On the Morality of Abortion

Abortion Is Immoral: An Animated Roadmap of the Argument

Abort73.com

https://abort73.com/

The case for life

The Argument Against Abortion in 250 Words

By all means, preach a biblical view of human value. But students in local churches also need to know how to make an essential pro-life argument and convey it to non-Christians. The basic shape of that argument looks like this:

Premise #1: It is wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings.

Premise #2: Abortion intentionally kills innocent human beings.

Conclusion: Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.

Pro-life advocates defend that argument with science and philosophy.

We argue from science that the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. You didn’t come from an embryo; you once were an embryo.

We argue from philosophy that there is no relevant difference between you the embryo and you the adult that justifies killing you at that earlier stage of development. Differences of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now.

Comment: Compelling: Tweet thread 1, thread 2

It won't ... but this should give abortionists pause

Girl believed to be tiniest newborn weighed as much as apple https://t.co/xCYDFGTa5u

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) May 30, 2019

On "When An #Abortion Doctor Becomes a Mother"

"Compartmentalization" is exactly what the Nazi extermination camp guards did!https://t.co/MJt3rav94J@nytimes pic.twitter.com/B5W5Iox5k6

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) June 27, 2019

Body Inside My Body https://t.co/yFDXoi5AaA via @YouTube

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) August 23, 2019

https://t.co/8wbmYjCWJQ

.@Ill_Mindst8

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) September 16, 2019

#AbortionIsMurder Abortion: It isn’t the pro-life movement that wants fewer black and Hispanic babies born.https://t.co/R17RDtald1 pic.twitter.com/NSinAylIID

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) September 3, 2019

https://t.co/fz1JFuM5og

— 𝓙𝓲𝓶 𝓟𝓮𝓮𝓽 (@jrpeet) September 5, 2019

On killing creatures and humans

Image above: Theodore Roosevelt with rino

I killed a spider this week and it was entirely by accident. Here in my easy chair I felt something crawling on my right ankle. Because of my partial paralysis,  all of my body below my mid-chest is feeling impaired and my right side has less feeling than my left. But I felt this thing ... I didn't know what it was but I crushed with my left foot. I looked down at the crushed mass and said to Kathee ... "there was something crawling on my leg". She came by (it was just before dinner) and with a tissue swiped the eraser sized clump off my leg. She examined it (I don't know why) and said "whatever it was it had legs".

I am not spider adverse! Several weeks ago someone gifted me with a nicely potted Azalea. From that pot on the center island of our kitchen, a small jumping spider emerged. I saw it several times on the countertop and let it live. I got close and watched it's bold reaction ... wary of the giant but not afraid. How could I kill it?!

One summer week at Boy Scout camp I coexisted with a Black Widow spider in my tent. I reasoned that as long as it didn't bother me, I wouldn't  bother it ... but I did pray quite a bit for safety and I was very careful entering and exiting the tent! Image source.

To be very Dexter-like, I purposely killed this week! I crushed a silver fish on the bathroom wall! Generally if bugs are outside ... they live! Inside the house ... they die! Spiders are exempted inside unless they are on my body! See Bert and Ernie.

More on killing: Across on on the wall from where I am now typing is the head of an antelope. My brother killed it and I ate it ... or at least the good parts of it. No one is protesting at my residence or forcing me into hiding. (Consider the case of Walter Palmer)

I am actually adverse to killing most things. Not that I haven't. I've run over at least one raccoon and probably a dozen squirrels. I really try to avoid squirrels but they seem to be somewhat suicidal. They appear to wait by the side of the road ... then dart out before the vehicle ... then stop and wait and turn around. Truth be told, the night long ago (in my early twenties) when I hit the raccoon I actually felt very badly and even cried a bit. Squirrels? I feel somewhat badly but no tears. Perhaps in another generation or two they will learn to watch carefully and dart in a straight line without turning back.

I stop for ducklings by the way ... although MNDOT says I should not!

