Group Uses Racism to Blast Knights of Columbus Ad on Biden, Abortion

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Sep 25, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Group Uses Racism to Blast Knights of Columbus Ad on Biden, Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 25
, 2008

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A group that tries to attract Catholic voters to support Democratic candidates like pro-abortion presidential hopeful Barack Obama is attacking the Knights of Columbus. The group claims the organization ran a racist ad in newspapers last week criticizing Joe Biden on abortion.

Last week, the pro-life group ran newspaper ads in several papers saying Biden is out of step with the Catholic Church on abortion.

Biden, who is Catholic, has a long pro-abortion voting record and came under fire for some recent statements. He said he personally believes that human life begins at conception but wouldn’t make public policy protecting unborn children from abortion based on those views.

Several Catholic bishops corrected Biden saying he misrepresented Church teaching and then the Knights of Columbus ran ads that remind Biden that "abortion is a grave sin to be avoided at any time during a pregnancy" and he has a "unique responsibility" to make correct statements about Catholic teaching.

The ads, which feature an open letter from Knights of Columbus leader Carl Anderson, cite Abraham Lincoln’s anti-slavery arguments about the personhood of African-Americans and ties it in with the arguments for the humanity of the unborn child.

"Lincoln’s reasoning regarding slavery applies with equal force to children who are minutes, hours, days away from birth," the letter to Biden explains.

"You have a choice: you can listen to your conscience and work to secure the rights of the unborn to share in the fruits of our hard-won liberty, or you can choose to turn your back on them," it ads.

The organization Catholic Democrats has branded the Knights’ ads as "hypocritical and partisan."

The group released a statement saying Anderson "grossly mischaracterized Sen. Biden as an advocate of abortion while carelessly ignoring the racial overtones of invoking slavery in attacking the running mate of history’s first black presidential nominee."

The group also chides Anderson for supposedly ignoring Biden’s comments about wanting to find common ground to reduce abortions.

The statement, written by Patrick Whelan, president of Catholic Democrats, said that Anderson’s letter "completely ignores the common ground with American Catholics" that the Democratic Party detailed in its platform.

"It is sacrilegious for Mr. Anderson, someone who holds himself up as a flag bearer for the values and virtue of our faith, to use his shared Catholic identity with Sen. Biden as a foil to attack him for blatantly political purposes," the statement goes on to say.

However, the Democratic Party platform, which calls for common ground, provides no actual legislation or policy initiatives to reduce abortions.

Instead, the platform calls for legal abortions throughout pregnancy for any reason and notes support for forcing taxpayers to finance abortions with public funds.

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