PrintOctober 22, 2008
Obama's Culture of Death and the Catholic Vote
"Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. There may be legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not... with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
- Pope Benedict XVI
Most analysts agree that it will not be possible for Barack Obama to win this election without the votes of the majority of Catholic voters. Measured at approximately 25% of the American electorate, Catholic voters often determine electoral outcomes in a number of important battleground states. And overall, the candidate who garners the majority of their votes, wins the national election.
According to polling data internals, the Catholic vote is still absolutely up for grabs. It's currently split right about down the middle.
And Barack Obama has made no secret of his intention to override the Pope's authority in seeking the Catholic vote. Obama contends that the other matters of "social justice," like global poverty and ending war are on an equal footing with the matters of life -- abortion and euthanasia, particularly.
Not only do Barack Obama's positions on human life issues lie in absolute contradiction with Pope Benedict XVI, his positions are the most radical of any post-Roe candidate ever to seek the Presidency. Far more radical than Bill Clinton, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.
Obama has at least been forthright in proclaiming that the very first thing he will do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which codifies Roe in national law and strikes down every single protective restriction to abortion in all 50 states, including parental notification and partial-birth abortion bans.
And 35 years of valiant pro-life work to provide even the most meager protections for our unborn citizens go... Poof!
Once the Freedom of Choice Act is passed and signed into law, no Catholic doctor will be allowed to refuse abortion services on account of conscience. No hospital, Catholic or otherwise, will be permitted to opt out of the genocide. And taxpayers will be required to pay for the abortions of all women who can't afford them. These are sad realities, but they are indeed included in this Act.
Doesn't anyone recall how the Germans operated their genocide camps?
No individual conscience allowed.
If that isn't enough to help Catholics make up their minds, then perhaps a review of Barack Obama's Illinois Senate votes regarding infanticide will do the trick.
Obama's Votes Protected the Routine Practice of Infanticide
When Barack Obama was a state senator in Illinois, the matter of infanticide was brought to prominent attention in Chicago. It started with one infant survivor of a botched abortion and one nurse.
What if a baby happens to survive (some would say "miraculously") attempts by the abortionist to kill him?
The issue of what to do with babies who inconveniently survived the abortionist's killing skill was raised in Illinois while Barack Obama was a state senator there.
Jill Stanek, a nurse in a Chicago hospital performing abortions, brought the issue to the forefront after she held a dying-infant survivor for the hour it took the little one to die. Standard procedure had called for the baby to be placed in a soiled utility closet with the other medical waste, but Stanek couldn't stand this, so she cradled the infant in her arms instead.
Afterward, she set out to determine how on earth throwing babies out with the trash had become a "standard procedure" in this One Nation under God.
Reporter, Dennis Byrne, investigated Stanek's story for the Chicago Sun Times in 1999, and was horrified at his findings. He had expected the hospital to deny its procedure of putting live babies out with the trash. Instead he learned Ms. Stanek's story was not only true, but that the hospital didn't even regard this as problematic. Then Ms. Stanek got her state representative to have her story formally investigated by the Attorney General of Illinois.
Barack Obama's explanation for his refusal to vote for the Born Alive Infants Protection Act is that there was already a law in Illinois which offered the same protections to infants surviving abortions. He has repeated this lie many times, and members of the press have repeated it for him. He even brought it up again in the last debate a week ago.
There was no such law, as confirmed by Illinois' Attorney General Ryan on July 27, 2000:
"On December 6, IDPH provided this office with its investigative report and advised us that IDPH's internal review (of Christ Hospital procedures) did not include a violation of the Hospital Licensing Act or the Vital Records Act. No other allegations or medical evidence to support any statutory violation (including the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act about which you inquired) were referred to our office by the Department for prosecution...While we are deeply respectful of your serious concerns about the practices and methods of abortions at this hospital, we have concluded that there is no basis for legal action by this office against the Hospital or its employees, agents or staff at this time."
There was no protective law in place in Illinois, as Barack Obama has steadfastly maintained. If there had been, then Nurse Stanek's report and the ensuing investigation would have brought it to light. And certainly the state's Attorney General would have known about it.
Obama's votes were in keeping with his pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
During the years when the infanticide controversy was roiling in Chicago, due to the heroic efforts of Nurse Jill Stanek, Jeremiah Wright had just completed his tenure on Christ Hospital's board of directors. In fact, a number of folks with close ties to Trinity were receiving their paychecks from the hospital owned and operated by the church's parent denomination, United Churches of Christ.
A more bitter blasphemy, I simply cannot imagine. Talk about using the Lord's name in the propagation of evil.
A few unearthed tidbits from the nurse who brought these infanticides to public view:
- From 1986 to 1989, Wright served on the board of directors of Evangelical Health Systems, Christ Hospital's parent company. In 1995, EHS merged to create Advocate Health Care, controlled jointly by the United Church of Christ and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, both pro-abortion.
- TUCC is a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
- In 1999, I discovered babies were being aborted alive at Christ Hospital. I testified before a Congressional committee in 2000 and 2001. I was fired in 2001. Obama opposed IL's Born Alive Infant Protection Act in 2001, 2002, and 2003.
- Christ Hospital's CEO throughout that time, Carole Schneider, was a UCC member.
- One prominent Advocate board member then and now is Rev. Dr. Ozzie Smith, Jr., a former associate pastor at TUCC under Wright.
- TUCC was listed in 2004 as the U.S.'s largest UCC church. Advocate is the largest nonprofit healthcare provider in Chicago. A crossroads of power and money.
So, we now not only know that Senator Obama lied about his votes in the Illinois State Senate regarding the matter of the anti-infanticide legislation brought to the fore in 2001, 2002 and 2003, but we also know that he had the ear of persons whom we citizens might refer to as lobbyists.
Time for Catholics to Choose
Here we are a mere 2 weeks from the Presidential election, with the Catholic vote a decisive factor. For months now, our mainstream media have colluded to maintain Obama's cover up of the most heinous anti-life stance and voting record of any post-Roe candidate ever.
As for me and my Catholic vote, I would sooner cast it for Satan himself than Barack Obama.
There isn't much evidence that any Obama deed has ever actually helped a single poor person, but there is a whole heap of evidence that he is a whole-hearted, unreserved champion of the Culture of Death. The abortion genocide has already claimed the lives of 48,000,000 innocent human beings.
If that's not enough to sway the votes of Catholics, perhaps they need to consider a different faith altogether.
Kyle-Anne Shiver is an independent journalist and a frequent contributor to American Thinker. She blogs at kyleanneshiver.com.
