Ladies and gentlemen of the central Oak Park chapter of Catholics and other Americans United for Separation of Abortion and Legality be seated. It's time once again to engage in our favorite pastime, playing God! (Cheers, applause from small group huddled in church basement.)
We gather as usual to say we know when the unborn acquire rights, even if Obama as candidate has professed ignorance in the matter. Above his pay grade, he said. Let us for the sake of argument say we're not sure either. Calling on an old but golden argument, let us consider what to do in such uncertainty, asking our president to join us.
It's the story of the deer hunter and his hired hand. Out in the woods, the two become separated. The hunter sees a deer, but does he? He's not sure. Is it a deer or his hired hand? The hunter makes a quick calculation. In a buyer's market, it's easier to find a new hired hand than to get a really good shot at a deer. "It's a no-brainer," says the hunter. He fires.
He rushes forward and sees what he bagged. A deer? Yippee. The hired helper? Oops. Like Drummer Hoff in the children's book, he fired off, and there before him laid his hired hand. He feels bad about it. But what was he to do? He didn't want to play God about it, now did he?
Enough of this meeting in a church basement and bringing Obama along for the ride. He's not interested anyhow. As a state senator, he argued and effectively voted against protecting born-alive aborted infants. At first he claimed he was protecting choice but later said the bill was redundant. Both arguments were highly questionable, if not mendacious. Neither carried water, but Obama was himself carrying water for Planned Parenthood, so it didn't matter.
Choice has been the rule since '73 - for women if not for voters, whom the Supreme Court disenfranchised in the matter. And now more Orwellian language comes to play, in the form of the once-dead Freedom of Choice Act, a top-drawer item for this president, shooting down restrictions and probably requiring Catholic hospitals to do abortions or shut down for lack of federal money. See what governmental largesse gets you? They whom the feds would control, they first give money. It's the road to serfdom, as Frederick Hayek argued 60 years ago.
In any case, those church basement people are off and running to oppose a resurgent FOCA, as many readers know. Parishes are sending off thousands of postcards to legislators - more than 300 from Oak Park's St. Edmund parish alone so far. Anti-FOCA sentiment is awakening the sleeping giant, Catholics and others, trying to persuade the nation to look before shooting and give infant life the benefit of a doubt.
Jim Bowman, an Oak Parker since childhood, covered religion for the Chicago Daily News from 1968 to its closing in 1978. He has written or co-authored seven books, mostly of corporate history but also about Catholic prayer and practice.
