catholicsphere

As I said yesterday, there is somewhat of an uproar around the “Catholic sphere” about the fact that the Democrats gained control of Congress. An article that appeared today by Mary Kochan, Senior Editor of Catholic Exchange, continues this, although more subdued in her tone.

At one point in the article, she talks about what the Republicans have given to the pro-life, moral issues crowd.

Republican victories are the reason that we have the Roberts court and that we had, before the disaster-ridden second term of George Bush and last Tuesday’s subsequent change in power, the possibility of another pro-life appointment to the Supreme Court. Republican victories were why we had an administration making the case this week before the Supreme Court for the upholding of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban.

Republican victories were why funding for abortion-promoting programs in the United Nations and through other international programs have been cut back and funds directed toward abstinence-based and abstinence-including programs oversees.

First off, given President Bush’s wishy-washy pro-life stance — keep in mind that he supported the abortion-at-home kit (aka “Plan B”), and only opposed federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, while the states still continue to pass laws to fund it — and the fact that he had already appointed two conservative Justices, there was only a slim hope that a third conservative Justice would be appointed, should John Paul Stevens retire.

The interesting thing to note is that Republicans also gave us the “Abortion Court” that decided Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton. Five of the seven justices joining the majority opinion were appointed by Republican Presidents. Of the current Court, only 1 has been appointed by a Democrat (Ginsberg by Clinton — Souter and Thomas don’t count since, they were really first nominated by Bush, Sr.) And, still there’s been no significant progress on the matter of abortion.

In hindsight, the restriction of overseas abortion funding seems like a bone thrown to conservatives who orginally put President Bush in the White House. Still, there has been precious little achieved domestically on conservative issues.

Despite what Fathers Pavone and Euteneuer say, I find it troubling to realize that no one in public office after this election will feel compelled by political necessity to place life issues at the top of the agenda.

The unfortunate facts of the matter is that even before this election, “no one in public office” appears to have felt “compelled by political necessity to place life issues at the top of the agenda”.

[tags]politics, pro-life, faith, catholic, christian, conservative, election, government[/tags]