 I've killed other things:

• In my teen-aged years I used to shoot at birds with my trusty Daisy Model 25. One day I struck and killed a bird. It bothered me and I cried a bit. I regret that action and never shot at a bird again
• Near my Uncle's house in Michigan we use to shoot at rats at the dump with his 22 pistol. It's not easy to kill rats at a distance, but I did kill some and it never bothered me a bit!
• Several summers ago I killed a young rabbit with my mower. I don't believe I struck it, I think the roar of the whirling blades scared it to death. I stopped and examined it. It was lifeless but still warm. I wished I could have breathed the breath of life back into it.
• Someone kills the chickens, pigs and cattle that I love to eat. In my childhood I watched grandma and grandpa chop the heads off chickens. I prefer eating them to killing them myself but I know someone does it.

This conversation raises some ethical questions that demand pondering:

• The killing of the silverfish? If morally right why?
• The killing of Cecil? If morally wrong why?
• The killing of chickens (I am thinking of the very cute Chik Fil A billboards)? Right or wrong? Why? Image source. 

And of course in the recent news is the horrific fetus dismembering and selling of body parts by Planned Parenthood and our President's comments on same. 

I suggest that abortion is so very wrong, so morally reprehensible, each act a Nazi-like atrocity because human beings are image bearers and that killing is forbidden by the moral law of God our Creator!

MLK niece: Black people are murdering themselves

Dr. Alveda King tells students of modern day black genocide

Excerpt:

My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., once said, “No one is going to kill a child of mine.” Tragically, two of his grandchildren had already been aborted when he saved the life of his next great-grandson with this statement. His son, King once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. The mother decides his or her fate.

Comment: Abortion violates the 6th commandment: "Thou shalt not murder" (Exodus 20:13). More on (and image source): Alveda King

When John Piper took an abortionist out to lunch

We Know They Are Killing Children—All of Us Know
Excerpt:

I took an abortionist out to lunch once, prepared to give him ten reasons why the unborn are human beings. He stopped me, and said, “I know that. We are killing children.” I was stunned. He said, “It’s simply a matter of justice for women. It would be a greater evil to deny women the equal right of reproductive freedom.” Which means women should be no more encumbered by the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy than men. That equal freedom from the burden of bearing unwanted children is the basis for abortion that President Obama refers to again and again when he talks about equal rights for women. We know we are killing children.

Comment: Aren't you glad your Mother didn't abort you!

"These are areas that are 'intrinsically evil'"

A Letter from Bishop David Ricken: An Important Moment

Excerpt:

It is almost time to vote and to make our choices for president and other political offices both local and national. You have often heard it said that this is a turning point in our country's history and I could not agree more.

The Church is not a political organism, but as you hopefully have learned in the US Bishops Faithful Citizenship material (which we have made widely available to you in the parishes, in the Compass and on-line), the Church has the responsibility to speak out regarding moral issues, especially on those issues that impact the "common good" and the "dignity of the human person."

I would like to review some of the principles to keep in mind as you approach the voting booth to complete your ballot. The first is the set of non-negotiables. These are areas that are "intrinsically evil" and cannot be supported by anyone who is a believer in God or the common good or the dignity of the human person.

They are:

1. abortion
2. euthanasia
3. embryonic stem cell research
4. human cloning
5. homosexual "marriage"

These are intrinsically evil. A well-formed Christian conscience does not permit one to vote for a political program that contradicts fundamental contents of faith and morals. Intrinsically evil actions are those which have an evil object. In other words, an act is evil by its very nature and to choose an action of this type puts one in grave moral danger.

Comment: I'm not a Catholic but I agree!

An abortionist's regret: "We see the child’s mouth open in a silent scream"

B. N. Nathanson, 84, Dies; Changed Sides on Abortion

Excerpt:

Dr. Nathanson, an obstetrician-gynecologist practicing in Manhattan, helped found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 1969 and served as its medical adviser.

After abortion was legalized in New York in 1970, he became the director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, which, in his talks as an abortion opponent, he often called “the largest abortion clinic in the Western world.”

In a widely reported 1974 article in The New England Journal of Medicine, “Deeper into Abortion,” Dr. Nathanson described his growing moral and medical qualms about abortion. “I am deeply troubled by my own increasing certainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths.”

