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.
In his 2010 budget proposal, Obama asked Congress to repeal a long-standing legislative provision that prevented federal funds from being used to pay for abortions by the District of Columbia government. The House Appropriations Committee voted with Obama on the issue July 8 and it appears likely the provision will be in whatever final budget measure Congress approves, with a result that thousands more D.C. abortions will be paid for by federal taxpayers. Obama has been silent as key amendments by representatives Eric Cantor, R-VA, and Sam Johnson, R-TX, to prevent federal funding of abortions under the health care reform bill were rejected in the House. Research by the Alan Guttmacher Institute makes clear that federal funding encourages more abortions, not fewer. So, if Obama meant what he said to the Pope in the Vatican and to America at Notre Dame about reducing the number of abortions, he should urge Congress to remove such funding from health care reform.
