“Nowhere do these questions come up more powerfully than on the issue of abortion.
As I considered the controversy surrounding my visit here, I was reminded of an encounter I had during my Senate campaign, one that I describe in a book I wrote called “The Audacity of Hope.” A few days after I won the Democratic nomination, I received an e-mail from a doctor who told me that while he voted for me in the primary, he had a serious concern that might prevent him from voting for me in the general election. He described himself as a Christian who was strongly pro-life, but that’s not what was preventing him from voting for me.
What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my Web site — an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.”
Fair-minded words.
After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my Web site. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that — when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do — that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground.
That’s when we begin to say, “Maybe we won’t agree on abortion, but we can still agree that this is a heart-wrenching decision for any woman to make, with both moral and spiritual dimensions. So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term. Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health care policies are grounded in clear ethics and sound science, as well as respect for the equality of women.”
Understand — I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it — indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory — the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.
Open hearts. Open minds. Fair-minded words.”
1.) The Doctor is an idiot and isn’t pro-life as his vote for Obama reveals. A person can say they are pro-life all they want but by their deeds you shall know them. A vote for Obama tells us the Doctor Obama is citing was pro-murder. (Neither is he a Christian for the same reason.)
2.) The Doctor was more upset about Obama using the phrase “right wing ideologues” then he was about torturing, maiming, and murdering babies.
3.) Why should this be a “heart wrenching decision” for women if it is not the removal and destruction of life? Why should we try to reduce unwanted pregnancies or increase adoption options if abortion is akin to pulling a tooth out? Why all this angst about abortion if it doesn’t end life? The fact that the left keeps speaking this way indicates that they know that abortion is murder and that they have to do something to communicate that they are not in reality supporting mass murder.
4.) There is no possibility of common ground when it comes to the in-uterine murder of babies.
5.) Let’s remember that the man saying this is the man who has repeatedly voted to deny life support to babies that are born alive as a result of a botched abortion. This man is heinous and wicked to an immeasurable degree and yet Americans are going to listen to this man lecture us on ethics? What are people thinking?
6.) It is impossible to come up with a caricature that isn’t befitting for those who have turned this country into a land where we must wear waders in order to slog through the rivers of blood that abortionists like Obama have created.
There is no possibility of common ground when it comes to the in-uterine murder of babies.
Bret, you are absolutely correct on this, there cannot ever be a “common ground” on this or on “infanticide” that President Obama voted for while in the Illinois Senate. NONE.
The thing that irks me the most Uncle Jeff, is that in a speech like this Obama — the murderer, comes across as the reasonable one. Will he try to find common ground when he nominates another baby murderer to the Supreme Court? No, he’ll go right on ignoring his potential to find common ground while lecturing us that we must try to find common ground.