His unease was intensified by the images made available by the new technologies of fetoscopy and ultrasound.

“For the first time, we could really see the human fetus, measure it, observe it, watch it, and indeed bond with it and love it,” he later wrote in “The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind” (Regnery Publishing, 1996). “I began to do that.”

Despite his misgivings, and his conviction that abortion on demand was wrong, he continued to perform abortions for reasons he deemed medically necessary.

“On a gut, emotional level, I still favored abortion,” he told New York magazine in 1987. “It represented all the things we had fought for and won. It seemed eminently more civilized than the carnage that had gone on before.”

But, he added, “it was making less and less sense to me intellectually.”

In addition to the 60,000 abortions performed at the clinic, which he ran from 1970 to 1972, he took responsibility for 5,000 abortions he performed himself, and 10,000 abortions performed by residents under his supervision when he was the chief of obstetrical services at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan from 1972 to 1978.

He did his last procedure in late 1978 or early 1979 on a longtime patient suffering from cancer and soon embarked on a new career lecturing and writing against abortion.

“The Silent Scream,” a 28-minute film produced by Crusade for Life, was released in early 1985. In it, Dr. Nathanson described the stages of fetal development and offered commentary as a sonogram showed, in graphic detail, the abortion of a 12-week-old fetus by the suction method.

“We see the child’s mouth open in a silent scream,” he said, as the ultrasound image, slowed for dramatic impact, showed a fetus seeming to shrink from surgical instruments. “This is the silent scream of a child threatened imminently with extinction.”

Comment: I really know nothing about this man except from the Silent Screen connection. Perhaps he is at peace with God.

Who are the barbarians?

The Visigothic Code

Comment: From The Visigothic Code Book VI: Concerning Crimes and Tortures - Title III: Concerning Abortion

Excerpt:

No depravity is greater than that which characterizes those who, unmindful of their parental duties wilfully deprive their children of life, and, as this crime is said to be increasing throughout the provinces of our kingdom and as men as well as women are said to be guilty of it; therefore, by way of correcting such license, we hereby decree that if either a freewoman or a slave should kill her child before, or after its birth; or should take any potion for the purpose of producing abortion, or should use any other means of putting an end to the life of her child, the judge of the province or district, as soon as he is advised of the fact, shall at once condemn the author of the crime to execution in public; or should he desire to spare her life, he shall at once cause her eyesight to be completely destroyed; and if it should be proved that her husband either ordered, or permitted the commission of this crime, he shall suffer the same penalty

On the sack of Rome in 410 by the Visigoths

Bishop: Pro-abortion Kennedy's "false advertising"

Rep. Kennedy and Bishop in Bitter Rift on Abortion

Excerpt:

Bishop Tobin stepped up his public rebuke of Mr. Kennedy, accusing him Wednesday of “false advertising” for describing himself as a Catholic and saying he should not receive holy communion because he supports using taxpayer money for abortions.

“If you freely choose to be a Catholic, it means you believe certain things, you do certain things,” Bishop Tobin said on WPRO, a Providence radio station. “If you cannot do all that in conscience, then you should perhaps feel free to go somewhere else.”

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has lobbied forcefully against including federal financing for abortion in the health care legislation, and Bishop Tobin, who has led the Catholic Church in Rhode Island since 2005, has been a vocal participant.

His conflict with Mr. Kennedy — an unusually personal example of the pressure Catholic bishops are bringing to bear on the health care debate — started last month, when Mr. Kennedy, a Democrat in his eighth term, questioned why the church had vowed to fight any health care bill that did not explicitly ban the use of public money for abortions.

In an interview with Cybercast News Service on Oct. 21, Mr. Kennedy said he could not understand “how the Catholic Church could be against the biggest social justice issue of our time,” adding that its stance was fanning “flames of dissent and discord.”

The next day, Bishop Tobin called the comments “irresponsible and ignorant of the facts” and Mr. Kennedy “a disappointment” to the church.

