By Dave Andrusko
Earlier today NRL News Today discussed how the Democratic National Convention’s rabid embrace of abortion without question and at taxpayer expense was prying open the eyes of even those most determined not to see that for pro-abortion Democrats there can never be enough abortions or any reason to prevent one up till birth.
That did not mean they were in our corner, but suddenly it’s not as implausible to them as it used to be when they hear pro-lifers describe Obama as “the Abortion President”
Michael Sean Winters, who writes for the left-of-center National Catholic Reporter, penned a “My Take” for CNN headlined “Obama pledged to dial down the culture wars. What happened?” Winters takes plenty of shots at Republicans—nothing new there—but some of his observations about Obama’s “bait-and-switch” on abortion are very much worth pondering.
Examples of Obama “re-litigating the culture wars he promised to salve in 2008” (Winters says, that’s “one way to keep the Democrats from having to talk about the 8.3% unemployment rate”) include
· The battle over Obama’s mandate and the pinched definition of the conscience exemption. There was reason to believe that would be “fixed,” but it wasn’t. Why? “Women’s groups besieged the White House with complaints and the Obama campaign needed the fundraising support of pro-choice groups like Emily’s List.” This mandate, Winters argues, “was the straw that broke the Church camel’s back.”
· That battle is well known. Far less familiar were a series of other direct assaults on religious liberties (including “enter[ing] a Supreme Court brief arguing that churches had no special protection in the hiring and firing of their pastors, only to have the Supreme Court unanimously reject their view”) and denying a grant to the well-regarded bishops’ conference program to help the victims of human trafficking. According to Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), author of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was unlawfully disqualified “because they refuse to refer women and unborn children to abortionists.” Smith added. “The USCCB wasn’t chosen for its religion and should not be excluded for it either.”
Winters’s opinion piece predictably trails off from there. But the point remains.
Even those most in the tank for President Obama are grudgingly admitting (in Winters’ words) that “Abortion rights groups and the Obama campaign may have cut off their nose to spite their face by reigniting the culture wars.”
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