EDITORIAL: Governor Kaine, On Abortion 'A Crime Can Never Be Turned into a Right!'

It is NEVER compassionate to fail to hear the cry of the poorest of the poor, those who have no voice of their own. It never serves the common good to legalize the taking of innocent human life. A Crime can never be turned into a Right.

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - As I write this article, Senator Barack Obama will soon appear at a Town Hall meeting less than two miles from my home in Chesapeake, Virginia at Oscar Smith High School. In fact, the crowds are so large that cars are being parked on the public streets even this far away.

The Campaigns' visit to our City is one of four campaign stops Senator Obama is making to Virginia as he makes a full court press to win over the Commonwealth for his candidacy and his Party and comes closer to announcing who he has chosen to run with him as a Vice Presidential candidate.

Senator Obama has been appearing all day with the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Tim Kaine. Governor Kaine is a Catholic Christian with a distinguished background of public service. He also served as a young man with the Jesuits in missionary work in Honduras.

He is a very likeable man and a very popular Governor. He is strongly rumored to be on the so called "short list" of those whom the Democratic candidate is considering. Perhaps, by the time this article appears on Catholic Online, the decision will have been made, one way or another, as to whether Governor Kaine will be chosen.

It is crystal clear that Senator Obama has a serious problem with Catholics, other Christians, and many other people of faith and good will over his unqualified support of the so called "Abortion right" in current American law. He is clearly the most avowedly "Pro-Choice" (I prefer Wrong Choice) candidate in American history.

His answers to Rev. Rick Warren at the Saddleback Civil Forum removed the veneer of civility he used to try to use to cover over his horrid record on this foundational human rights concern. He clearly does not believe that children in the first home of the womb are our neighbors and have a right to life which should be protected by the State.

It is also clear that the candidate is losing what little ground he may have gained among Catholics precisely because the truth concerning his record on this fundamental human rights issue is being exposed repeatedly.

So, in the "trial balloons" being sent up by the campaign, there are several Catholics in consideration for the number two spot on the Democratic ticket. However, if Senator Obama chooses a Catholic, there is a worse political problem he may face. If he tries resuscitating his failed attempt to claim that he recognizes there is a "moral issue" involved in the abortion discussion by choosing a Catholic who is also wrong on this fundamental human rights concern, it will be worse for him.

Governor Tim Kaine is not like Kansas Governor Katherine Sebellius, an openly dissident Catholic also rumored as being considered by Senator Obama. During her campaign for Governor she counted among her supporters notorious late term abortionist George Tiller! Her public support of unrestricted abortion as a "right" has properly earned her the public ecclesial reprimand of her Bishop.

No, Governor Tim Kaine takes the 'Mario Cuomo' doublespeak approach (personally opposed but...) to abortion,but with a unique use of the popular term "faith based". He says he has a "faith based opposition" to the taking of innocent human lives in the first home of the whole human race. However, he has made it very clear in his governing that will not support legal efforts to stop the killing. He says wants to reduce the number of children killed by having less born.

Some reading my comments today will accuse me of "single issue" politics. To them I insist that right to life is not a single issue; it is a foundation for how we understand human freedom. It is a test of how we understand our obligations in solidarity to the poor. It is a lens through which we must examine all of our claims of compassion.

Without the right to life there are no other rights and the entire infrastructure of rights is thrown into jeopardy. Rights become the exclusive province of the more powerful who can make the so called "choice" to take your life. If we do not hear the cry of those whom Mother Teresa rightly called "the poorest of the poor", those in the womb who have no voice but ours, then our claims of concern for the poor and our claim of compassion for them are selective. We will care about only those poor whom we find to be convenient.We will select who is our neighbor.

Even if you call what is wrong a "right" in the positive law, and even if unelected Justices create a "penumbra" out of whole cloth behind which to hide that evil, you cannot make it right. The Natural Law and science confirm what we have always known, that the child in that womb really is our neighbor. We also know that we should not kill our neighbors.

