Jay Anderson has a post on what is, to me, a surprising development in the 2008 presidential race. Senator Sam Brownback, a darling among many conservative-minded Catholics, has thrown his support behind Republican candidate John McCain. Brownback stated:
“As Catholics, we are proud to announce our support for John McCain, a genuine American hero with a conservative record who has what it takes to lead this country,” Brownback said in a statement.
As Catholics?!? Perhaps I am ill-informed–and this occurs often–but McCain is a supporter of embryonic stem cell research. According to the Pew Forum, while McCain does not back stem cell research on cloned human embryos, he does support research on embryos from fertility clinics that are “left-over” and set to be destroyed. I presume that McCain’s rationale is that human life should not be brought forth deliberately for death through research, but that it is ethically licit to bring death through research to those embryos that will be killed anyway.
John McCain also advocates access to abortion in at least the case of rape. When asked how an alleged rape could be verified, he replied, “I think that I would give the benefit of the doubt to the person who alleges that.”
To me, it sounds like Brownback has taken two of those “non-negotiable” issues and made them negotiable, despite the fact that there are more consistently pro-life candidates among the Republicans. Life of the Party seems to be seeing the same thing. I may be wrong here, so please tell me your thoughts.
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