Forgive me for restating the obvious: If you believe abortion is merely a medical procedure—analogous to a tonsillectomy—you’re unlikely to care what a candidate’s position on the issue happens to be. On the other hand, if you believe abortion is murder—no different than firing a .45 at a toddler’s head—you’re unlikely to support a candidate who is “pro-choice.” The Catholic Church insists that life begins at conception and that the intentional termination of a pregnancy is, indeed, the murder of an innocent human being.
At the Saddleback Forum, where the two presidential candidates were interviewed by Pastor Rick Warren, Sen. Obama responded to a question of when a baby acquires human rights by saying:
“Well, you know, I think that, whether you’re looking at it from the theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”
(Neither Obama nor Warren is Catholic. Neither is John McCain, but he answered the same question: “At the moment of conception.”)
When Tom Brokaw asked the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who is Catholic (in fact, an “ardent Catholic,” by her own report), to comment on Obama’s answer, she replied that the Catholic Church is unclear on the matter—that “over the centuries, the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition.”
“And St. Augustine said at three months,” she explained. “We don’t know. The point is, is that it shouldn’t have impact on a woman’s right to choose.”
When challenged by an incredulous Brokaw, who rightly observed that the Catholic Church’s position in opposition to abortion is unequivocal, Pelosi said: “I understand that. I understand that. And this is like in 50 years or something like that.”
Catholic leaders, including most of the nation’s bishops, responded quickly and harshly to her comments. Typical was this from Washington, DC’s Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi misrepresented the history and nature of the authentic teaching of the Catholic Church against abortion.”
And once again, there were demands by some that Pelosi, Joe Biden, and other liberal Catholics who support Roe v. Wade be denied Communion if they were to attend a Mass. Indeed, some even called for their excommunication from the Church itself.
Now it’s fair to ask why the abortion issue should, in and of itself, cause such a political stir. The answer is because it is so fundamental: a matter of life and death. If a candidate is wrong about abortion, the Church wonders, can he or she be right about other key issues?
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