Obama Likely Not Serious on Reducing Abortions, But Concedes Pro-Life Ground
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
June 12, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — President Barack Obama’s faith based office met recently to talk about ways to reduce abortions. While most pro-life advocates are skeptical that any serious efforts will materialize, one says the pro-life movement has made gains if only because the stalwart pro-abortion president is conceding pro-life ground.
Tom McFeely, a writer for the National Catholic Register, says the debate over whether Obama is serious about reducing abortions by helping pregnant women with social programs "can’t be answered now."
"A more conclusive judgment must await the introduction of the actual programs and an assessment of their effects. But in the meantime pro-lifers have every reason to be skeptical, given the concrete pro-abortion actions Obama has taken already since becoming president," McFeely writes at NCR.
However, McFeely points out comments from U.S. News & Report’s Dan Gilgoff, who notes that Obama’s use of pro-life language about reducing abortions is perhaps an acknowledgement that the pro-life side is winning the abortion debate.
"But in articulating a goal of reducing the need for abortion, hasn’t the White House already made a judgment about its undesirability?" Gilgoff writes. "Why reduce the number of women seeking abortions if there’s nothing wrong with the procedure?"
For McFeely, the point that Obama may have given up the high ground in the abortion debate is well taken.
"Obama has ceded ground to the pro-life cause simply by claiming he wants to reduce the number of abortions," McFeely says.
"It would be a mistake for pro-lifers to read too much into Obama’s concession, which has obvious parallels to Bill Clinton’s dictum that abortion should be ‘safe, legal, and rare,’" he continues. "At the same time, it also would be a mistake to read too little into it."
"When even pro-abortion presidents like Clinton and Obama feel obliged to acknowledge abortion as something to be avoided, they contribute to fostering a wider appreciation among all Americans that there’s something seriously wrong with abortion," McFeely concludes.
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