Religion & Law

Some questions for Obama (and Kmiec, and Bellah, and Perry . . .)

By Rick Garnett

Sherif Girgis asks:

As an immigrant from Kenya, your father found new hope in America?s noble principles and vast opportunities. The same promise brought my parents here from Egypt when I was still too young to thank them. Now you have inspired my generation with your vision of a country united around the same ideals of liberty and justice, ?filled with hope and possibility for all Americans.?

But do you mean it? . . .

You have asked me to vote for you. In turn, may I ask you three simple questions? They are straightforward questions of fact about abortion. They are at the heart of the debate. In fairness, I believe that you owe the people you would lead a good-faith answer to each:

1. The heart whose beating is stilled in every abortion ? is it a human heart?

2. The tiny limbs torn by the abortionist?s scalpel ? are they human limbs?

3. The blood that flows from the fetus?s veins ? is it human blood?

If the stopped heart is a human heart, if the torn limbs are human limbs, if the spilled blood is human blood, can there be any denying that what is killed in an abortion is a human being? In your vision for America, the license to kill that human being is a right. You have worked to protect that ?right? at every turn. But can there be a right to deny some human beings life or the equal protection of the law? . . .

Full post as published by Mirror of Justice on March 05, 2008 (boomark / email).