The Denver Posts' David Harsanyi isn't a pro-lifer yet he sees through the much-ballyhooed change in language in the Democrat Party platform, a change I observed yesterday was comically hypocritical and worthless.Harsanyi prefers to call it "pointless."
But that's not all he has to say.
...Yet, the Democrats are so enthusiastic to make abortion a non-issue that they've recruited the vigorously unexciting Sen. Bob Casey Jr. of Pennsylvania, a Catholic who opposes abortion rights, to be a featured speaker at the party's national convention. (Casey's father, ironically, was rejected for the same task -- and for the same reason -- by Democrats in 1992.)
Are voters, one wonders, truly so breathtakingly dim-witted that they will pivot on such an important issue because of a transparently dim platform addendum supporting human procreation? Or will a single speaker at the convention do the trick?
Our wide spectrum of positions on abortion can be influenced by deep moral, religious, ideological and personal convictions. Politically, though, the divide is clear -- and should be clear. One of the reasons we have political parties is so that they can take, you know, positions on stuff.
And a number of elected Democrats in moderate states purport to be opposed to abortion rights. But rarely, if ever, is their theoretical bravery put to the test by any actual vote. Casey included.
Obama, on the other hand, has taken votes. Certainly he hasn't wavered on his commitment. In 2007, Obama promised the first thing he will do as president is to lift a ban on state restrictions on abortions, including late-term procedures. (Why not allow states to decide the whole issue?)
In Illinois, Obama voted against the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002, which would have recognized any infant born alive after surviving abortion as a human deserving legal protection. The bill was almost identical to one that was unanimously passed by the Senate in 2001.
So Obama's record is not up for debate. You either love it or you hate it, or, like me, you're indifferent, as you suspect the president has little influence over the issue of abortion to begin with.
