 There have been and will for some time continue to be, here in Washington and all over the country, vastly different responses to the election of Barack Obama to the office of the President of the United States. For America, the celebration over the election of our first African-American executive marks a long awaited hour in our nation’s history. Apart from this, I wish I could join in because a person’s skin color is irrelevant to his or her ability to serve as our president. But with others I am experiencing something more akin to mourning than celebration. Obama made his way to the presidency in part by hewing closely to the agenda of our nation’s most extreme abortion advocates. Working closely with them, he refused to ban the killing of infants “born-alive” after “botched” abortions. He raised funds on promises to preserve the legality of partial-birth homicide, and he promised if elected to sign a law wiping out virtually every small constraint on abortion that the pro-life community has managed to pass democratically for the last 35 years. Already, he is promising to undo via quick executive orders all that prior presidents have done to protect human lives during their embryonic stage.
These contradictory responses to his election are well symbolized by
Obama supporters’ invocation of the spirit of Martin Luther King at the
Democratic National Convention in Denver at the same time that King’s
niece, Alveda King, was leading a pro-life demonstration in the same
city.
Obama’s administration seems prepared to strengthen the “culture of
death” mentality that has unfortunately won the support of so many in
our country, as abortion, euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide, human
embryonic stem cell research and other issues testify. In fact, on
Election Day, voters in the State of Washington, like the citizens of
Oregon, voted to legalize assisted suicide. Obama’s administration—and
the Democratic majority in Congress--will also in my opinion further
erode respect for marriage, understood as the life-long union of a man
and a woman, giving equal moral status and legal recognition to
“domestic partnerships” and the “civil unions” or “marriages” of
persons of the same sex. I think it is also likely that programs
advocating abstinence as the proper and best way to cope with teenage
pregnancy will not be supported by the incoming administration and
Congress.
Many recognize that the election signals a dramatic challenge to the
“culture of life” and a victory for the “culture of death”. Several
pro-life groups have already voiced their concern, for example, the
Family Research Council, Americans United for Life, the National Right
to Life Committee, and similar organization.
In addition, the most recent issue (8 Nov. 2008) of BioEdge , an
important international bioethics newsletter published in Australia,
had this to say: “The electoral tidal wave which swept Democrat Barack
Obama into the White House and Democrat majorities into the Senate and
the House of Representatives could reshape the bioethical landscape in
the United States. The most obvious issue is abortion. Mr Obama is a
strong supporter of a woman's right to abortion….In 2007, as both sides
of the abortion divide remember well, Obama promised Planned Parenthood
that ‘the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice
Act' (FOCA). This act has been kicking around Congress since 2004, but
Obama became a co-sponsor of the Senate version in 2007. The purpose of
FOCA is to codify Roe v. Wade, invalidating every restriction on
abortion at least up to the stage of viability.” BioEdge noted other
areas where adversaries of the “culture of life” can anticipate strong
support from Obama and a Congress controlled by Democrats: legalizing
euthanasia and assisted suicide, government funding of embryonic stem
cell research, genetic and eugenic engineering (for the full report see
http://www.bioedge.org /). And Arthur Caplan, a highly influential
secular bioethicist at the University of Minnesota, noted in an
interview on MSNBC that opponents of Roe bv.Wade, human embryonic stem
cell research, euthanasia/assisted suicide and similar issues were
soundly defeated in the recent election (see
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27577306/ ). Noting that “the 2008 election
will be remembered not only for Obama becoming the first
African-American president, but also for its impact on core bioethical
topics that have long dominated American domestic politics,” Caplan
expressed confidence that battles over such issues as abortion and
human embryonic stem cell research were coming to and end (with
advocates for both on the winning side) and that the future would usher
in new victories for euthanasia/assisted suicide and similar issues.
There is much that all of us who seek to make our society one in which
the culture of life can flourish can do. It seems to me that major
secular media, along with some widely influential academics and a
sizable contingent of those responsible for prime-time t.v. sitcoms and
highly ballyhooed cinemas have done much to make elements of the
culture of death seem attractive. But the truth is on our side, and I
am convinced that many superb arguments have been developed by some of
the best contemporary minds to show why such deeds and practices as
abortion, euthanasia, the new “reproductive technologies,” and similar
components of the culture of death are bad for both individuals and the
common good. But these arguments are frequently not well understood,
and many very good people in our society have been misled by clever
propaganda, half truths, cleverly devised opinion polls, etc.to such an
extent that people find it difficult to keep their minds receptive to
the crucial questions of human existence at the heart of the debate
over a culture of life vs. a culture of death. The “meanings” of human
existence mediated to many by the media and other channels of
information today are unfortunately not true. I call all this a
“disabling factor” preventing people from hearing the truth. We need,
with the help of God’s grace, to become “enabling factors” helping
people to hear the truth by developing new kinds of arguments to unmask
false meanings and mediate true ones.
For instance today there is a lot of talk about human “rights.” We talk
about the unborn child’s “right” to life, while abortion advocates
stress the woman’s “right” to control her reproductive life. It seems
to me that all this talk about “rights” ignores the distinction between
a “liberty” or “liberty” right and a “right” in the strict sense. John
Finnis provides a superb discussion of this difference in his chapter
on rights in his great book Natural Law and Natural Rights. I urge all
of us to read this chapter. I intend to make good use of it in some
articles on euthanasia or abortion in the future.
***
Copyright 2008 Culture of Life Foundation. Further publication granted, atribution required.
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