President Obama’s Abortion Record Doesn’t Match His Notre Dame Rhetoric

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   May 19, 2009   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

President Obama’s Abortion Record Doesn’t Match His Notre Dame Rhetoric

by Bradley Mattes
May 19, 2009

LifeNews.com Note: Bradley Mattes is the executive director of Life Issues Institute, a national pro-life educational group. Mattes is a veteran of the pro-life cause, with over 33 years of educational, political and humanitarian experience.

The controversy surrounding President Obama and Notre Dame University culminated with his speech Sunday in Indiana. I had returned from Washington, DC just in time to drop my bag and tune in to watch the address.

His most pronounced message — certainly the one emphasized by the media — was that we shouldn’t demonize those who disagree with us on abortion. I couldn’t agree more, but wonder why the President doesn’t follow his own advice.

Certainly his memory isn’t that short. Only a few weeks ago his administration released a memo cautioning against “rightwing extremists”. In the crosshairs of its inflammatory remarks were pro-lifers.

How can the President claim verbal high ground in the abortion debate when his administration is demonizing individuals as “domestic rightwing terrorists” when they—in the words of the memo—are “dedicated to [an] opposition to abortion”?

The President also said that those who “speak out against [embryonic] stem cell research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile [type 1] diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardships can be relieved.”

Mr. President, allow me to speak from experience here.

Last year my son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. It literally turned his world upside down. But neither he nor his parents would advocate killing human embryos to pursue an experimental cure. The difference between us and you, Mr. President, is we are living our expressed belief that innocent human life is sacred.

The president lamented the fact that “the strong too often dominate the weak”, but that’s exactly what abortion does. The strong not only dominates the weak—they kill them.

Mr. Obama made a clarion call to “work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions”, while at the same time he aggressively uses his powerful position to expand the number of abortions being done in America and around the world.

Words have meaning Mr. President.

You can’t reduce the number of abortions while funding the expansion of abortion with our tax dollars by abandoning the Mexico City Policy and funding the UN Population Fund which supports forced abortion in China.

Filling your staff, Mr. President, with hard-core, pro-abortion advocates from Emily’s List, the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood isn’t the way to find common ground with those who respect life.

Further, your support of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which would wipe out any law that protects unborn children and their mothers—such as parental consent, partial-birth abortion or tax funding of abortion-on-demand—leaves no room for even the tiniest compromise.

Words have meaning. Mr. Obama is called the most pro-abortion president in the history of our nation for good reason. During his first months in office he has aggressively pursued a pro-abortion agenda. These are undisputable glaring facts. Whether or not Americans pay attention remains to be seen. I pray you will.

As for Notre Dame University, it’s tragic that so-called friends of unborn babies would give Mr. Obama such a visible platform to promote his deadly agenda.

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