Greg Sisk, over at the (always superb) MIrror of Justice blog, has three excellent essays on Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama’s participation in the Compassion Forum hosted by Messiah College in Pennsylvania. The discussions have very much centered on the role of religion and faith in the public square; quite apposite considering some of the Holy Father’s recent comments about the role of faith in the United States.
Sisk’s most recent essay analyzes the responses of both senators to the topic of abortion, whether life begins at conception, and the relevance of this issue to the current political climate. The relevance for Catholics is obvious: Sisk quotes Archbishop Chaput saying, “abortion is the central social issue of this moment in our national history—not the only issue, but the foundational issue; the pivotal issue.”
Such is the reason that Catholics, despite so many reservations, have often found themselves voting for Republican candidates in recent elections (most notably the executive branch). Nonetheless, some recently have commented that, much like in present Europe, politics and elections today in the U.S. are living more and more post-Roe v. Wade. In other words, it’s a dead issue, not seriously important to the actual debates anymore. (See also, among others, Ross Douthat on the contrary. And see, among others, Daniel McCarthy for the conservative argument that the GOP really isn’t interested in ending abortion, and that McCain won’t do much to change this.)
This forum in Pennsylvania demonstrates how relevant it still is. And for those of us who can’t shake our political crush on Sen. Obama, such commentary is a needed wake-up call, to look at the Machiavel man behind the mask:
Senator Obama’s answer to the question of when life begins was not much better, and indeed seemed feckless to me given the gravity of the matter. Affecting humility on the moral dilemma, he began by saying “[t]his is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it’s very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So I don’t presume to know the answer to that question.” Thus he wobbled from the question of “when life begins,” for which a simple biological answer exists, to the question of when that life is worthy of value, which apparently he suggested might be “when the soul stirs.” And when does the “soul stir” for Senator Obama, so that we may confidently give legal protection to that life? In the third-trimester? At birth? When the baby is able to smile? When the child’s first word is spoken?
Most importantly, if Obama truly does not know the answer to the question of when life begins, then shouldn’t he come down on the side of protecting that putative life until its absence is clearly established? Because the choice is literally life or death for an entity that may be a member of our human family, and given that Obama says he harbors uncertainty about the answer, why would he then favor allowing termination of what he admits could be a human person?
In any event, Obama immediately thereafter fumbled back to the same posture as Senator Clinton, when he too referred to the unborn as having “potential life.” Despite his professed irresolution, he apparently has answered the question of when life begins, and not in a way that values unborn life.
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