Comment: The pro-abortion (they call themselves' "pro-life") Catholic congressmen should just be honest and quit the Catholic church. Or perhaps the Catholic church should excommunicate them!

healthcare reform plan--as currently written--would result in the largest expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade

A Supremely stunning admission

Justice Ginsburg Says She Originally Thought Roe v. Wade Was Designed to Limit 'Populations That We Don’t Want to Have Too Many Of'

Excerpt:

Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the Court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.”

Comment: You would think that Ginburg, being a Jew!, would find that comment appallingly Nazi-like! Per this website: "Several years ago, when 17,000 aborted babies were found in a dumpster outside a pathology laboratory in Los, Angeles, California, some 12-15,000 were observed to be black. Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion. On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States."

This is not "Victory"

Murdered Doctor’s Clinic Is Shuttered

Excerpt:

The clinic of Dr. George R. Tiller, in Wichita, had been one of a few in the country to provide abortions to women late in their pregnancies, and for decades, women had traveled there from all over the nation and overseas. The office, Women’s Health Care Services Inc., was also the state’s only remaining clinic, even for abortions performed early in pregnancy, outside the Kansas City area.

“Notice is being given today to all concerned that the Tiller family is ceasing operation of the clinic and any involvement by family members in any other similar clinic,” a statement issued by Dr. Tiller’s lawyers read. The lawyers said they would offer no additional comments.

Suspect claims 'victory' in closing of slain doctor's clinic

Excerpt:

An anti-abortion activist suspected in the death of Kansas doctor George Tiller told CNN on Tuesday the closing of Tiller's women's clinic is "a victory for all the unborn children."

Scott Roeder, 51, would not admit to CNN's Ted Rowlands that he killed Tiller, who was gunned down at his church May 31. But he said if he is convicted in Tiller's slaying, "the entire motive was the defense of the unborn."

Tiller's family said Tuesday the clinic he headed will permanently close, effective immediately, and they would issue no more statements. At the time Roeder was interviewed Tuesday, word of the permanent closure had not come out -- but when told the clinic had been shuttered since Tiller's death, he said, "Good."

Roeder said the closure would mean "no more slicing and dicing of the unborn child in the mother's womb and no more needles of poison into the baby's heart to stop the heart from beating, and no more partial-birth abortions."

Comment: It is not victory because not morally won!

“Conservative hate speech”?

Doctor’s Killer Is Not Alone in the Blame, Some Say

Excerpt:

Within nine hours of Dr. Tiller’s death, Salon magazine had catalogued references to him on 29 episodes of “The O’Reilly Factor” from 2005 to 2009. In one, Mr. O’Reilly talks about him and the lawmakers who supported his “business of destruction,” saying, “I wouldn’t want to be these people if there is a Judgment Day.”

Bloggers quickly found new examples of Mr. O’Reilly’s condemnation of Dr. Tiller. A commenter on Daily Kos noted that Mr. O’Reilly once sent a producer to ambush the doctor at his home in Kansas. After the producer told him that some people called him a “baby killer,” the doctor tried to leave his house and called 911. The camera crew ended the confrontation.

On Monday, Media Matters for America, a left-wing group that catalogs what it calls “conservative hate speech,” published a 2006 clip from Mr. O’Reilly’s radio show in which he said, “If I could get my hands on Tiller,” followed quickly by: “Well, you know. Can’t be vigilantes. Can’t do that. It’s just a figure of speech.”

Mr. O’Reilly draws wide attention because he has ranked as the top-rated host on cable news for the past seven years. Inherent in the criticism were questions about media responsibility; the blogger Andrew Sullivan suggested that the case “could be the end to O’Reilly’s dangerous, demonizing game.”

On Monday night, Mr. O’Reilly rejected those questions, saying instead that “far-left zealots” and “Fox News haters” were exploiting Dr. Tiller’s death by taking aim at his commentary. Citing estimates published by The Washington Times that Dr. Tiller had performed 60,000 abortions, he wondered why his critics were not writing about “the 60,000 fetuses who will never become American citizens.”