To Governor Kaine, I say this; opposition to the taking of innocent human life is not simply a "faith based" position, as if only your Catholic Christian faith can tell you that it is always and everywhere wrong to take innocent human life, at least when that life is very young.

Yes, this truth is confirmed by Revelation and our Church rightly proclaims it to be true. However, this is a truth revealed by the Natural Law and written in every human heart. You have had a Catholic education and you know this. After all, as the Chief Executive Officer of Virginia you enforce the Criminal Prohibitions against the taking of innocent human life all the time. All such prohibitions are rooted in our shared recognition of a morality derived from the Natural Law. Also, you have opposed so called Partial Birth Abortions, so you know the truth about the humanity of children in the womb.

Governor, you served the poor as a lay missionary in Honduras. I admire that service and so do many, many others. The Nation of Honduras has a neighbor to the North, Guatemala. Recently, its courageous Cardinal, Rodolfo Quezada, cut right to the heart of this issue in a clear and inspired homily.

As a fellow son of the Catholic Church I call your attention to his words. They reflect the truth which you know and are trying not to bring into your exercise of governing. The Cardinal proclaimed, "It is just as serious to kill a 10 year-old child or a 20 year-old adult as it is to kill a baby in his mother's womb". In this, the cardinal is absolutely correct. He then added, "No one, under any circumstances, can assume the right to directly kill an innocent human being."

By the way, to my brothers in the Clergy,Bishops,Priests and deacons,this kind of homily needs to be preached in every Church in America.

In Guatemala there is a growing pressure to 'legalize" what is always and everywhere wrong, the taking of the life of children in the womb. Oh, I can hear it already, some will wonder why I am even referring to Guatemala with its questionable record in other areas of human rights. I do so only because it has a clear provision protecting the rights of unborn children and a courageous Cardinal who is defending it.The Constitution of Guatemala contains these words:

"Article 1- Protection of the Person. The State of Guatemala is organized to protect the individual and the family, its purpose is the supreme achievement of the common good. Article 2 - The Duties of the State. It is the duty of the state to assure the people of the Republic life, liberty, justice, security, peace and development of the individual. Article 3- The Right to life. The State guarantees and protects human life from conception, as well as the integrity and security of person."

There is a growing pressure being asserted by international organizations like the United Nations to compel a change in this Constitutional protection of all life, at every age and stage. It must not succeed.

This courageous Cardinal also said in this homily that abortion is "killing of a child in his mother's womb" and "everyone has the right to be born, and anything deliberately done to obstruct this right to life is a crime...there are some things we must call by their name. A crime can never be turned into a right."

Governor Kaine, hear those words again, "A Crime Can Never Be Turned into a Right!" Whether you are chosen to be the Vice Presidential candidate to run alongside of Senator Obama or not, this is an important moment for you. You are a high profile Catholic in public life. It is time for you to stand with the Cardinal and the Church of which we are both members and proclaim the truth that all human persons, at every age and stage, have a right to life.

This is not simply a truth for "religious people"; it is a truth for all people. This is not a "faith based position" if you mean by that to be restricted only to those who share our faith. This is the truth. Without the freedom to be born, there are no other freedoms. Freedom is a good of the person. Children in the womb, like all of us, are human persons. Personhood cannot be limited to only those perceived to not be "dependent" on any other persons or we will soon eliminate many other categories of human persons.

Beside which, it is our dependency upon each other which actually makes us human persons. Our claims of compassion, the etymology of which means to "suffer with", are exposed as a fraud when we do nothing to stop the killing of innocents in the womb, once the safest place on earth, with chemical weapons and surgical strikes.

A Democratic Party that once built its National influence on a commitment to the "poor", now champions as a "right" the killing of children in the first home of their mothers womb. It simply is NEVER compassionate to fail to hear the cry of the poorest of the poor, those who have no voice of their own. It also never serves the common good to legalize the taking of innocent human life. Be a new kind of Democrat...actually, an old kind of Democrat. Stand up for the truth and hear the cry of all the poor.

A Crime can never be turned into a right.

---

'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'

Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online