July 5, 2004
OBJECTIVELY ANTI-LIFE:
Kerry Says He Believes Life Starts at Conception (Jonathan Finer, July 5, 2004, Washington Post)
[E]ven as he tried to avoid making news Sunday, Kerry broke new ground in an interview that ran in the Dubuque, Iowa, Telegraph Herald. A Catholic who supports abortion rights and has taken heat from some in the church hierarchy for his stance, Kerry told the paper, "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception." [...]"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued in the interview. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."
One hardly looks to a man of the modern Left for moral reasoning, but the idea that the 1st Amendment excuses you from the obligations of conscience and even decency and requires you to accept what you yourself avow to be the murder of 40 million fellow citizens (and counting) is especially despicable. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 5, 2004 5:29 PM
He now appears to have flipped on abortion. Or perhpas it is a nuanced position to try and have it both ways. Either way it should hurt him with the NARAL crowd while it doesn't convince the pro-Life crowd. Or was this an attempt at a Sister Souljah moment?
Posted by: AWW at July 5, 2004 5:46 PMIf Kerry accepts the Catholic position on when life begins, but is unwilling to act on it, what OTHER Christian beliefs is he unwilling to act on? "Thou shalt not lie"? Are there ANY Christian beliefs that he is willing to act on? Or is expediency the highest virtue? What can one say about a man for whom political power is more important than his faith? That he has no moral compass. But we've seen it before; viz, Bill Clinton.
Posted by: Michael R. Coppock at July 5, 2004 5:54 PMI voted for it before I voted against it.
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at July 5, 2004 6:09 PMIt's not really a flip, it's simply a borrowing of Mario Cuomo's old bromide of "While I'm personally opposed to abortion..."
Cuomo used it for years to get around the contradiction between his Catholic upbringing and his actions (or inactions) as New York governor. Kerry's simply hoping the tactic that worked with New York voters will work just as well with enough voters in enough states to get him 270 electoral votes come November. Meanwhile, his backers will take his new-found belief about life beginning at conception with a wink and a nod, because they know he hasn't flipped in any meaningful way and will never do anything to upset their apple cart if he does win the presidency.
Posted by: John at July 5, 2004 6:13 PMHe's a Stephen A. Douglas for our times.
Posted by: Carter at July 5, 2004 7:00 PMForget abortion, what does this do to him on embryonic stem cells? "I believe that these embryos are human life, but I can't stop other people from killing them while doing experiments."
Posted by: David Cohen at July 5, 2004 7:07 PMFunny how people like Kerry and Cuomo are "personally" opposed to abortion, but can't do anything about it, but when it comes to an opposition to capital punishment, for example, they are under no such restrictions.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at July 5, 2004 7:18 PMThis is a bit too slick, even for Hanoi John: that human life begins at conception is not an "article of faith," like the Trinity, or the Incarnation. Rather, it is an inescapable moral conclusion derived from the present state of medical science and Western metaphysics. If a Hindu burns a widow or strangles a stranger in an offiring to the goddess of destruction, it is still objectively evil, without regard to what the actor may "believe."
Posted by: Lou Gots at July 6, 2004 9:51 PM