Opinion: Robert P. George on 'Obama's Abortion Extremism'

PRINCETON, N.J. (Witherspoon Institute) - Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress.Yet there are Catholics and Evangelicals-even self-identified pro-life Catholics and Evangelicals - who aggressively promote Obama's candidacy and even declare him the preferred candidate from the pro-life point of view.

What is going on here?

I have examined the arguments advanced by Obama's self-identified pro-life supporters, and they are spectacularly weak. It is nearly unfathomable to me that those advancing them can honestly believe what they are saying. But before proving my claims about Obama's abortion extremism, let me explain why I have described Obama as ''pro-abortion'' rather than ''pro-choice.''

According to the standard argument for the distinction between these labels, nobody is pro-abortion. Everybody would prefer a world without abortions. After all, what woman would deliberately get pregnant just to have an abortion? But given the world as it is, sometimes women find themselves with unplanned pregnancies at times in their lives when having a baby would present significant problems for them. So even if abortion is not medically required, it should be permitted, made as widely available as possible and, when necessary, paid for with taxpayers' money.

The defect in this argument can easily be brought into focus if we shift to the moral question that vexed an earlier generation of Americans: slavery. Many people at the time of the American founding would have preferred a world without slavery but nonetheless opposed abolition. Such people - Thomas Jefferson was one - reasoned that, given the world as it was, with slavery woven into the fabric of society just as it had often been throughout history, the economic consequences of abolition for society as a whole and for owners of plantations and other businesses that relied on slave labor would be dire. Many people who argued in this way were not monsters but honest and sincere, albeit profoundly mistaken. Some (though not Jefferson) showed their personal opposition to slavery by declining to own slaves themselves or freeing slaves whom they had purchased or inherited. They certainly didn't think anyone should be forced to own slaves. Still, they maintained that slavery should remain a legally permitted option and be given constitutional protection.

Would we describe such people, not as pro-slavery, but as ''pro-choice''? Of course we would not. It wouldn't matter to us that they were ''personally opposed'' to slavery, or that they wished that slavery were ''unnecessary,'' or that they wouldn't dream of forcing anyone to own slaves. We would hoot at the faux sophistication of a placard that said ''Against slavery? Don't own one.'' We would observe that the fundamental divide is between people who believe that law and public power should permit slavery, and those who think that owning slaves is an unjust choice that should be prohibited.

Just for the sake of argument, though, let us assume that there could be a morally meaningful distinction between being ''pro-abortion'' and being ''pro-choice.'' Who would qualify for the latter description? Barack Obama certainly would not. For, unlike his running mate Joe Biden, Obama does not think that abortion is a purely private choice that public authority should refrain from getting involved in. Now, Senator Biden is hardly pro-life. He believes that the killing of the unborn should be legally permitted and relatively unencumbered. But unlike Obama, at least Biden has sometimes opposed using taxpayer dollars to fund abortion, thereby leaving Americans free to choose not to implicate themselves in it. If we stretch things to create a meaningful category called ''pro-choice,'' then Biden might be a plausible candidate for the label; at least on occasions when he respects your choice or mine not to facilitate deliberate feticide.

The same cannot be said for Barack Obama. For starters, he supports legislation that would repeal the Hyde Amendment, which protects pro-life citizens from having to pay for abortions that are not necessary to save the life of the mother and are not the result of rape or incest. The abortion industry laments that this longstanding federal law, according to the pro-abortion group NARAL, ''forces about half the women who would otherwise have abortions to carry unintended pregnancies to term and bear children against their wishes instead.'' In other words, a whole lot of people who are alive today would have been exterminated in utero were it not for the Hyde Amendment. Obama has promised to reverse the situation so that abortions that the industry ...

Some US government accepted definitions of terrorism:

The term terrorism means premeditated, politically motivated political violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience. United States Code, s. 2656f(d)
OR
The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Well known writers on terrorism emphasize consensus in these definitions with similar themes:

A method of combat in which the victims serve as symbolic targets. Violent actors are able to produce a chronic state of fear by using violence outside the realm of normative behaviour. This produces an audience beyond the immediate victim and results in a change of public attitudes and actions. (White, 2002).

The illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective by
targeting innocent people. Walter Laqueur, 1987).

Symbolic acts of violence, intended to communicate a political
message to watching audiences. (Martha Crenshaw, 1983).

The systematic use of murder and destruction and the use of murder and destruction in order to terror individuals, groups and communities or governments into conceding to the terrorists political demands. (Paul Wilkinson, 1977).

A symbolic act designed to influence political behaviour by
extra normal means, entailing the use or threat of violence.
(Thornton, 1964).

Arguably all indicitive of recent 'extreme abortion' policy in several countries globally.

References:
Crenshaw, Martha (ed). 1983, Terrorism, Legitimacy and Power, Wesleyan University Press.

Laqueur, Walter, 1987. The Age of Terrorism, Little Brown.

Thornton, T.P. 1964, "Terror as a weapon of political agitation", in H. Eckstein (ed) Internal War, Collier-Macmillan.

Wardlaw, Grant.1982, Political Terrorism, Theory, Tactics and Counter-measures, Cambridge University Press.

Wikinson, Paul. 1977, Terrorism and the Liberal State, Macmillan.

Eamon Hatley-Smith | 4/18/2009

Terrorism is difficult to define, however every definition can be applied to the violence directed toward a child in the womb. It can be strongly argued the recent ‘policy direction’ in the Obama administration toward pre-natal individuals is ‘state sponsored terrorism’. Any reasonable examination reveals extremist ideology, which legitimizes killing children through morally illegitimate legislation (as if it could ever be legitimized).

State sponsored terrorism is not new and has been a concept well used in modern history, especially during the Cold War. Sadly, ‘now’ the concept of state sponsored terrorism is legitimised in abortion, due to Obama.
In the words of Kenneth Waltz, no state or combination of states is an effective counterweight to the United States. This idea has now exacerbated, into a global problem, led by the US, evident in similar legislation which was passed in Victoria, Australia, October last year by the Brumby state government, arguably a litmus test for the Obama administration.

There may be a rapid increase in the ‘comprehensive doctrine’ of 'state sponsored terror' hidden in 'pro-choice' rhetoric globally. The momentum seems unstoppable, as America is perceived as a beacon of ‘progress’ to the world, and leads by example.

Eamon Hatley-Smith | 4/11/2009

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