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Please note that all email submitted to Catholic Exchange or its authors (regarding articles published at CE) become the property of Catholic Exchange and may be published in this space. Published letters may be edited for length and clarity. Names and cities of letter writers may also be published. Email addresses of viewers will not normally be published.
Dear Mike:
Your note betrays, among other things, a lack of education about how our political system works, what powers the president does and does not have, the way pro-aborts can get their programs funded in deceitful ways like attaching them to certain necessary budgets, and generally what politics is about. Politics, as the saying goes, is the art of the possible, and involves incremental change and gradual accumulation of power in order to advance an agenda. It also requires the steady and patient education of the electorate, which I am confident Catholic Exchange is doing.
It is interesting and ironic that one of the strengths of President Bush's judicial nominee Priscilla Owen is precisely what you mention — upholding parental notification laws. What you want, Mike, is EVERYTHING NOW (perhaps short of civil war on behalf of the unborn). But how do we achieve that? You are full of bitter criticism and vituperation (in the name of Christ) but you offer no strategy for how to get where we both want to go politically. Too bad.
If Catholic Exchange makes a mistake in fact, that can be remedied by someone supplying us the pertinent documentation so that we can publish a correction. But your words are simply invective. What exactly is being funded in terms of embryonic stem cell research and how did that funding come about? With Democrats in control of the Senate, the president's power has been quite limited. Just last week, however, according to Steve Mosher of the Population Research Institute, Bush “has withdrawn U.S. support from the international 'reproductive rights' agenda, a code phrase for abortion and aggressive population control programs.” This is very significant.
So it looks to a lot of us like the president is doing everything he can, to the best of his understanding and ability and to the extent of his power, to roll back the death agenda. I would need a lot of good solid evidence to believe otherwise.
Tom Allen
Editor, CE
(Editor's Note: For an accurate reflection of Catholic Exchange's position on the stem cell issue please see Bishop Paul S. Loverde's article on the subject. CE concedes that the viewer is correct on the unacceptability of President Bush's stem cell funding. We recognize, however, that he has, in Bishop Loverde's words, shown “great moral and political courage” in regard to his overall stance on Life issues and that he has “hopefully set the nation on a course of respect for all human life.”)
Mr. Allen:
This is a courtesy email. I expect differences of opinion amongst any group of people, even those who consider themselves faithful pro-life Catholics. But in your piece on Bush on Tuesday you didn't just float a reasonable opinion, you sloshed into the swamp of political spin. Your article claimed that the President opposed taxpayer-financed embryonic stem cell research and that his nationally televised address on August 9th, 2002, was “widely considered one of the most pro-life speeches ever delivered by a President.”
On August 11, 2001 George Bush funded stem cell research with taxpayer money — and you say he opposed it? And you say his speech was “widely considered one of the most pro-life speeches ever delivered by a President”? This is so Clintonian! Clinton didn't even fund embryonic stem cell research! Do you really consider American Catholics to be this stupid? On Tuesday I changed our Home Page from CE to EWTN. I want wholesome information, not manure. You're doing a lousy job of feeding the lambs.
If you want to really help bring about a pro-life future for our nation, please study Footnote 54 of the Roe vs. Wade decision. Then study the
Supreme Court's decision of the Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (State of Pennsylvania) case. Then you may realize that in the last 30 years the few babies that have been saved from surgical abortion through legislation have been saved through parental notification laws only, most of which have been overturned or ignored. And any reduction in surgical abortions has just been shuffled to chemical abortions via the pill, Norplant, depro provera … from firing squad to gas chamber. Additionally, beyond our own self destruction at home, Americans fund about 60% of the world's daily 126,000 surgical abortions, not to mention the countless chemical ones! You and I don't see it; but our Lord sees each one.
George Bush is funding embryonic stem cell research with our money. Your whitewashing makes you complicit in that lie. The Truth (a.k.a. Jesus) is never advanced through lies, Mr. Allen.
Mike D.
