Nancy Pelosi sparked a firestorm when she played the theologian and presented a distorted and just downright wrong view of Catholic teaching on abortion. A number of bishops refuted her ignorant statements as did a group of her Catholic associates in Congress. Well, Joe Biden appeared on Meet the Press today and showed he is just as ignorant of the Catholic faith as Nancy and ignorant of science as well.
When Tom Brokaw asked Biden how he would advise Barrack Obama on when life begins he responded, "Look, I know when it begins for me. It's a personal and private issue."
Uh...no Joe. Actually, it's a scientific issue. Every first year medical student knows the answer described in a major embryology textbook: "Human development begins at fertilization, the process during which a male gamete or sperm ... unites with a female gamete or oocyte ... to form a single cell called a zygote. This highly specialized, totipotent cell marks the beginning of each of us as a unique individual." [The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology, 6th ed.Keith L. Moore, Ph.D. & T.V.N. Persaud, Md., (Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1998), 2-18.]
Biden went on to say, "I am prepared as a matter of faith to accept that life begins at the moment of conception, but that is my judgment." No, that is medical fact. "For me to impose that judgement on everyone else...seems to me inappropriate in a pluralistic society." Is it imposing a judgment to teach science in school? Scientific facts are not acts of personal judgment.
Like Nancy did, Biden misstated Aquinas' view claiming there is a "debate in the Church" about when human life begins. "Back in Summa Theologica, when Thomas Aquinas wrote Summa Theologica he said there was no, it didn't occur until quickening, 40 days after conception." NOT TRUE! Aquinas was not talking about the beginning of life; he was talking about ensoulment. One can argue that theological point, but the Church has always defended the right to life from the beginning. The first century catechism, The Didache (Teaching of the Twelve Apostles) forbade abortion.
Biden described abortion as a "matter between a person's God...their doctor, and themselves." This takes the debate right back to 1973 when NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood, etc. claimed that no one knows when human life begins. It was absurd then and, with the new methods of ultrasound, etc. that provide a window into the womb, it is even more absurd today.
The last thing Biden claimed was the rehashed slogan from the Clinton era about making abortion rare. "What we're going to be spending our time doing is making sure that we reduce considerably the amount of abortions that take place by providing the care, the assistance, and the encouragement for people to be able to carry to term and raise their children."
This is a laughable statement coming from the liberal left. There is not a single crisis pregnancy center in the country operated by the "pro-choice" crowd. They are ALL run by pro-lifers who offer a woman a real choice -- LIFE.
Is Biden really as stupid as this interview indicated or is he a hypocrite and a liar? And does he really believe the American people will swallow this hogwash? One last question: How is Biden going to explain away Obama's support for the infanticide of babies who survive abortion? When they are outside the womb moving and whimpering will he claim not to know that their lives have begun?
You can watch the portion of the interview on abortion at this url:
www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26591116#26591154
My personal opinion is that Biden IS a hypocrite and a liar and unfortunately he has good reason to believe a sizable portion of the American public will swallow this hogwash. My mother, one brother and my youngest sister (Californians for the last 50+ years) are all Obama supporters despite the fact that they know what abortion is. (They're not Catholics but then neither is the majority of the American population. Protestantism, based as it is on the idea that each person chooses the principles of which his own faith consists, lends itself to the swallowing of hogwash, as does "cafeteria Catholicism." No insult intended, Protestant readers.)
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