{"id":632,"date":"2008-04-02T14:22:58","date_gmt":"2008-04-02T18:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=632"},"modified":"2008-04-03T14:17:27","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T18:17:27","slug":"impartial-birth-abortion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=632","title":{"rendered":"Impartial birth abortion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s Gerson <\/a>today: <\/p>\n

\n

\nSen. Robert P. Casey Jr.’s endorsement of Barack Obama last week — "I
\nbelieve in this guy like I’ve never believed in a candidate in my life"
\n— recalled another dramatic moment in Democratic politics. In the
\nsummer of 1992, as Bill Clinton<\/a> solidified his control over the Democratic Party<\/a>,
\nRobert P. Casey Sr., the senator’s father, was banned from speaking to
\nthe Democratic convention for the heresy of being pro-life.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe elder Casey (now deceased) was then the governor of Pennsylvania<\/a>
\n— one of the most prominent elected Democrats in the country. He was
\nan economic progressive in the Roosevelt tradition. But his Irish
\nCatholic conscience led him to oppose abortion. So the Clintons chose
\nto humiliate him. It was a sign and a warning of much mean-spirited
\npettiness to come.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe younger Casey, no doubt, is a sincere fan of Obama<\/a>. He also must have found it satisfying to help along the cycle of political justice.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut by Casey’s father’s standard of social justice for the unborn, Obama is badly lacking.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The first part is just false (as many have demonstrated<\/a>).  Casey did not endorse the democratic candidates and so was not invited to speak at the podium.  Later Gerson–some Christian he–goes on to distort a remark of Diane Feinstein.  Gerson writes:<\/p>\n

\n

These trends reached their logical culmination during a congressional
\ndebate on partial-birth abortion in 1999. When Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer<\/a> was pressed to affirm that she opposed the medical killing of children after<\/em>
\nbirth, she refused to commit, saying that children deserve legal
\nprotection only "when you bring your baby home." It was unclear whether
\nthis included the car trip.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Nice one, Gerson.  Here’s what Feinstein <\/a>actually said:<\/p>\n

\n

I would make this statement: That this Constitution, as it
\ncurrently is — some of you want to amend it to say that life begins at
\nconception. I think when you bring your baby home, when your baby is born<\/strong> — and
\nthere is no such thing as partial-birth — the baby belongs to your family and
\nhas all the rights. But I am not willing to amend the Constitution to say that a
\nfetus is a person, which I know you would.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Gerson’s remark is clearly distorted.  Dear Mr. Gerson, someone once said the truth will set you free. <\/p>\n

The last part, "social justice for the unborn," is curious for another reason.  Obama is pro-choice.  As a result, he doesn’t think the unborn are the subjects of justice, as Gerson obviously does.  Gerson goes on to argue:<\/p>\n

\n

But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on
\npartial-birth abortion — a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel
\nPatrick Moynihan, once called "too close to infanticide." Obama
\nstrongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the
\npartial-birth ban. In the Illinois<\/a> state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly <\/strong>claimed that he would not want his daughters to be "punished with a baby" because of a crisis
\npregnancy — hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Obama doesn’t have a "welcoming attitude" (what that means baffles) toward new life because <\/strong>he’s pro-choice (and it turns out, by the way, that Gerson twisted Obama’s words–that’s three!).  Gerson’s argument doesn’t do anything other than point out that Obama is pro-choice.  But Gerson takes his having pointed this out as some kind of reason to think Obama is wrong.  Maybe Obama’s view is wrong–but it’s not wrong because <\/strong>he holds  it.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s Gerson today: Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr.’s endorsement of Barack Obama last week — "I believe in this guy like I’ve never believed in a candidate in my life" — recalled another dramatic moment in Democratic politics. In the summer of 1992, as Bill Clinton solidified his control over the Democratic Party, Robert P. … Continue reading Impartial birth abortion<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,72,77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-michael-gerson","category-unclassifiable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}