would have provided conscience protection on abortion for doctors and medical centers. The amendment comes at a time when President Barack Obama is considering overturning further protections.

Sen Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, sponsored an amendment to the Senate budget bill that would protect the right of conscience for health care workers.

His budget amendment was to “protect the freedom of conscience for patients and the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions.”

However, the Senate rejected the conscience amendment on a 56-41 vote with most of the chamber’s Democrats voting against it along with a handful of pro-abortion Republicans.

Three Democrats joined most of the Senate Republicans in voting for the Coburn amendment.

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Apr 04 2009

The courage of Richard John Neuhaus

Category: abortion,left,religion — harmonicminer @ 9:35 am

Robert P. George describes the commitment of one time “liberal” Richard John Nuehaus to the unborn, and what that stance cost him in the eyes of the world, in an article well worth reading in its entirety. Concluding paragraphs:

He Threw It All Away

For Neuhaus, the liberal movement had gone wrong not only on the sanctity of human life, but on the range of issues on which it had succumbed to the ideology of the post-1960s cultural left. While celebrating “personal liberation,” “diverse lifestyles,” “self-expression,” and “if it feels good, do it,” all in the name of respecting “the individual,” liberalism had gone hook, line, and sinker for a set of doctrines and social policies that would only increase the size and enhance the control of the state—mainly by enervating the only institutions available to provide counterweights to state power.

The post-1960s liberal establishment—from the New York Times to NBC, from Harvard to Stanford, from the American Bar Association to Americans for Democratic Action—having embraced the combination of statism and lifestyle individualism that defines what it means to be a “liberal” (or “progressive”) today, could not understand Richard Neuhaus or, in truth, abide him. Far from being lionized, he was loathed by them, albeit with a grudging respect for the intellectual gifts they once hoped he would place in the service of liberal causes. Those gifts were deployed relentlessly—and to powerful effect—against them and all their works and ways.

And so Fr. Richard John Neuhaus did not go through life, as it once seemed he would, collecting honorary degrees from the most prestigious universities, giving warmly received speeches before major professional associations and at international congresses of the great and the good, being a celebrated guest at social and political gatherings on the Upper West Side, or appearing on the Sunday network news shows as spiritual guarantor of the moral validity of liberalism’s favored policies and practices.

His profound commitment to the sanctity of human life in all stages and conditions placed him on a different path, one that led him out of the liberal fold and into intense opposition. As a kind of artifact of his youth, he remained to the end a registered member of the Democratic Party. But he stood defiantly against many of the doctrines and policies that came to define that Party in his lifetime. He was, in fact, their most forceful and effective critic—the scourge of the post-1960s liberals. He was not, as things turned out, their Niebuhr, but their nemesis.

May more of us have the same kind of courage, to take risks, to put our convictions ahead of our careers and public approval.

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Apr 01 2009

The Left At Christian Universities, part 10: Rewarding the indefensible

Category: abortion,higher education,Obama,university,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:42 am

The previous post in this series is here.

A Moral Exemplar?

The University of Notre Dame has announced that Pres. Barack Obama will be the principal speaker and will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree at the university’s commencement on Sunday, May 17. The invitation comes after the president has taken several official actions that directly oppose the Catholic Church’s most sacred teachings. National Review Online asked some of our experts on education and Catholicism for their comments.

At the link, an important discussion on what it can mean for Notre Dame to have invited President Obama to receive an honorary degree and deliver a commencement address, to students who will have been taught (we hope) that abortion is deeply immoral, and who will witness the honoring of a president who supports it.

What, exactly, would a president have to do to be found ineligible for such an honor by a putatively Christian institution?  Apparently, supporting abortion in the most radical way possible is not enough.

Perhaps if he actually ate the babies after the abortions?  An interesting question:  is cannibalism a greater sin than aiding, abetting and encouraging unjust killing in the first place?  I think not.  After all, they’re already dead, right?  It’s a shame to waste them.  (And besides, for the pro-abortion crowd, they never did have human rights anyway, did they?  I mean, being just lumps of tissue and everything.  How immoral can it be to eat something that has no civil rights, anyway?  Isn’t that the same as cattle ranching, or hunting and eating what you kill?)

So, I think we have conclusively demonstrated that even if Obama ate aborted babies, he would still get an honorary degree from Notre Dame, a Christian university, since abortion is a greater sin than cannibalism (if someone else did the killing), and promoting abortion did not disqualify him.

Ah, but if Obama was well known as an industrial polluter, shooter of wolves from helicopters, corporate raider/downsizer, Pentecostal snake handler, and believer in young-Earth Creationism, and had still managed to get elected, would Notre Dame have invited him to receive an honorary degree and address impressionable undergraduates ?

Probably not.  Some sins really do matter.

The next post in this series is here.

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Mar 31 2009

Pro-life democrat voters: read this

Category: abortion,Obama — harmonicminer @ 9:41 am

An Open Letter to President Obama’s Pro-Life Supporters

We share with you a commitment to the profound, inherent, and equal dignity of every member of the human family. It is for this reason that we oppose abortion, embryo-destructive research, euthanasia, and every other form of direct killing of innocent human beings. We believe that these practices are grave injustices that no society should promote, facilitate, or even permit.

