PrintSeptember 13, 2008
Obama and Life
One clever way to skirt a loaded question is to simply plead ignorance and yield to a higher (and preferably not easily accessible) authority that is deemed more qualified to probe the deeper nuances necessarily inherent in the best possible answer. This is what Obama, the master rhetorician, -- who is more and more finding himself having to parse and explain the substance and intent of his once bewitching prose -- was allegedly trying to convey, when he responded to a particular question dealing with the issue of abortion, by stating that answering the question was above his pay grade.
Thankfully, Obama did explain later, albeit in no less inscrutable parlance, what his rather glib answer was meant to imply. In doing so, he actually boasted of a certain kind of humility (a virtual impossibility except for those of messianic descent) born of his professed deep devotion to Jesus Christ. A humility -- he claimed -- that barred him from arriving at a definitive answer to the more substantive matter involving the cosmic junction at which the soul supposedly becomes an integral part of our humanity, and our progressive society so magnanimously confers upon us the status of personhood, thus granting us a claim to the inviolable right to exist.
What Obama implied is that it takes a special kind of arrogance for any mortal to presume that he knows when this spiritual quickening ensues. But it is doubtful that he would be so naïve as to not realize that in the minds of those whom he was catering to with his answer, this divinely appointed moment when the soul enters -- and for that matter also departs from the body -- should be strictly defined through judicial fiat on a case by case basis, and those thereby authorized to make such decisions should be allowed some flexibility to prescribe when this momentous fusion -- or separation - transpires, whether it takes place anywhere between the time the ovum is fertilized and the digestive system is no longer able to process solid foods without the aid of a feeding tube.
Needless to say, the very act of aborting a nascent life -- or hastening an unscheduled departure from post-natal existence -- shows that we have arbitrarily decreed what the cutoff point is, by assuming either the delayed advent or the presumed departure of that entity we call the soul. But since we have not -- in reality -- been afforded the privilege of knowing when the soul has actually "signed a lease" or crossed the threshold onto its final journey, would it not be better to err on the side of true humility rather than presume on our ignorance and tear down the soul's physical residence, despite the fact that the latter clearly manifests a host of vital signs?
I submit that this alleged certainty about the discernible absence of what constitutes the core of our being, which gives us license to safely dispose of that frail shell we call our bodies, is precluded by a similar if not greater arrogance than that which Obama has displayed in his refusal to face the question head on. Thus what he tried to pass as humility and the sensitivity to his hearer's interest in brevity is nothing more than rank intellectual dishonesty.
But while Obama may not know at which point the soul enters the human body -- which is surprising for a man who claims that soon after he is elected he will assist the almighty in averting the imminent global deluge -- he must at least be fully aware of the not so nuanced scientific facts surrounding when life does begin in the womb.
The fact is that Obama is far from interested in wrestling with the moral conundrum posed by the subject of abortion, and even less interested in allowing this controversial issue to disturb his serenity during campaign season, especially now that his opponent's running mate has become such a formidable threat against the pro-abortion movement.
Thus the reason why Obama so cunningly tried to sidestep the question, by merely regurgitating pro-choice rhetoric and claiming he was far too humble and not sufficiently qualified to address it, was primarily to avoid offending his base, the majority of which consists of people who believe that children -- often referred to in the good book as a blessing from the almighty -- can just as easily be viewed as a form of punishment for the unforgivable transgression of an unplanned pregnancy. One would think Obama would pay more than lip service to the faith which he claims warranted the false humility he appealed to as a bona fide disclaimer for not answering the question in the first place.
