A Rose by Any Other Name

Posted by Jason Ibrahim

In The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama writes of an experience he has dialoguing with some pro-life protestors at one of his rallies. As he tells the story, he meets them at the front entrance, and says:

"'You folks want to come inside?' I asked.

"'No, thank you,' the man said. He handed me a pamphlet. 'Mr. Obama, I want you to know that I agree with a lot of what you have to say.'

"'I appreciate that.'

"'And I know you're a Christian, with a family of your own.'

"'That's true.'

"'So how can you support murdering babies?'

"I told him I understood his position but had to disagree with it. I explained my belief that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved and wrestled with her conscience when making that heart-rending decision; that I feared a ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions, as they had once done in this country and as they continued to do in countries that prosecute abortion doctors and the women who seek their services. I suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of women who felt the need to have abortions in the first place."

Now, just from a communication perspective, let me just say: Obama never tried to address the man's implicit question, which is, "Don't you believe abortionists murder babies?" He just pushed forward and assumed he was talking apples to apples with this man. He chose to talk past the protester. (If not, and he agreed that abortion is murder, then he was directly rationalizing infanticide.) As a result, let me give you a small taste of how his response sounded to this man (and indeed, sounds to me):

"I told him I understood his position but had to disagree with it. I explained my belief that few people made the decision to rob a bank casually; that any bank robber felt the full force of the moral issues involved and wrestled with her conscience when making that heart-rending decision; that I feared a ban on bank robbing would force people to rob banks unsafely, as they had once done in this country and as they continued to do in countries that prosecute bank robbers and their accomplices. I suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of people who felt the need to rob banks in the first place."

But that's just me. What do you think?