Abortion Dogma at Notre Dame

The establishment media are on their knees in praise and worship of President Obama for “hitting head on” the controversy over Notre Dame, a Catholic University,  inviting him to speak at commencement, even though his position on abortion conflicts with church doctrine. 

But in reality, he went through his entire speech without a single word of justification for the barbaric killing of millions of human fetuses every year in America.

What he did do is attempt to gloss over an emerging pattern of government retaliation against Americans who disagree with the President’s dogmatic political positions.

In his warm-up paragraphs the President cited “challenges before us” the graduates will have to face, and then concluded:

And we must find a way to reconcile our ever-shrinking world with its ever-growing diversity — diversity of thought, diversity of culture, and diversity of belief…We too often seek advantage over others. We cling to outworn prejudice and fear those who are unfamiliar.

After referring to a couple of other cultural conflicts he said:

The question then is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort?

Concerning the abortion issue, there are two, unambiguous, directly opposing sides:

The two sides are:

1. Abortion should be legal.  And Barack Obama sits at the most extreme end of this side, advocating  abortion on demand, at any time, up to the last hour of gestation, for any reason or no reason.  Obama believes a pre-born baby does not have a right to life, not even in the final minutes before her birth.

2. Abortion should be illegal, because a fetus is a human being with an unalienable right to life.

The obvious questions Obama’s speech raised immediately were:

• How does he propose to overcome his side’s openly expressed prejudice and fear, and contempt of those who oppose abortion?
• How does he propose to “work through” this conflict of fundamental values?
• How can two such opposite positions “join hands in a common effort?”

He offered no answers.

Obama continued…

As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us remain firm in our principles, and fight for what we consider right, without, as Father John said, demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side?

The commencement format didn’t allow for a second speaker to remind the audience of this President’s ruthless reprisal against physicians and nurses who dared to disagree with him and, using his words, “remain firm to [their] principles.”

In February, President Obama issued an executive order resending a rule that prohibited hospitals receiving federal funds from taking adverse personnel action against physicians or nurses who, based on conscience or religious conviction, refused to perform or assist with abortions.  Under Obama’s new rule those physicians and nurses will be now be subject to punishment, including reduction in pay or termination.

Since virtually all hospitals receive some federal funds there will be no escape from government retaliation against a Medical professional whose conscience  won’t allow her to accept the President’s abortion dogma.

This was not Obama’s first act in service of the pro-abortion agenda:

• As an Illinois State Senator Obama voted “present” (equivalent to a “no” vote) on a bill that would have required abortion providers to attempt to save the life of a baby that survived a botched abortion.
• On his third day as President, Obama issued an executive order to provide American taxpayer funds to help various non-governmental agencies promote and conduct abortions in foreign countries.
  

Obama’s Notre Dame speech continued:

That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this heart-wrenching decision for any woman is not made casually, it has both moral and spiritual dimensions.”

If he agrees that there are  both moral and spiritual dimensions, then why does he march in lock-step with the abortion industry and it’s government allies who scorn those dimensions?  And why does he require every physician to discard beliefs based on moral and spiritual dimensions, or face retribution?

So let us work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions, let’s reduce unintended pregnancies. Let’s make adoption more available. Let’s provide care and support for women who do carry their children to term.

Obama knows almost nobody (except abortion providers) would be disappointed if there were fewer unwanted pregnancies, and more adoptions and care for mothers. So he offered these platitudes, apparently expecting the pro-life side to be duped into believing they had won some sort of concession or compromise.   As he often does, President Obama again demonstrated arrogant contempt for the intelligence and character of the millions who don’t buy his ideology.

We’ll see this pattern of transparent contempt, offers of mock-compromise, and retaliation repeated often as resistance ramps up to Obama’s plans for government run health care, and forced reductions in energy consumption.

Barack Obama is a Chicago trained pol who doesn’t hesitate to use the full weight of government power to crush dissenters, even as he speaks in mellow tones of diversity of opinion and common ground.