In his recent commencement speech at Notre Dame, Barack Obama tells a story about communicating with a pro-life doctor about the matter of abortion. Then Obama goes on to say:
That's when we begin to say, "Maybe we won't agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions.
So let's work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let's honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women."
Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.
Does – or should – Obama’s effort to deflect the views of pro-lifers succeed? Perhaps applying his rhetoric to a somewhat parallel matter can help us decide. What would you think if Obama read from his teleprompter something like the following:
Maybe we won’t agree on the matter of rape, but we can still agree that the decision to rape is a heart-wrenching decision for any man to make. It is a decision with both moral and spiritual dimensions.
So let us work together to reduce the number of men who seek sexual satisfaction in rape by reducing the number of situations in which rape-prone males come into contact with women. Let us work to provide other avenues of sexual satisfaction to rape-prone men. Let us honor the conscience of those who disagree with rape, and make sure that our policies respect the equality of men who develop the need to rape women.
Understand – I do not suggest that the debate surrounding rape can or should go away. The views of most Americans on this subject are complex and even contradictory. But the fact is that, at some level, the views of the two camps on rape are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
When it comes to the matter of rape, we all need to have open hearts, open minds, and fair-minded words.
How would this speech be received across America? Some would say it is not a fair parallel. While it is not an exact parallel, it is still a revealing parallel. And, of course, all such evaluations turn on whether or not there are one or two persons affected by abortion. Obama and other abortion advocates seem to assume that the mother is the only person involved.
But why could we not likewise assume that only one person is involved in rape? The usual assumption is that the unborn are not persons because they lack certain abilities. We could make the same assumption about women: since they lack the strength of men, they are not persons, at least not in rape situations.
If you find this kind of glib, analytical talk about rape shocking, then good for you! Because there are some important parallels with the matter of rape, Obama’s talk about abortion should be equally repulsive. It is, of course, repulsive, but not enough people have the moral sensitivity to recognize that fact.
Rape is not the sort of thing that we should not even attempt to be open-minded or open-hearted about, because it involves the violation of an innocent person. Neither should we be open-minded about abortion, because it also involves an innocent victim. This statement is not unfair; it is true. There simply is nothing more accurate to call evil than ‘evil’ – even when it is abortion, as expressed in the policies of Barack Obama.
Obama is very wrong at so many points, but one in particular: the debate about abortion would wither if most people were willing to recognize that a baby is just as much a human person three weeks before birth as three weeks after birth. Only an ideology willing to tolerate death for the sake of convenience would fail to see that. That is not a caricature; that is a carefully studied conclusion.
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