President Obama at Notre Dame: More Words and the Death Count Rises

The middle to the end of May marks the time of spring graduation for many colleges and universities in the United States. For the institutions with the big name, getting the speaker with a big name is a big deal. As I compose this essay, quite a few institutions have already held their ceremony, including the University of Notre Dame which had President Barack Obama as the guest speaker and also as a recipient of an honorary degree. Even before Obama’s arrival in South Bend, Indiana, the president’s scheduled appearance at Notre Dame on Sunday, 17 May 2009, had generated protests. At issue was whether a Catholic, pro-life institution should extend an invitation to and an honor upon a pro-choice person. An analysis of his speech, as well as a consideration of contemporary realities, shows why there should be controversy.

The speech, considered by many commentators to be erudite and the perfect presentation for an academic setting, lasted just over 30 minutes. To be sure, the speech was filled with mellifluent phrases that inspired the audience to rise many times in standing ovations. However, during the time it took the president to deliver his oration, approximately another sixty-eight babies were aborted. (The tally is derived from the number of abortions [1,200,000] given for 2005 by the Guttmacher Institute and divided by the number of minutes in a year of 365 days and then multiplied by the number of minutes in Obama’s speech.) Talking on and on and on about abortion while about-to-be-born Americans are killed is not a solution; it is tacit acceptance of the slaughter of babies. The president’s pathetic imperceptivity on the matter is seen in this comment: "I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away." In effect, those that have been born are encouraged to talk while some that are about to be born are aborted during pregnancy.

Pro-choice persons, like Obama, try to assume some sort of moral high ground by pronouncing the following kind of statement: "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." A second one that is routinely tossed into national dialogue on abortion, and which Obama used at Notre Dame, is: "Let’s…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." Amidst vague verbiage through the use of words, like "moral" and "spiritual" and "clear ethics," Obama shifts the entire focus to women as if no one else is involved. For a pregnant woman there is at least one more person involved as she makes her "heart-wrenching decision." That person is the one who is about to be born, but about whom Obama said nothing in his commencement address.

The president closed his speech with references to events in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the 1960s. He mentioned "freedom rides" and "lunch counters" and "a Civil Rights Commission appointed by President Eisenhower." Obama used that last item to illustrate his belief that persons of dissimilar views and backgrounds "can…make a difference in the lives of those with whom we share the same brief moment on this Earth." What Obama did not highlight in his speech is that the federal government used force through federal legislation and the enforcement of laws "to fully realize the dream of civil rights for all God’s children." What many pro-life persons want from the government is a similar use of laws and the enforcement of laws to "to fully realize the dream of" life "for all God’s children." If the federal and several state governments can protect the bald eagle by making it a crime to destroy the egg, it can do at least as much for the human fetus.

According to his own words, delivered at Notre Dame, Obama believes "the law that binds people of all faiths and no faith together" is "the Golden Rule," wherein we "treat one another as we wish to be treated." As a general, universal rule people do not want to have their limbs ripped off or a caustic solution poured on their skin or their brain sucked out of their head with a powerful vacuum, but the aforementioned procedures and other horrific methods have been used to abort more than fifty million about-to-be-born Americans since Roe v. Wade was declared by the Supreme Court to be constitutional in 1973.

Finally, in his commencement address on Sunday, May 17, the president urged that Americans "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." Again, these mellifluent phrases, even if incomplete in what they should proffer, convey good sentiments. If an Obama Administration and a Congress controlled by the Democrats can contribute hundreds and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars for the bailouts of mortgages institutions and other corporations, it should be able to provide some assistance to pregnant women and about-to-be-born persons.

George Sochan
Assistant Professor
Bowie State University
26 May 2009