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A Hole in the Head "Holistic" Approach to
Abortion
Part Two of Two
Editor's note.
Please send your comments on either Part
One or Part Two to
daveandrusko@gmail.com.
By Dave Andrusko
I know, I know. This must seem like the 50th
post updating you on the latest story by a reporter carrying
water for President Barack [who-me-pro-abortion?] Obama. But
it's important to keep track of how Obama and his chums in the
media are trying to keep the wool firmly in place over the eyes
of ordinary Americans.
Let me offer you two very recent stories, one
that illustrates the continuing effort to keep people in the
dark, the other a more level-headed assessment of Obama's
dishonest (my description) strategy on abortion.
Lisa Miller's piece in Newsweek carries the
cutesy headline and subhead, "A Ceasefire in the Culture War: By
making 'abortion reduction' a priority, Obama courts his
frenemies." (Get it? Friends and enemies=frenemies.)
In a nutshell, Miller tells us that "old
warriors" in the "culture war industry" have a built-in
incentive not to allow our saintly president to forge "common
ground" on abortion. She offers the usual goofy dichotomous
prattle--"On the right, the old guard" and "On the left,
old-style women's groups"--to prove her point: President Obama
battles entrenched interests in his selfless pursuit of
reducing the number of abortions.
To be fair, after an unintentionally amusing
description of Obama's "holistic approach," Miller lists a
litany of initiatives that shows that there is no point of
contact between Obama's pledge to find common ground and his
actions as president. A little over two months into his
Administration, Obama has done everything that the Abortion Axis
could ever want.
Miller raises another red flag: "some
[religious?] centrists who initially supported Obama are
beginning to express anxiety that his outreach to them may have
been a vote-getting ploy." But not to worry.
The White House is "just getting started." A
"substantive initiative will come," agrees Rachel Laser, "who
works for the centrist group Third Way and is an advocate for
abortion reduction…"
But who is this?
Third
Way is "a liberal think tank… where veteran pro-abortion
activists develop 'messaging' strategies to help pro-abortion
politicians camouflage their positions," explains NRLC's Douglas
Johnson. "The third way 'Culture Program' (responsible for the
'abortion reduction' strategy, among other projects) is directed
by Rachel Laser, a veteran pro-abortion lobbyist, whose previous
job was with the Health and Reproductive Rights group at the
National Women's Law Center, and who before that worked for
Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, a major abortion
provider…"
Let me briefly discuss an op-ed that appeared in yesterday's
Washington Post written by Michael Gerson under the headline, "Why
Obama Is Losing a Faith." While wrong about the appropriateness
of the University of Notre Dame inviting President Obama to give
its commencement address and receive an honorary degree, Gerson
has everything else pretty much right.
He points out that the percentage of Americans who disapprove of
Obama's performance went up 9% from February to March. "And
among white, non-Hispanic Catholics, the figure doubled -- from
20 percent to 41 percent."
But Gerson's larger point is that if Obama follows through on
other promised (or "signaled") pro-abortion initiatives, it
"could open a major rift between the Catholic Church and the
Democratic Party." Those are (1) "overturn[ing] Bush's executive
order protecting health workers from firing and discrimination
if they refuse to perform actions they consider morally
objectionable" [it's actually a regulation, not an executive
order]; (2) the Hyde Amendment, which "could easily be reversed
by the pro-choice congressional majority"; and (3) making
abortion "a covered service" under health-care reform.
But, of course, this would not only be a blow to Catholics or
the leadership of the Catholic Church. Americans of all
religious persuasions (or none) oppose commandeering their tax
dollars for the abortion industry, leveling a stunning blow to
religious freedoms, and/or "making the destruction of life an
essential part of the medical and legal order while stigmatizing
and marginalizing all who object."
This is the
substance of things seen but not hoped for. This, not phony
baloney gestures at finding "common ground," is what Obama has
in mind for all of us.
Please go to
www.nrlc.org/ObamaAbortionAgenda/WhattoDo.html to find about
what you can do to help National Right to Life fight Obama's
Abortion Agenda, become a member of National Right to Life, or,
if you are a member already, find new people to join NRLC.
Part One |
