Obama's Intellectually Dishonest Abortion Speech

Setting aside the question of whether or not President Barack Obama should have been invited to speak at Notre Dame, it is clear his abortion position that pro-Lifers and pro-Choicers should "work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term" -- is disingenous.

First, it is clear that, despite Obama's moderate-sounding rhetoric, he has aggressively sought to increase -- not decrease -- the number of abortions.

According to the NYT, Obama,

... has named abortion rights advocates to top jobs; Dawn Johnsen, a former legal director of Naral Pro-Choice America, is his pick to run the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. He has repealed the so-called Mexico City rule, which prohibited tax dollars from going to organizations that provide abortions overseas; lifted Mr. Bush's limits on embryonic stem cell research; stripped financing for abstinence-only sex education; and is seeking to undo a last-minute Bush regulation giving broad protections to health providers who refuse to take part in abortions.

Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said she told allies that their movement was emerging from "eight years in the wilderness."

... But putting aside Obama's pro-abortion actions, even his rhetoric is intellectually dishonest.

If one believes abortion is murder, they should not take solace in merely seeing to it that abortions are rare or infrequent -- but that they are outlawed. Conversely, if one believes that abortion is not murder, why not celebrate it as a way to avoid unwanted pregnancies and control population? The most intellectually dishonest position one can take -- regardless of where one comes down on the abortion debate -- is that abortion should be legal but rare.

But what if someone is unsure -- isn't this a good compromise?

There are certainly areas where one should permit nuance. For example, I'm not settled on whether Pedro Martiniez or Mike Mussina is the better pitcher -- and I'm still not completely sure whether Zeppelin, The Who or the Stones are the greatest rock band ever -- these are topics which one can afford to be unsettled about, as the stakes are not large. But the abortion debate has dominated our politics for the last 35 years. One really does owe it oneself to take the time to decide on such an important topic -- which really is a fundamental question of life and death.

And what if one still cannot decide. As Ronald Reagan said,

"Simple morality dictates that unless and until someone can prove the unborn human is not alive, we must give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it is (alive). And, thus, it should be entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."