Prof. Robert George: Notion that Obama's Policies Will Reduce Abortion is "Delusional"

From LifeSiteNews:

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Those who think that Obama's economic policies will ultimately reduce abortions are "delusional." says Professor Robert George, director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

In remarks delivered at the Cardinal O'Connor Conference on Life last week and published in the Witherspoon Institute's online journal Public Discourse, George, a McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, explored the polarization of America's political parties over abortion. The rise of this issue to the forefront of party politics was sparked, he said, by the unified Christian effort to end injustice to the unborn - an effort that must not be derailed.

"Barack Obama is trying to win over religiously serious Catholics and Evangelicals, without altering in the slightest his support for abortion, including late-term and partial-birth abortions, the funding of abortion and embryo-destructive research with taxpayer dollars, the elimination of informed consent and parental notification laws, and the revocation of conscience and religious liberty protections for pro-life doctors and other healthcare workers and pharmacists." George wrote. "He will ultimately fail. We must see to it that he fails."

Nonetheless, George warned, Obama "is being served and abetted" by some high-profile Christians "who have been peddling the claim that Obama, despite his pro-abortion extremism, is effectively pro-life because of his allegedly enlightened economic and social policies will reduce the number of abortions.”

"This is delusional," said George.

***
"It is the pro-abortion side that tells us that the Hyde Amendment alone has resulted in 300,000 fewer abortions each year than would otherwise be performed - and that is why they so desperately want it to be repealed," he continued. "Yet the putatively pro-life Obama apologists claim that the man who pledges to repeal it is going to reduce the number of abortions.

"Let me say it again: this is delusional."

[More]

See also Deal Hudson's "Exposing the 'Abortion Reduction' Scam".


UPDATE
Let us recall that in his inexcusably despicable "tribute" to Fr. Neuhaus, Prof. Kmiec tried to ascribe the Obama position on "abortion reduction" to having also been the position of Fr. Neuhaus, as well. In the comments to Deal Hudson's piece linked above, Fr. George Rutler takes issue with Kmiec's bald assertion:

Mr. Kmiec's Active Imagination
January 26th, 2009 8:32pm

If Mr. Kmiec wants to drop a name, he should drop the right one. Father Neuhaus was sometimes called Father Richard, but to my knowledge no friend called him Father John. Kmiec's apophastic "tribute" to Father Neuhaus was tasteless. In an essay on Mr. Kmiec in the National Catholic Register (July 13-19, 2008), Father Neuhaus wrote: "... to say that (Obama’s) position is closer to a Catholic understanding of subsidiarity is, I am sorry to say, risible." He also wrote: " Mr. Kmiec claims his candidate wants to reduce the number of abortions by reducing the incidence of unwanted pregnancy, and he will do that by encouraging 'responsible sexual behavior.' One may be permitted to point out that four decades of sex education, including the massive promotion of contraception, has not been a great success in reducing unwanted pregnancies or abortions." Kmiec is not the only man who lost an argument with Father Neuhaus. Now that his opponent has died, Mr Kmiec should not try to win a second match through a seance of his own imagining.

Written by Rev. George W. Rutler

Touché.


Previous Pro Ecclesia posts on this subject:
Mark Stricherz: "Why the Democratic Abortion Strategy is Worse"