Kmiec's Coming Out

When this began, Prof. Kmiec seemed to be someone who thought the war outweighed the abortion issue in this particular election. Which judgment I vigorously oppose, but concede he would have been within his rights qua Catholic.

Next he claimed that Obama's economic policies would create a more pro-life culture. Absurd.

Today he reveals he's "personally opposed, but...." First he makes this claim:

McCain's commitment, as he stressed in the debate, is to try to reverse Roe vs. Wade. But Republicans have been after this for decades, and the effort has not saved a single child.

which Robbie George eviscerated a few days ago.

But I almost cry for the Prof. Kmiec we once knew when I read this:

remember that when there are differences among religious creeds, none is entitled to be given preference in law or policy.

Sometimes the law must simply leave space for the exercise of individual judgment, because our religious or scientific differences of opinion are for the moment too profound to be bridged collectively. When these differences are great and persistent, as they unfortunately have been on abortion, the common political ideal may consist only of that space.

That's neat. First of all, the problem with Roe is that it epitomizes the very thing he's calling a mistake. By imposing the most liberal abortion regime in the West on a nation whose people support abortion only in the hard cases of life of the mother, rape & incest, the Court essentially denied the American people the "space" for debate, circumventing the political process in the states which would have helped us to "bridge the divide collectively."

Then he accepts the pro-abortion mantra that the belief that life begins at conception is religious.
I'm sorry, I must have missed it. Which holy book of which religion defines the beginning of life? But there are embryology textbooks which do. And sonograms. And You Tube.

Taking that turn, Kmiec now argues that enacting pro-life legislation or appointing judges who won't legislate from the bench would not be an expression of the will of the people using the means that people in representative government have for doing such things, but an unfair imposition of faith on unbelievers.

This from a law professor! If you can enact a law or elect a President who appoints a good judge, that is itself the sign of political agreement --of having persuaded enough of your fellow citizens into at least a loose "collective bridging of the divide."

Meanwhile, he asks people who believe all our rights founder if the law thinks one class of persons can control the right to life of another class of persons (in what other circumstances might the state eventually decide that principle holds? That seems to be the question of "bioethics," and the answer seems to be "quite a few") to support a man who promises his first act as President will be to undo all the laws that bridge the collective divide already --such as the partial birth abortion ban, the born alive infants protection act, and state laws such as the right to informed consent, parental consent laws, bans on transporting minors across state lines to procure abortions, etc., etc.

Tell Lena Horne to vote for Sheriff Clark why don't you? To advance race relations.

This is simply not a pro-life argument, it's a capitulation, a giving over of the principle that all men are created equal. If he really thinks the origins of life are an article of faith and not a demonstrable fact, he's given way. I shudder to think what his next statement will say.

Curtsy: The Corner