The exhaustive blog posts and video montages of Mr. O’Reilly’s comments about Dr. Tiller were rooted, analysts said, in a familiar yearning to assign blame, particularly in the fierce debate over abortion.

Burt Neuborne, a professor of law at New York University and a former legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, said that while the debate was not new, “the ability to technologically call up snippets of speech” is.

Mr. Neuborne said that a commentator’s language, no matter how colorful, generally cannot be treated as an incitement unless it directly instructs individuals to commit violence.

Comment: I'm not a Bill O’Reilly (I don't think I've watched one broadcast all the way through and in the last handful of years have not watched him at all) fan. But his speech is protected under the first amendment. My own thoughts on the murder of Dr Tiller are expressed here: In unqualified terms: the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder!

Text of first amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Wingnuts and the Abortion issue

Kan. abortion doc killed in church; suspect held

Excerpt:

WICHITA, Kan. – Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.

The gunman fled, but a 51-year-old suspect was detained some 170 miles away in suburban Kansas City three hours after the shooting, Wichita Deputy Police Chief Tom Stolz said.

Although Stolz refused to release the man's name, Johnson County sheriff's spokesman Tom Erickson identified the detained man as Scott Roeder. He has not been charged in the slaying and was expected to be taken to Wichita for questioning.

There was no immediate word of the motive Tiller's assailant. But the doctor's violent death was the latest in a string of shootings and bombings over two decades directed against abortion clinics, doctors and staff.

Long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot in the foyer of Reformation Lutheran Church, Stolz said. Tiller's attorney, Dan Monnat, said Tiller's wife, Jeanne, was in the choir at the time.

Comment: I believe that life begins at conception, that life is sacred, and that abortion is wrong! But violence against abortion providers is absolutely the wrong solution!

Joe Biden on when life begins

Comment: HT: DowBlog

Nancy Pelosi tries (and fails) as a Theologian

Excerpt:

Politics can be treacherous. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walked on even riskier ground in a recent TV interview when she attempted a theological defense of her support for abortion rights.

Roman Catholic bishops consider her arguments on St. Augustine and free will so far out of line with church teaching that they have issued a steady stream of statements to correct her.

The latest came Wednesday from Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who said Pelosi, D-Calif., "stepped out of her political role and completely misrepresented the teaching of the Catholic Church in regard to abortion."

It has been a harsh week of rebuke for the Democratic congresswoman, a Catholic school graduate who repeatedly has expressed pride in and love for her religious heritage.

Cardinals and archbishops in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Denver are among those who have criticized her remarks. Archbishop George Niederauer, in Pelosi's hometown of San Francisco, will take up the issue in the Sept. 5 edition of the archdiocesan newspaper, his spokesman said.

Sunday, on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, Pelosi said "doctors of the church" have not been able to define when life begins.

She also cited the role of individual conscience. "God has given us, each of us, a free will and a responsibility to answer for our actions," she said.

Brendan Daly, a spokesman for Pelosi, said in a statement defending her remarks that she "fully appreciates the sanctity of family" and based her views on conception on the "views of Saint Augustine, who said, 'The law does not provide that the act (abortion) pertains to homicide, for there cannot yet be said to be a live soul in a body that lacks sensation.'"

But whether or not parishioners choose to accept it, the theology on the procedure is clear. From its earliest days, Christianity has considered abortion evil.

"This teaching has remained unchanged and remains unchangeable," according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

The Rev. Douglas Milewski, a Seton Hall University theologian who specializes in Augustine, said Pelosi seems to be confusing church teaching on abortion with the theological debate over when a fetus receives a soul.

"Saint Augustine wondered about the stages of human development before birth, how this related to the question of ensoulment and what it meant for life in the Kingdom of God," Milewski said.

Questions about ensoulment related to determining penalties under church law for early and later abortions, not deciding whether the procedure is permissible, according to the U.S. Bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Augustine was "quite clear on the immorality of abortion as evil violence, destructive of the very fabric of human bonds and society," Milewski said.

Advice for Nancy: "‘Get thee to a nunnery.’" (and we will throw way the key!)

