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Obama’s pre-Vatican overtures are a smokescreen

By KC Luciano, July 8, 2009 under News

Descending in Italy today for the July 8-10 G8 Summit, President Barack Obama will move onto the Vatican for his first audience with the Pope on Friday. In advance of that meeting, Obama hosted a roundtable meeting with Catholic reporters and The Washington Post on July 2nd.

In that conversation, Obama asserted that he supported a “robust” conscience clause for hospitals and health care providers. The conscience clause would afford doctors, pharmacists and other medical professionals protection against forced participation in abortion procedures or the subscription of abortifacient drugs.

Not surprisingly, some of the reporters present at the roundtable were putty in Obama’s hand, calling the president’s remarks “most noteworthy” and saying that the discussion worked toward “dispelling…the expectation of the worst.”

It is with particular skill that the god among us feigns to support positions which he actually opposes. Obama’s promise of a robust protections smacks as disingenuous considering his recent directive reversing an existing regulation to  protect health care workers.

One expects such doublespeak from the president, but as the adage goes, actions speak louder than words. The American Spectator has a good piece out on just that point.

Statues began being put in place by Congress to protect medical professionals from discrimination in the wake of Roe v. Wade . Over the years, as the abortion lobby has strengthened, actual implementation of such protections have not always been a guarantee. In 2008, this prompted president Bush to make a regulation simply reasserting that existing law must be followed. As expected, an outcry followed.

Enter Obama, whose reversal of the regulation was done under supposed concern for the reach of Bush’s regulation. As the Spectator piece notes, however, the rule did nothing but enforce existing law. Certainly, Obama’s concern otherwise placates his base, but such action should be held up in the context of the president’s claim to support a “robust” conscience clause. Here, the president swept in on an issue that he disagreed with and established a supposed neutral time for review, all while trying to disarm the opposition. Pro-lifers would be wise to see how calculating the president’s actions are  rather than mildly observing his statements as “most noteworthy.”

Don’t be surprised if at the end of the day if a “new” solution to conscience protections sounds like a compromise. However, in effect it will likely do little to enforce the spirit of existing laws.  Obama may in fact put in a rule protecting bans on compulsory abortions, but it is doubtful that there will be any  language putting teeth to the law.

Topics: abortion, conscience clause, obama, pope benedict XVI, vatican