God & Country

Video: Doug Kmiec and Robby George Debate Obama and Life Issues

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May 29, 2009 RSS Feed Print
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By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

You can watch last night's debate between prominent Catholic legal advocates Doug Kmiec and Robby George here at C-SPAN's website.

The format of the debate, staged at the National Press Club and moderated by former Vatican Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, was disappointing: long opening statements by the two combatants, followed by questions that were directed toward one of them. They never had the opportunity to answer the same question, and there was none of the kind of one-on-one debating that would have allowed the two men to work though some of the issues.

Instead, they largely talked past one another.

It's still worth watching, though, to get two diametrically opposed takes on how the antiabortion movement ought to approach the Obama administration: work with it in hopes of shaping policy (Kmiec), or throw up roadblocks every time it moves to make abortions easier to obtain (George).

Be sure to post your thoughts on who you thought won.

I thought George's impassioned delivery and clear, concise argument—that human embryos deserve full equal rights, period—carried the night over Kmiec's more laid-back style and piecemeal presentation, which mostly had him responding to George by pleading it's more complicated than that.

Tags:
Doug Kmiec,
Barack Obama,
abortion,
religion,
Catholic Church

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Here is a perhaps somewhat reliable summation of the violent conduct which concerns Rob Winslow:

"Over the last 20 years, anti-abortion terrorists have been responsible for six murders and 15 attempted murders (see Lake of Fire), according to the National Abortion Federation. They have also been behind some 200 bombings and arsons, 72 attempted arsons, 750 death and bomb threats and hundreds of acts of vandalism, intimidation, stalking and burglary."

The murder of Dr. Tiller is deplorable. We can find online already a public statement of Prof George saying this and much more. However, Mr Winslow's question prompts me to ask: How can one get away from the fact that pro-choice and pro-abortion advocates have created a climate in which millions of acts of violence are done against totally innocent and helpless human beings? Consult any standard current work of embryology. If pro-life advocates are complicit in Dr Tiller's death, are pro-choice advocates not complicit as much and more so in millions of deaths of the pre-born and in the physical and emotional violence and suffering of their mothers?

Richard Morton of OH 10:16PM May 31, 2009

The real world has intervened in the academic discussion of the morality of abortion. While anti-choice advocates are not killed for their positions by those who are pro-choice, we've seen numerous murders of pro-choice practitioners and advocates thorugh the past few decades.

You can't get away from the fact that the anti-abortion, anti-choice people create a climate in which acts of murderous violence are done by some of their kind. The anti-choice people are all complicit

Rob Winslow of FL 9:14PM May 31, 2009

The role of religion is neither judgment nor prosecuting sin of persons, but the teaching of the Lord's word and leave the judgment to God himself.

In his statement to the sanctity of the unborn life Prof. George made a profound mistake of acting as a paid right wing lobbyist than a concerned Christian to the tragedy of modern world which he is part of the problem by throwing statistic of a million abortion preformed per year with in the geographical area of the USA, as if abortion or the tragedy of death is a problem with in the jurisdiction of the USA and the solution a legal issue of reversing US laws.

Surprisingly the argument is between two men with no idea of what woman of the world goes through in the comfort of their academic exercise in their Ivy League tower by reducing the tragedy in to some legal technicality and political game.

No sane human being would ever want to see abortion nor death if the moral leaders, instead of building towers and lavish buildings come down to their God's calling of caring for those in need regardless of who, where and how their life circumstances may be.

No man who wears a garment worth more than a year income of more than half the population of the world's poor families can preach us morality of any kind and expect us to believe him.

The Catholic Church should stay away from judging and stick to the basics of the Lord’s teaching and restrain from glamour by spending its resources on the poor, the mothers who in no fault of their own choice abortion over life, and the many society ills as it should than going along with PR business

The main reason many turn away from religion is the hypocrisy of churche’s leaders and zealots who play God by judgeing the sin of humans.

Tess of CA 1:48AM May 30, 2009

God & Country

Dan Gilgoff covers religion for U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, and is a former politics editor at beliefnet. E-mail Dan at godandcountry@usnews.com.

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