Several things leap to my mind…..

Recently, an analysis of abortion in NYC was butchered by this blog. A stunning 20% decline in abortion in NYC was spun as a dramatic increase by using an absurd metric whose only purpose for the discussion seemed to be to provide a clever sounding reason for pro-lifers to bemoan NYC rather than celebrate a decline in abortion. Why? Well NYC is about as solidly pro-choice as you can get so to celebrate would be to implicitly admit that things could improve from a pro-life perspective even if non-pro-life politicans kept winning in the voting booth.

Recently, Obama’s Health and Human Services Sec. overruled an FDA advisory panel that had recommended that the ‘morning after pill’ be available to teens without a prescription. While whether or not that was technically a pro-life position can be debated (the pill doesn’t always result in abortion but some abortions may result from teens who don’t get the pill in time and instead terminate later on), it should be noted I’m not aware of any Pro-Life organization that supported the FDA’s position.

During the health bill debate, an amazing exception was made for abortion. To get abortion coverage, one must literally buy a stand alone, abortion only, plan by writing a check directly from one’s account for such a plan. This is amazing because for decades employer provided plans cover abortion and do not have to itemize out the value of abortion coverage. In case you didn’t know, employer provided plans are not taxed as income, even though they are, and are not taxed as payroll to employers, even though they are. Yet in order to satisfy the demands of those who said they shouldn’t ‘subsidize abortion’ an exception was made.

And for this what do pro-choicers get? Well they get the above. The strategic lesson here is clear. Pro-choicers should give pro-lifers the shaft. No matter what compromise seems mutually reasonable to both sides, no matter what accomodation is attempted, there will never be any credit given. If pro-lifers are given an inch on Monday, by Tuesday they will be screaming that you stole a foot from them. No compromise will ever be remembered or appreciated. No improvement will ever be credited, instead it will be twisted and spun to be made to appear like a decline (and the reverse holds as well, any declines during pro-life administrations will be glossed over, spun over….William Bennett, for example, had to drop abortion from his metric of ‘leading cultural indicators’ when rates oddly insisted on falling during the dark years of the Clinton era….since the metric was less about the saving the unborn from abortion than about saving Republicans from electorial defeat, it is to be discarded when it fails to serve its purpose)

As ironic as it may sound, for the sake of the unborn pro-choicers should start schooling pro-lifers in the principles of game theory. In a repeated prisoner’s game, an optimal solution will not be found until the side that insists on taking advantage is repeatedly punished until it falls in line. In other words, if the big mouth across the table keeps insisting on “all or nothing”, you should stop trying to give him a reasonable settlement. You should call the bluff and say “Ok nothing then!”

Actually, I should not be surprised. My impression is that half or more of my colleagues in a diocesan curia also voted for Obama. I spoke with one whom I know did, who said that Obama claimed to be pro-life. (If we can’t perceive when someone is bald-faced lying to us, then we will be likely to believe anything this evil man says.)

To anyone who paid attention in 2008, the negative results of electing his toxic regime should have been crystal clear. The only surprise to me is that he turned out worse even than that.

If that is the case, then were those bishops voting for Obama among those “Pro-life citizens … who in 2008 allowed themselves to be persuaded that Obama wouldn’t, as his critics warned, push abortion hard and run roughshod over the religious liberty and rights of conscience of Catholics and other pro-life citizens and their institutions”? Are those bishops among those who “have now gotten a rude awakening.”?

I hope those bishops were wrong who told Arroyo that they thought half of their brother bishops if not more voted for Obama. If they were right about that then it seems to me that either many bishops are not very astute politically, or that the state unjustly claiming for itself the authority to sanction the killing of innocent human beings is simply not as important to these bishops as one gets the impression it should be from reading JP II’s encyclical, Evangelium Vitae. Here is an excerpt:

It is therefore urgently necessary, for the future of society and the development of a sound democracy, to rediscover those essential and innate human and moral values which flow from the very truth of the human being and express and safeguard the dignity of the person: values which no individual, no majority and no State can ever create, modify or destroy, but must only acknowledge, respect and promote.

Consequently there is a need to recover the basic elements of a vision of the relationship between civil law and moral law, which are put forward by the Church, but which are also part of the patrimony of the great juridical traditions of humanity.

Certainly the purpose of civil law is different and more limited in scope than that of the moral law. But “in no sphere of life can the civil law take the place of conscience or dictate norms concerning things which are outside its competence”, which is that of ensuring the common good of people through the recognition and defence of their fundamental rights, and the promotion of peace and of public morality. The real purpose of civil law is to guarantee an ordered social coexistence in true justice, so that all may “lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly and respectful in every way” (1 Tim 2:2). Precisely for this reason, civil law must ensure that all members of society enjoy respect for certain fundamental rights which innately belong to the person, rights which every positive law must recognize and guarantee. First and fundamental among these is the inviolable right to life of every innocent human being. While public authority can sometimes choose not to put a stop to something which – were it prohibited – would cause more serious harm, it can never presume to legitimize as a right of individuals – even if they are the majority of the members of society – an offence against other persons caused by the disregard of so fundamental a right as the right to life. The legal toleration of abortion or of euthanasia can in no way claim to be based on respect for the conscience of others, precisely because society has the right and the duty to protect itself against the abuses which can occur in the name of conscience and under the pretext of freedom.

The entire document can be read here:
Evangelium Vitae