To do justice to all the errors committed yesterday by pro-abortion vice presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden on the question of the Catholic Church's historic posture on abortion would require more expertise than I have and more time than all but a handful of readers possess. But you need only a passing acquaintance with what the Catholic Church has said, science, and public policy to rebut some of the numerous gaffes Biden made on Meet the Press.

Some background: A couple of weeks ago Moderator Tom Brokaw asked pro-abortion Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, as a Catholic, to give nominee Barack Obama some help in the question Obama had been asked by Rick Warren at the Saddleback Forum. (See "Pelosi's Disastrous appearance on Meet the Press"-- http://nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Aug08/nv082508Part2.html).

As he did then, Brokaw misstated to Biden the question Warren asked Obama and pro-life Sen. John McCain. Warren did not inquire when did life begin but rather "at what point does a baby get human rights?"

The latter is not a matter of theology (or science) but of public policy. For Obama to say this is "above his pay grade" was not only flippant but an evasion. But, anyway…

Biden said, "I know when it [life] begins for me. It's a personal and private issue," and that "I'm prepared as a matter of matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception." But abortion--casting unborn children outside the protection of the law-- is neither personal nor private because it takes the life of another human being. Abortion is a transcendent issue of public policy, not individual choice.

Biden (described by Brokaw as "a lifetime communicant in the Catholic Church") was desperate to make the whole question one of religious "doctrine." But when life begins isn't a "doctrine" of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church simply recognizes the scientific truth that human life begins at conception, a biological truism established in 1827.

Biden, like Pelosi, sought refuge in a fall-back position--an imaginary disagreement within the Catholic Church. It is true that there were different views about ensoulment (because of mistaken beliefs about embryogenesis), but the teaching of the Catholic Church was constant in condemning abortion at any stage.

As Pope John Paul wrote in his heralded The Gospel of Life,

"Throughout Christianity's two thousand year history, this same doctrine has been constantly taught by the Fathers of the Church and by her Pastors and Doctors. Even scientific and philosophical discussions about the precise moment of the infusion of the spiritual soul have never given rise to any hesitation about the moral condemnation of abortion. (no. 61)."

Just one other of many points that could be made. When all else fails, pro-abortionists insist that to extend legal protection to the unborn is to "impose" on the public a private "religious" judgment which (as Biden  said yesterday) "seems to me is inappropriate in a pluralistic society." This is mistaken on multiple levels.

Suffice it to say two things. One, opposition to abortion is not limited to the teaching of the Catholic Church, or any other church. It is part of parcel of America's founding principles.

Two, pluralism does not mean we don't engage our differences. If you say to me it's your belief that it's perfectly okay to treat women as third-class citizens (or worse), I am going to vigorously disagree and explain why.

I must say that I never thought that down-the-line pro-abortionists like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden would involuntarily enlist on the side of life. But that's what happens when you distort and misrepresent the Catholic Church's historic opposition to abortion.

Please send me your comments at daveandrusko@hotmail.com.