Religion & Law

It is hard to say what was worst about President Obama's statement on the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.  Was it his silence on the plight of the tiny victim whose limbs are torn off, or whose skin is burned off, or the base of whose skull is pierced and whose brain is suctioned out, with the precise of objective of ending his or her life?  Was it his reliance on tired (and increasingly futile) euphemisms such as "reproductive choice" to shuffle the victim out of view?  Was it his glaring unwillingness even to say the word "abortion" -- a word not mentioned at all in his encomium to the Supreme Court decision that manufactured a constitutional right to it?  Or was it--taking these things all together--President Obama's betrayal of his own call, at Notre Dame, for "open hearts, open minds, and fair-minded words" in the debate about abortion?