President Obama may have told a little white lie during his private audience July 10 with Pope Benedict XVI. The Vatican’s official spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, S.J. said “the president explicitly expressed his commitment to reducing the numbers of abortions and to listen to the church’s concern on moral issues.” But a different line has been coming from the Obama White House for several months, as administration officials conducted a series of secret meetings with pro-abortion, pro-life, and religious and political activists from both sides. Those meetings were meant, as the president described it in his Notre Dame address, to seek a “common ground” between abortions foes and supporters. Obama was quite specific in that speech, saying “let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term.”
But the White House official who led those secret meetings put a very different spin on the administration’s goals. When meeting participant Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America noted Obama’s language favoring fewer abortions, she was testily corrected by Melody Barnes, White House domestic policy director, who said: “It is not our goal to reduce the number of abortions.” According to Wright, Barnes then said the administration’s goal is instead to “reduce the need for abortions.” To appreciate that something far more important than mere quibbling over language is involved, it is only necessary to look at Obama’s budget and at the health care reform legislation now before Congress.
