The Search for Common Ground on a Slippery Slope

by Gordon Cooper

From Broader View Weekly, June 5, 2009

In his commencement speech delivered to the graduates and families at Notre Dame University last month, President Obama admonished his listeners to strive for a better world and to use their acquired skills to seek “common ground” with those of differing views. That is commendable and I would have stood with those who applauded him for those words. But, as is the case in any political speech, it is necessary to dig a little deeper into the text of Mr. Obama’s treatise and compare his statements with the facts.

First of all, Obama started out with a charming dismissal of some protesters, establishing a moral high ground with a smile and an affirmation that he knew his views were not unanimously accepted. He then went on from there to use that same charm and smiling visage to try to disarm those who hold certain truths to be self-evident, by clouding the debate with double-speak and obfuscation.

Obviously, the protesters were not concerned with Obama’s failed economic policies or his fluctuating stance on the terrorists in Guantanamo; they were astonished by the fact that a man who clearly held some of the most radical views regarding the value of unborn human life, would be invited to speak at an institution that had supposedly held to the truth of each conception being precious in the eyes of God.

The national news media, as usual these days, failed to critically analyze the validity of Obama’s words or even to investigate the reasoning behind the protests.

Obama compared and contrasted the opposing views of various groups and ideologies with the obvious intention of illustrating that diverse opinions have always been a part of American life and will always be so. However truthful that may be, it is also true that our history shows there is an underlying set of truths that must be held tightly, no matter how shrill the opposition voices may become, or how high the cost.

On the issue of abortion, Obama claimed that certain common goals could unite the opposing sides. For example, he asserted we should all work together to reduce unintended pregnancies and to make adoption more available, and that support and care be given to those who choose to carry their children to term. Again, that is commendable speech, and I again concur. However, his words ring hollow and empty when compared with his actions.

While a senator in the Illinois Legislature, Mr. Obama repeatedly showed his contempt for unborn humans by supporting the radical practice of “partial birth abortion” which is, in essence, a most brutal form of infanticide. The baby’s birth is induced by the abortionist, who then performs a procedure so horrific that many of the most ardent abortion proponents have voted against its legality.

Obama has also opposed legislation that would have protected a child who had miraculously survived an attempted abortion.

The bottom line is that Obama has consistently sided with the extreme branch of the pro-death lobby. And he again showed his contempt for the unborn when he stated during his campaign that he would not want his daughters “punished with a child”.

He has voiced support for the Freedom of Choice Act, which is a bill co-sponsored by NY Representative, Jerrold Nadler and Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). This radical legislation, if passed, would create a Federal standard whereby individual states would be prohibited from enacting any limitations on abortion. No parental notification statutes, no waiting periods, no late-term restrictions, no choice to deny abortions by those who hold religious objections such as Christian doctors and Catholic hospitals would be legal under this law.

Those who push this law are well aware of the slippery Constitutional basis of the Roe decision of 1973, and their fear of its eventual and rightful reversal by an objective Supreme Court. It is their intent to supersede states’ rights and to further their cause of a planned society. Obama has benefited politically, and financially, by joining his shoulder to their yoke without regard to the fact that the underlying result of the abortion industry has been the destruction of a disproportionate number of minority children. In other words, abortion has killed more African-American and Hispanic children per capita than Caucasian children.

Those who are standing upon the biological, theological and just plain logical solid ground regarding the truth that each conception begins the life of a unique human being, should not be convinced to join hands with those who stand upon the slippery slope of belief in the relative worth of human life. Indeed, there is no common ground. Either it is a child worthy of the same rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness or it is a “non-viable life form” to be flushed and disregarded at will. If it is not a living human, why then should it be a “heart-wrenching decision”? I believe wholeheartedly in every woman’s equality under law and her freedom to choose what happens to her body, but even the average high school biology student knows that the baby in her womb carries its own unique DNA code – not hers.