April 21, 2010

By Dave Andrusko

Part Two today talks about "A tough week for pro-choicers." There are three posts at our new pro-life blog "National Right to Life News Today" found at www.nationalrighttolifenews.org. Please send your thoughts and comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. met today with Ranking Republican Member of the Judiciary Committee Senator Jeff Sessions (left) and Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, to discuss Obama's next Supreme Court nominee. Senators Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell (not shown) also attended.

Okay, so pro-abortion President Barack Obama is having one of those pro-forma meetings today that includes top Republicans to talk about "the process" for nominating the man or woman to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. President Obama allows one question at the photo op--would he nominate anyone who "does not support a woman's right to choose." The following is his response, followed by a couple of my comments.

"You know, I am somebody who believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction. Obviously this has been a hugely contentious issue in our country for a very long time. I will say the same thing that every president has said since this issue came up, which is I don't have litmus tests around any of these issues. But I will say that I want somebody who is willing to be interpreting our Constitution in a way that takes into account individual rights, and that includes women's rights. And that's going to be something that's very important to me, because I think part of what our core constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity, and women are not exempt from that."

(BTW: The headline to most stories is something along the lines of "no litmus test.")

• You have to listen to get a feel for the caliber of his answer. As is almost always the case when Obama is not reading off of a teleprompter, his response is a puddle of hemming and hawing and pauses in search of a coherent idea. (He really is remarkably, painfully inarticulate.) It's almost as if he was surprised that reporters would ask a President wedded to the Abortion Establishment whether he would ever consider someone from outside the "family."

• If there is a difference between not having a "litmus test" and setting specific demarcations within which prospective nominees must adhere in order to be nominated, it escapes me.

• Within the abortion context, the issue is not whether Obama "believes that women should have the ability to make often very difficult decisions about their own bodies and issues of reproduction" or whether he believes "part of what our core constitutional values promote is the notion that individuals are protected in their privacy and their bodily integrity, and women are not exempt from that." This is standard pro-abortion cant, a litany of buzzwords that are almost embarrassingly substance-free. It's whether Obama is more like Diogenes in search of a honest man (or woman) for the highest Court, or the ideologue who is looking for others equally frozen in time, unable to grasp that Roe v. Wade was a reflection of blind ideology rather than a disinterested interpretation of the Constitution and a fair weighing of the facts before the justices.

• Finally there are, indeed, "core constitutional values." But those do not include an unchecked right of the judiciary to squelch the democratically-informed conversation started by the states--or an absolutely unbridled right to tear and unborn children limb from limb.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com and read our new pro-life blog "National Right to Life News Today" found at www.nationalrighttolifenews.org.

Part Two