Obama's Catholic Advisory Board, Abortion, NARAL, and Criteria for Evaluating Candidates

Developing a new criteria for evaluating political candidates based on Catholic teaching is an intriguing idea, assuming of course that the criteria established (1) would focus on those issues on which Church teaching is most definitive and instructive, while remaining carefully open-ended and nuanced about those matters on which the Church teaches that prudential judgment is appropriate, and (2) places significantly greater weight on those matters that have the greatest priority as a matter of social justice (the bishops having consistently and repeatedly emphasized, for example, that human rights for the unborn is at the highest priority and cannot legitimately be categorized as merely one among a laundry list of political issues).

But, in the meantime, I’d ask that we not be distracted from the question raised in William McGurn’s article about the nature and purpose of the Catholic advisory council assembled by the Obama campaign. When anyone has the temerity to point out Senator Obama’s long-held positions on the question of the sanctity of life (which are extreme even by pro-choice standards, i.e., abortion as a litmus test for appointing judges, public funding of abortion, opposition to the ban on partial-birth abortion, opposition to child born alive legislation, etc.), the Obama campaign and its supporters increasingly refer to the National Catholic Advisory Board as supposed proof-positive that Obama is not your ordinary pro-choice politician. But what if that Catholic panel itself is comprised mostly of ordinary pro-choice politicians? Doesn’t that mean that Obama’s creation of such a panel tells us very little about whether the vaunted “change” Obama promises has any room for the smallest and most vulnerable among us?

So, let’s consider again the 21 present or former political officials on that Catholic advisory board, and remember that 17 of them have a perfect or nearly perfect NARAL approval rating. Saying that these 17 have failed to stand up and be counted for the protection of unborn human life is hardly a matter of cherry-picking a single vote or how one characterizes a particular legislative choice. Nor does it turn on NARAL ratings for a single year or two.

So which of these 17 can be characterized as pro-life with a straight face? Come on, folks, does anyone truly believe that Senators Edward Kennedy, John Kerry, Richard Durbin, or Patrick Leahy are secret members of Democrats for Life? Does anyone really believe that this crew is advising Obama to rethink his position on abortion or to change his plans to further embed abortion-on-demand into every aspect of the law and public policy?

Greg Sisk