Despite Barack Obama’s record of support for legal abortion and its public funding, and his pledge to lift President Bush’s limitations on the federal funding of embryo-destructive research, you felt that Obama would, all things considered, make a better president than John McCain, and you encouraged your fellow pro-life citizens to join you in voting for him. Some of you argued that Senator Obama, despite his vocal support for legal abortion and equally vocal opposition to pro-life legislative initiatives, was actually the superior candidate from the pro-life point of view. His economic and social policies, many of you said, would strike at the causes of abortion and reduce its incidence. You predicted that lives would be saved.
……

On March 9, however, the verdict came in on the issue of embryo-destructive research, and the news is very bad. It would have been bad enough had Obama done what McCain likely would have done, that is, incentivize embryo destruction by authorizing the federal funding of research that involves destroying so-called “spare” embryos left in assisted reproduction clinics. But Obama’s executive order goes farther. It instructs the Director of the National Institutes of Health to promote and fund all forms of embryonic stem cell research that are not banned by law. In other words, Obama has removed all impediments to the funding of research in which human beings are created (whether by cloning or other procedures) specifically for the purpose of being destroyed to produce stem cells. True, under the Dickey-Wicker amendment, the actual embryo killing must be done with private funds. But once the embryos are destroyed, federal taxpayer money will now freely flow to pay for research using cell lines derived from those embryos. President Obama has incentivized the creation of embryos in unlimited numbers for research in which they are killed. Moreover, he has revoked the 2007 executive order instructing the Director of the National Institutes of Health to promote and fund research aimed at developing non-embryo-destructive sources of pluripotent stem cells. This was a baldly ideological move that can have no point other than to appease the embryo-research lobby at the expense of lives and possibly scientific advancement.

…..

Recently Professor Douglas Kmiec told an interviewer that President Obama opposes human cloning. This is not true. By his own account, the President opposes only “reproductive cloning.” This misleading term is used to mask his support for the creation of human embryos by somatic cell nuclear transfer for purposes of research in which they are destroyed-what is no less misleadingly called “therapeutic cloning.” The truth is that under the Obama policy human cloning-somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) to create embryonic human beings-will be legally permitted and funded by the federal government. The restriction the President has supported is a ban on the implantation of cloned human embryos once the cloning has already occurred and the new human embryo has been created. It is, in effect, the mandatory destruction of embryonic humans. We respectfully ask Professor Kmiec to correct the record on this profoundly important issue.

Even if one supposes that Barack Obama’s policies will result in fewer abortions despite relaxed legal restrictions, the number of human lives saved-even on the most optimistic reading-will be offset by the lives taken as a result of what President Obama did. This misguided and profoundly unjust policy alone wipes out any case for regarding Barack Obama’s election as a boon to the cause of defending nascent human life. And if Senator Obama’s campaign promises to the abortion lobby are to be believed, this may be only the beginning.

We know how deeply disappointed truly pro-life Obama supporters must be by the radicalism of the President’s decision. Democrats for Life (DFL), to its credit, has forcefully condemned the decision, making no secret of feeling betrayed by a president that it had gone the extra mile to work with in an effort to find “common ground.” A few days after the decision was announced, prominent Obama supporter Dr. David Gushee, a distinguished Evangelical theologian, publicly rebuked the President for “a series of disappointingly typical Democratic abortion-related moves.” We hope that you, too, will speak out against what can only be described as a moral atrocity against the weakest and most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters. On this, pro-lifers like you who supported Obama can find common ground with pro-lifers like us who found his denial of the full and equal dignity of unborn members of the human family to be disqualifying. Let us speak out with one voice against this grave and shocking injustice.

Moral Accountability is a site you should check often. They are faithfully holding the feet of our confused brethren to the fire, and doing so more temperately than I could manage.

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Mar 29 2009

Pro-choice, or pro-abortion?

Category: abortion — harmonicminer @ 9:36 am

Most of us in the “pro-life” community do not mind the label “anti-abortion,” although in fact pro-life also means we are against euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the like.

On the other hand, lots of people who call themselves “pro-choice” are offended at being called “pro-abortion.”   This is illogical, of course: people who have no firearms, and no intention of ever buying one, are still called “pro-gun” if they simply believe that other people should have the right to keep and bear arms.  And political associations being what they are, a fair number of the very people who resent the term “pro-abortion” are likely to use the term “pro-gun” in exactly the same way.

There’s a reason for this, of course.  Even “pro-choice” people know there is something inherently wrong with abortion (for reasons other than saving the life of the mother), and so they don’t want to be thought “pro-abortion,” since that’s like being called “pro-evil-thing.”  I understand their reluctance.  If I was all for unfettered freedom on the part of some humans to take away the right of other humans to live, I’d want to hide it, too.

Nevertheless, pro-lifers, cheerfully anti-abortion, should deny the use of the term pro-choice as cover for people who want to deny the right to life.  It is simply a “term of art” created by clever public relations people, not a descriptive term of the actual position.  When someone tells me they are “pro-choice” I usually say, “You mean, pro-abortion?”  And the discussion that ensues allows me to make the obvious point above.

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