First Things, which has revamped its site (check it out), has a good piece today about
EIGHT LIES IN PRESIDENT OBAMA’S ROE STATEMENT
by Matthew Schmitz
President Obama issued a statement today to mark the forty-first anniversary of Roe v. Wade. A mere paragraph long, it contains enough euphemism, evasion, and outright falsehood to serve simultaneously as a model of dissimulation and concision.
1. “We” — The statement begins by saying “as we reflect” on Roe “we recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle.” But who is this we? Obama issues his statement in his official capacity as head of state, but America is sorely divided. By a generous measure, only 53 percent of Americans support Roe. When Obama pledges his rhetorical “we” to the principle of Roe, he elides one half of the nation he leads.
2. “Her body” — The President says that “every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health.” This statement would certainly be true (given a few broad caveats) if he did not mean by it that one person should be able to dismantle the body and destroy the health of another.
3. “Safe, affordable health care” — For abortion to be safe, it would have to not be directed at the death of a child; for it to be affordable, it would have to not come at the cost of a life; for it to be health care, it would have to not violate the Hippocratic oath. This may be one lie or three—it’s hard to keep count.
4. “Right to privacy” — There can be no right to the taking of an innocent life. Nor can there be anything private about it for a society that believes securing rights to be a matter of the public good.
5. “Reproductive freedom” — There is no debate over the freedom of reproduction, only over the freedom of destruction.
6. “Unintended pregnancy” — What is meant here, of course, is an unintended child. But in any case, the idea that life is legitimate only when it is the product of our intentions—that everything should be perfectly “planned”—is at once impossible and perverse, a sociological error reflecting a theological mistake.
7. “Child health” — President Obama’s purported support for child health runs counter to his continuing, unrepented opposition to laws banning infanticide—an opposition that distinguishes him not only from abortion opponents but from most abortion supporters as well.
8. “This is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.” — This is indeed such a country, as is every other. Why then, Mr. President, do you continue to stand in the way of the very weakest realizing the equal freedom you so blithely invoke?
Here’s the statement in full: [HERE]
Today, as we reflect on the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, we recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health. We reaffirm our steadfast commitment to protecting a woman’s access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom. And we resolve to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, support maternal and child health, and continue to build safe and healthy communities for all our children. Because this is a country where everyone deserves the same freedom and opportunities to fulfill their dreams.
I am again reminded of the famous line in the fight between Hellman and McCarthy:
Every word [he] writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.
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It is an odd world in which someone claims to be concerned about “child health” while they enthusiastically endorse tearing children limb from limb. Crazy making world.
Reported on Fox tonight, more people in this country are pro-life then pro-death! The tide is turning, however slowly! We must pray for the souls of those who believe the lie that abortion is a women’s right to choose!
He is a father of lies.
Not THE father of lies (IMHO).
THE father of lies will be smart.
Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms, in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable. It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning. In such cases, doublespeak disguises the nature of the truth. Doublespeak is most closely associated with political language.
His Will Be Done: A Homily Delivered at the National Shrine for the 41st March for Life, by Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap., archbishop of Philadelphia.
The last time that person spoke the truth was the inauguration in 2009, ” I do solemnly swear…” This was followed on fast by the First Lie, “… that I will faithfully execute the office…”
He is certainly doing a fine job executing the office.
In 50 yrs. people will look back at this period in history as a genocide of humanity greater than that of Hitler or Moa. Those Catholics that did not fight against it will be looked upon the same way the German Catholic Bishops and priests that stood with Hitler are.
This is the kind of clarity that more people need to bring to this subject.
I will try to remember these points.
The tragedy is simply this: two people in all of Human history have perfectly accomplished the will of the Father …Jesus and Mary. The aborted cannot choose to follow their example and therefore merit glory in Heaven…the justness of their complaint before the throne of God is terrifying in it’s justness as well as it’s sheer numbers.
Pray for the unborn…and the poor souls.
In the Rosary before the Blessed Sacrament if possible.
I had a great Holy Hour today…and missed being in DC.
God Bless those who marched!!
@piggin,
Re: The tragedy is simply this: two people in all of Human history have perfectly accomplished the will of the Father …Jesus and Mary.
I have seen two expressions of this statement. The first is:
Everyone except Jesus and his mother is a heretic.
The second is:
Everyone except Mary and her Son is a heretic.
@ CEflynn
And your point is what then exactly?
No mention of the little ones…or are they beneath your purview?
Left wing delusional and dangerous liars are what they are. And consider they are in control of the most bad ass empire man has ever built. Their capacity for destruction is beyond all imagination. Thank the Lord we are on the right sight and wear His armor.
Induamur arma lucis, quia adversarius noster diabolus tamquam leo rugiens circuit, quaerens quem devoret. Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini, qui fecit caelum et terram.
@MarkJ…. Amen Brother.
It is times like this that I think I live in some Bizarro world. I constantly try to help people understand the error of subjective morality and complete lack of societal commitment, yet it falls on deaf ears too many times. People do not like to be confrontational or on the side of the minority opinion. The answer is clear: stand for something or fall for anything, and too many are willing to fall for anything.
I’m completely dismayed with secular news sources as well (Fox included). The lack of coverage of a protest of 400,000-500,000 people was stunning. Can you imagine the coverage a protest like that would receive if it were gay rights advocates? I’m finished with secular news sources. They cannot be trusted to report things objectively. They push divisive content that moves their agenda forward (did I mention Fox included).
Didn’t The Honorable Barack H. Obama claim that if a quarter of a million people in Egypt were protesting this protest should be taken as a sign that the government officials needed to step aside, because they weren’t meeting the needs of the people? Someone with impeccable credentials should take a count in Washington and other cities to see how much MORE evidence there is that anyone supporting this law must step aside, using the President’s own measure?
I also think it is disgusting that such an official statement from the president of the U.S. would end in a sentence fragment.
Charles E Flynn –
None of us aside from Jesus and Mary, and probably John the Baptist, ever completely accomplished the will of God perfectly. This is true.
However, we are not all heretics.
The word ‘heretic’, I don’t believe it means what you think it means…
Said Obama: “Today, as we reflect on the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, we recommit ourselves to the decision’s guiding principle: that every woman should be able to make her own choices about her body and her health.”
Apparently, being able to make your own choices about your bodies and your health doesn’t apply to choosing your own healthcare plan (or not have one) without government interference. In fact, some liberal writers are even defending the millions of health insurance cancellations as a result of Obamacare by alleging that these plans weren’t any good or just scams. Apparently, the federal government knows what’s best for your health.
We also don’t see Obama and liberals calling for the abolition of the FDA, which delays life-saying medications that have been safely used for years in Europe and elsewhere and approves the use of medications that are later withdrawn and/or sued out of existence by trial lawyers for safety reasons.
If you all recall Father and former Congressman Robert Drinian’s op-ed piece in the NY Times in 1996, defending President Clinton’s veto of a bill to outlaw partial-birth abortions, Drinan, of accursed memory, argued that the legislation would be an unprecedented government intrusion into medicine. But government, on the federal, state, and local levels, had been intruding in medicine for decades already with laws and regulations! (I still recall John Cardinal O’Connor’s powerful condemnation of Drinan and his opinion in Catholic New York.)
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