Kloppenberg recounts how Obama ran for the United States Senate in Illinois. His opponent "characterized his position on abortion as "an abomination' utterly inconsistent with Christianity" (page 141). Ouch! Obama claims to be a Christian. In Aristotle's terminology, Obama's opponent was using Christian identity as ethos to advance his argument. So how is Obama going to go against something that supposedly is not consistent with being a Christian? Kloppenberg says, "Obama took refuge in the standard secular retort: because we live in a pluralistic society, he could not impose his views on anyone else" (page 141).
But the law does impose itself on everyone who lives under the law. As a result, would-be law-makers running for the United States Senate should tell voters what kinds of laws they might favor making.
But Kloppenberg himself makes the story of Obama's relative inarticulateness about abortion worse in my judgment as he continues to discuss Obama's address to a gathering of Democrats: "But Obama later realized that his reply is exactly what evangelical conservatives want and expect. That response removes religion from public debate and allows evangelicals to claim, plausibly, that they speak for all religious Americans and that their opponents represent only a tiny fraction of Americans who say they do not believe in God. Surely Democrats can do better than that, Obama went on, acknowledging "the power of faith' for the vast majority of his fellow citizens. But what should he have said instead?" (page 142).
Oh my, what a revealing question. Would it be fair to conclude from Kloppenberg's question that liberals, some of whom may believe in God, as I do and as Obama and Kloppenberg do, have nothing relevant to contribute to the debate about abortion? If the alternative to civic debate is civil war, shouldn't liberals figure out something relevant to say in the civic debate about abortion?
In his book RENDER UNTO DARWIN: PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT'S CRUSADE AGAINST SCIENCE (Open Court, 2007, pages 95-120), James H. Fetzer, an avowed agnostic, works with deontological moral theory to work out his position regarding abortion in the first trimester. Among other things, he articulates the standard first set forth by W. K. Clifford in 1879 regarding the morality of belief. According to Clifford's standard, as Fetzer explains, "we are morally entitled to hold a belief only when we are logically entitled to hold that belief" (page 97). As Fetzer himself points out, "This principle harmonizes with the Roman Catholic conception of the natural law" (page 102).
As Fetzer correctly indicates, the Roman Catholic bishops are working with natural-law theory to work out their claims regarding abortion. So the problem is not that they are not giving reasons for their position, because they are giving reasons. But just how reasonable their reasons are when you examine them carefully?
But the Roman Catholic bishops claim that human life begins with the fertilization of an egg with sperm. I assume that Obama has heard this. But does he agree with their claim, or not? If he agrees with their claim, what are his reasons for agreeing with it? But if he doesn't agree with their position, what are his reasons for not agreeing with it?
When as a presidential candidate Senator Obama visited Rick Warren's church, an event that Kloppenberg does not mention, one person asked Obama when life begins. This is a key question in the debate about legal abortion. He responded that the question was above his pay grade. Perhaps this was an honest and candid response to the question.
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