Is it possible that we were lied to?
President Obama has appointed Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), to head the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services. Kelley is a leading proponent of “common ground” abortion reduction—only CACG’s common ground is at odds with that of Obama. While the administration favors reducing the need for abortion by reducing unintended pregnancies, Kelley has made clear that she seeks instead to reduce access to abortion. That is an extremely disturbing development, especially coming this week in the wake of George Tiller’s assassination…..
Kelley and CACG have made clear they are committed to Catholic doctrine on abortion and birth control. CACG has supported the Pregnant Women’s Support Act, aimed at stigmatizing abortion and making it less accessible. In discussing legislation on reducing the need for abortion, Kelley has written that various pieces of legislation concerned with women’s health “are not all perfect; some include contraception—which the Church opposes.”
In the wake of the assassination of Dr. Tiller, any and all attempts to reach out and find common ground with opponents of legal abortion and birth control should have been put on hold, and probably terminated until the anti-choice movement completely and genuinely disavows violence, and actually gives up on trying to turn women into second class citizens. That doesn’t mean that Kelley or her colleagues are members of the large group, probably the majority, of activist anti-choicers who are gleefully celebrating Dr. Tiller’s murder and hoping for more murders. I doubt Obama would appoint a genuine terrorist-sympathizer to an office like this. But it’s poor taste, and implies that the administration will respond to terrorism by giving anti-choicers what they want. (I realize that she was probably chosen before the assassination, but again, her appointment should have been halted and probably terminated in light of the assassination. Obama should make it absolutely clear to anti-choicers that they do not get their way through political assassinations.)
Anti-choicers who actually want to disavow violence can only do so by coming to realize that state-mandated religion is inherently violent. The Founding Fathers gave Americans freedom of religion in no small part because they had seen what happens if you don’t have or don’t want a secular government. We’re seeing it now. Anti-choicers believe the state should make their religious dogma the official state stance, depriving women of their freedom of religion to decide for themselves if they believe in the use of contraception or abortion. Once you feel you have a right to force your religion on others, violence is inevitable.
Therefore, the only way for anti-choicers to be anti-violence, to truly be anti-violence, is to become pro-choice. Stop trying to force your dogma on others. Even “moderate” amounts of force—-restricting it so only the most vulnerable women are forced to live by your religious rules—-is depriving women of the most basic of freedoms, and is inherently violent. If any anti-choicer wants to truly distance themselves from violence, they must immediately quit being anti-choice. You’re free not to have an abortion or use a condom, if you don’t want. Be satisfied with the fact that this is a free country and women are equal, and we can start talking.
I respect Cristina Page, but I have to strongly disagree that we can look the other way and call Kelley a “new” kind of pro-lifer, because it seems Kelley is all about the old-fashioned “pro-life” view of forcing women to have children against their will. This is not the common ground strategy that we were told that Obama was promoting. Obama outlined the common ground strategy in his speech at Notre Dame, and it’s a combination of reframing pro-choice ideas to maximize the opportunities for anti-choicers to sound like the rabid misogynists they are by showing that they oppose contraception, which is a practice that’s as popular as watching television in the U.S. and playing lip service to a few anti-choice fetishes that are utterly meaningless, since they’re beyond policy solutions. On the podcast, I addressed the planks that Obama laid out.