Nancy Pelosi: Another Catholic who doesn't know when life begins

Washington archbishop rips Pelosi on abortion

Excerpt:

In a rare public rebuke of a top politician, the archbishop of Washington said Monday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was incorrect when she recently said the moment of conception has long been a matter of controversy within the Catholic Church.

In a release issued Monday night, Washington Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl said Pelosi's comments on "Meet the Press" on Sunday "were incorrect."

Wuerl noted that Pelosi responded to a question on when life begins by mentioning she was Catholic.

The release quoted Pelosi as saying the church has not been able to come with a definition of when life begins.

“After Mr. Tom Brokaw, the interviewer, pointed out that the Catholic Church feels strongly that life begins at conception, she replied, 'I understand. And this is, like, maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue of controversy,' " the release said.

Wuerl strongly disagrees.

He said, "We respect the right of elected officials such as Speaker Pelosi to address matters of public policy that are before them, but the interpretation of Catholic faith has rightfully been entrusted to the Catholic bishops. Given this responsibility to teach, it is important to make this correction for the record."

Wuerl pointed out that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear, and has been clear for 2,000 years. He cited Catechism language that reads, "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception … Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law.”

Biden, his Catholicism, abortion, and the Bishop

About Biden, let's ask the right questions well

Excerpt:

Canon 916 directs Catholics who are conscious of being in grave sin, regardless of whether that grave sin is known publicly, to refrain from taking holy Communion. Biden, like any other Catholic, is expected to examine his conscience in light of Church teaching prior to approaching the Eucharist and, if he finds himself wanting, to reform his behavior accordingly

Biden's Catholic faith offers risks, rewards

Excerpt:

One outspoken prelate, Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput, said in statement to The Associated Press that Biden should refrain from taking Communion because of his stance.

Denver Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput

Quoting him:

Well, I have a responsibility as a bishop to clearly proclaim the Gospel in its entirety, even when people don’t want me to do that, and even when it’s difficult. So I wouldn’t claim to be particularly courageous, but I feel responsible. And if I don’t speak on the issues that I think the Lord calls me to speak, I feel guilty about that. So for me to be quiet on these issues would have been a harder burden for me to carry, perhaps, than speaking about it. Actually, I mentioned two reasons why I wrote the book. One is some Catholic political folks asked me to, people who ran for office, and were having struggles because of that. But more importantly, I’ve grown tired of so many people in our culture saying to believers that they ought to be quiet, that there’s no place in the public square for the voice of faith. I wanted to make a distinction between separation of Church and state, and separating our faith from our politics. You can embrace the concept of separation of Church and state, but that’s not at all the same thing as separating our faith from our actions, from our political actions.

MORE / Updated

Archbishop scolds pro-choice Biden

But the party's hopes of winning the critical Catholic vote took a hit Sunday when Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver said Mr. Biden should avoid taking Communion as a result of his pro-choice stand on abortion.

Archbishop Chaput, who was scheduled to lead a pro-life candlelight vigil Monday night here in front of Planned Parenthood, called Mr. Biden's support for abortion rights "seriously wrong," said archdiocese spokeswoman Jeanette De Melo.

"I certainly presume his good will and integrity," said the archbishop, "and I presume that his integrity will lead him to refrain from presenting himself for Communion if he supports a false 'right' to abortion."

The archbishop, who was not invited to speak at any convention events in what appeared to be a deliberate snub, told the Associated Press that he would like to speak privately with Mr. Biden.

Noonan: Obama's views "strange and disturbing"

They're Paying Attention Now

Excerpt:

As to the question when human life begins, the answer to which is above Mr. Obama's pay grade, oh, let's go on a little tear. You know why they call it birth control? Because it's meant to stop a birth from happening nine months later. We know when life begins. Everyone who ever bought a pack of condoms knows when life begins.

To put it another way, with conception something begins. ....

If you want to argue whether legal abortion is morally defensible, have at it and go to it, but Mr. Obama's answers here seemed to me strange and disturbing.

Comment: She likes McCain (read the whole article).