Catholic Obama Apologist Douglas Kmiec Defends President’s Pro-Abortion Record
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 11, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Douglas Kmiec essentially voided his Catholic and pro-life credentials during the president election with his steadfast defense of Barack Obama despite his clear pro-abortion views. Now he’s given pro-life advocates no reason to take him seriously by explaining away Obama’s pro-abortion actions as president.
Kmiec is more impressed by Obama’s words claiming to want to reduce abortions than his deeds of promoting more abortions at every turn.
"I am especially pleased that the President deliberately highlighted at the national prayer breakfast the abortion reduction expectations he has for this Office," he told U.S. in an email on Tuesday.
To hear Kmiec explain it, Obama’s decision to force taxpayers to fund groups that promote and perform abortions abroad is a pro-life move.
Kmiec falsely claims the Mexico City Policy "aggravated levels of disease, deprived remote areas of less developed nations sometimes of their only available health care."
All the policy did was divert family planning funds from Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International, the world’s two largest abortion businesses, to family planning groups that do not do abortions or lobby other nations to topple their pro-life laws.
The policy didn’t reduce the amount of funds given to groups working in less developed nations and didn’t revoke any other care other than depriving two abortion businesses of tens of millions in taxpayer funding.
But Kmiec goes on to claim the "questionable" pro-life policy "may well have also accounted for dramatic increases in abortion," though he provides no evidence to support his contention.
Kmiec praises Obama for funding foreign abortions and admits the pro-life nature of the policy, saying, "I see a President willing and capable of re-assessing questionable policy early in his administration even if it was also a policy that in some instances helped separate us from those who do not share our concern with abortion as a practice."
The so-called pro-life advocate also defends President Barack Obama’s appointment of pro-abortion Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas as Health Secretary. Sebelius has been soundly condemned by pro-life advocates for vetoing several pro-life bills to reduce abortions and her close relationship with late-term abortion practitioner George Tiller.
Kmiec amazingly claims Sebelius is pro-life and will promote pro-life policies as health secretary, even though any health care plan she will help Obama put forward will likely include coverage for abortions.
"I believe she is a highly capable and respected administrator who fully believes in the protection of human life at all its stages, and will advance that goal by working for one of the most important health reforms in our history," Kmiec says.
Kmiec says he disagrees with Obama promoting embryonic stem cell research, but instead of criticizing the president he invalidates his own beliefs by praising Obama’s so-called desire to "separate science from politics."
Kmiec says he has urged the Obama administration to promote embryonic stem cell research alternatives but says nothing of Obama’s decision to overturn a Bush order doing just that.
Kmiec also says he "commend[s] the President for his strong prohibition of human cloning," even though Obama clearly left the door open to human cloning for research purposes.
The icing in the cake is Kmiec’s dismissal of the pro-life concerns about Obama signing the so-called Freedom of Choice Act. Apparently Kmiec is not up to date on the latest news that two top pro-abortion members of Congress plan to introduce the radical pro-abortion bill soon and make it, as they say, a "top priority."
"Of course, I am pleased that the FOCA ‘scare’ has proven, as all of the President’s strong supporters like me predicted, to be without foundation," Kmiec told U.S. News.
Yet, a spokesman for Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat who is chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee that could consider the bill, says the bill is forthcoming.
FOCA "is among the congressman’s priorities. We expect to reintroduce it sooner rather than later," Ilan Kayatsky told the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
"We expect it to be more or less the same bill with some minor tweaks," Kayatsky said. He indicated he expects pro-abortion Sen. Barbara Boxer to introduce a companion bill shortly.
Ultimately, Kmiec told the news weekly that he doesn’t care much about pro-life criticism of his unyielding defense of his pro-abortion president.
"So the political antagonists of the President can ‘call me out’ if they want; though, I think their time would be better spent seeing the larger picture of the economic and related cultural challenges which face the nation," he concluded.
Kmiec could be considered by some to be hopeful before the election that Obama’s actions as president would somehow contradict his pro-abortion actions as an Illinois legislator and U.S. senator.
Now that Obama has extensively promoted abortion as president, Kmiec is seen less and less as a genuine pro-life Catholic and more as a sellout who clearly is more interested in promoting Obama than protecting human life. Any attempts now by Kmiec to claim to be pro-life are disingenuous at best.
Sign Up for Free Pro-Life News From LifeNews.com
Daily Pro-Life News Report Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here. Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
