Austin Ruse and C-Fam: Pro-lifers Ready for the Fight

We're not going to give an inch, and we're going to repeatedly paint him for what he is, which is the most pro-abortion president in US history.

ROME (Zenit) - In the short time he's been in office, President Barack Obama has already enacted policies that threaten the lives of the most vulnerable not only in his own country but beyond the shores of the United States.

One of his very first decisions was to allow U.S. government funding of organizations that sponsor abortion provision across the globe. He also restarted federal funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) -- an organization that sponsors birth control, and has in the past promoted abortion and sterilization.

But for Austin Ruse, founding president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), an organization that lobbies the United Nations on pro-life issues, these crises are not moments of discouragement, but cues to take action. "Right after the election, my staff were a little despondent," recalled Ruse, who was passing through Rome last week. "But I made the point that this is going to be the best four years of their lives."

"Rarely in the history of the Church will people have been so needed as we are at the United Nations," he said. "This is almost as good as the second century because nobody can be wasted, there is just so much work to do."

Ruse said he has asserted for a long while that Obama, just like the Clintons, will pursue more radical policies at the United Nations than anywhere else because people pay little attention to the organization, particularly when it comes to social policy. "It means he [Obama] can be his true self on social policy and pay off a lot of debts to the hard left on abortion, homosexual marriage and a whole host of things," Ruse explained. "And all of this is coming to pass."

He pointed out that only days earlier, the Obama administration had endorsed radical international guidelines on HIV/AIDS, which calls for criminalizing critics of homosexuality. And he warned of further challenges brought about by current international crises.

"Sadly, at a time like this, when there is widespread social dislocation, uncertainty, financial panic and war, this is precisely when our social enemies make the most progress because they're busy while everyone is looking at the other way," he explained. "Our opponents on these issues almost never ever sleep, so they look upon these difficult times as nothing but an opportunity to further their cause."

Ruse has seen it all before, of course, during the Clinton administration in the 1990s. And he wasn't for one moment taken in by Obama's talk of reaching across the aisle. "What consensus means for the left is talking to the farther left," he said. "It never really means talking to us."

Now in its 11th year, C-FAM, together with a coalition of other pro-life organizations, has had numerous successes over the years, from helping to prevent abortion becoming a universally recognized human right, to thwarting attempts to redefine the family and gender. Now, one of its other major bugbears is the push toward global governance, also expected to gain ground under Obama. Ruse is about to launch a blog called "The New Sovereigntists" on this theme -- just one of no doubt many future initiatives to draw attention to the real dangers of this administration.

"The pro-life movement is determined to fight him [Obama] on every single thing related to our issues," said Ruse. "We're not going to give an inch, and we're going to repeatedly paint him for what he is, which is the most pro-abortion president in the history of the United States."