Pro Ecclesia * Pro Familia * Pro Civitate: Deal Hudson's Open Letter to Doug Kmiec

Deal Hudson has penned an "open letter" to Doug Kmiec at InsideCatholic:

... Whether you intended to or not, you have become the Catholic poster boy (no slight intended) for Catholics for Obama, as was recently exemplified in your PBS interview and the TIME article on the Catholic vote by Amy Sullivan. The first two words of the article are “Doug Kmiec.”

This is a heavy burden to carry, and I am sure you have prayerfully and studiously considered your public role in the 2008 election. I had to reflect upon such issues in the 2000 and 2004 elections, so I know that you have contemplated that you will share responsibility for the consequences of Obama being elected president.

For example, when Sen. Obama promised a year ago, at a NARAL convention, that he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act, saying it would the “first thing” he did as president, doesn't that worry you about the depth of his commitment to “reducing abortions?”

That's looking forward, but when we look back at Sen. Obama's record on abortion, partial-birth abortion, and protecting infants born in spite of abortions, we see a politician firmly committed to protecting “abortion rights.” So committed is Obama on this issue that he voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act twice as an Illinois State senator and opposed it in committee all three years it was introduced.

I don't believe Sen. Obama when he says he will work to “reduce abortions.” This is not to say he has no compassion, but to recognize his compassion does not extend to the unborn, because he does not view them as human persons. As he said in 2003 on the floor of the Illinois legislature about why he opposed BAIPA:
Whenever we define a pre-viable fetus as a person that is protected by the Equal Protection Clause or the other elements in the Constitution, what we're really saying is, in fact, that they are persons that are entitled to the kinds of protections that would be provided to a -- a child, a 9-month old -- child that was delivered to term. That determination then, essentially, if it was accepted by a court, would forbid abortions to take place. I mean, it -- it would essentially bar abortions, because the Equal Protection Clause does not allow somebody to kill a child, and if this is a child, then this would be an anti-abortion statute.
If Sen. Obama has had a change of heart since 2003, or since his 2007 NARAL speech, then he should just say so; he should repudiate his votes against BAIPA and his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act.

His recent attempt to support some states’ limits on late-term abortions was better than nothing, as they say, but his subsequent back-peddling illustrated clearly his fear of alienating feminists and the pro-abortion lobby. What Obama says about abortion is another repackaged version of what pro-abortion Democrats, including many Catholics, have been saying for thirty years.

It’s precisely this kind of obfuscation on the key issue in politics – the inalienable right to life -- that I thought you and I both opposed.

As a Catholic jurist, you must surely have been disappointed, as I was, when Obama publicly refused to back the California marriage amendment. Judges, not legislators, have created gay marriage in the United States; the only way to stop judges from legislating is through the Federal Marriage Amendment or amendments to state constitutions.

Obama called the marriage amendment “divisive and discriminatory,” a view which I doubt you share. Frankly, I thought this statement gave you the opportunity to depart, gracefully, from the Obama campaign, but you didn’t take it...

[Read the whole thing]