Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Obama and the Reduction of Abortion in America

Doug Kmiec, professor and chair of constitutional law at Pepperdine, is pro-life scholar and former Romney advisor who now supports Barrack Obama. He recently wrote about Obama's meeting with religious leaders, where abortion was discussed at length. One of Kmiec's points is that Obama earnestly desires to reduce abortion.

Richard Garnett, associate professor of law at Notre Dame, responds:
Obama's "full-throated, unqualified support for abortion rights, do not seem to provide a basis for concluding that, in fact, he would be willing to do anything to "discourage" abortion, other than to support social-welfare initiatives which he would support in any event. . . . [T]hese programs and efforts will come packaged with a roll-back of the few pro-life legislative and executive-branch victories that have been secured during the past decade or so.

. . . [E]ven if it is true — of course it is true — that overturning Roe would not end abortion, and that there are ways to reduce the number of abortions that do not involve overturning Roe — and even if we accept, as I do, that many reasonable, faithful Christians will conclude, given the givens, that their best option is to vote for Obama, the fact is that President Obama will sign legislation and issue executive orders that remove currently existing regulations, that undermine conscience-protections and religious-freedom protections for hospitals and health-care professionals who do not wish to participate in abortion, and that use public funds to pay for abortions and embryo-destroying research.
Ramesh Ponnuru asks:
The next time Obama does an outreach event with conservative or moderate evangelicals or Catholics, I hope someone will ask him how his support for taxpayer-funded abortion squares with his earnest desire to reduce the incidence of the procedure. (Obama is a co-sponsor of the "Freedom of Choice Act.") And do these folks that Mr. Thoughtful's campaign can't even bring itself to call them "pro-life," instead using the term "anti-choice"?