The American Spectator

Political Hay

The party of partial-birth abortion is still fuming at the photos from Abu Ghraib. Unborn children don't survive the torture of abortion, but images of violence done to them never make it to the desks of Democrats. The party of Abu Ghraib in the womb did interrupt its outrage over barbarism abroad long enough this week to tout barbarism at home. The human rights abuse of abortion remains the centerpiece of the Democratic party's platform. John Kerry simultaneously assured his supporters that as president he would speedily remove American soldiers from the "death zone" of Iraq and preserve the death zone at home protected under the penumbras of the U.S. Constitution. "I will not appoint somebody with a 5-4 court who's about to undo Roe v. Wade. I've said that before," he said. Not to worry, abortionists: John Kerry won't apply the Geneva Convention to unborn children. He won't send the Red Cross to visit your Planned Parenthood clinics.

Kerry is soothing abortion advocates worried that he might flip-flop away from them by reiterating abortion as his litmus test for all pivotal judicial nominations. Kerry will consider Souters but not Scalias. The central importance of abortion to the Kerry agenda is also seen in his backers' giddy talk about potential running mates. As long as they support abortion, they can even be Republican! "Senator McCain would not have to leave his party," former Nebraska senator Bob Kerrey said to the press. "He could remain a Republican, would be given some authority over selection of cabinet people. The only thing he would have to do is say, 'I'm not going to appoint any judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade."

As Democrats express horror at the "un-American" conduct at Abu Ghraib, they increasingly build their party's platform around a human rights abuse at home. Enemy combatants have rights under their platform; unborn children don't. Why is Abu Ghraib "un-American" and abortion as American as apple pie? Shouldn't a civilized nation be consistent?

John Kerry's new campaign slogan, according to the Drudge Report, is "Let America Be America Again," a line from a Langston Hughes poem. A feel-good poem for "progressives," it speaks of the illusion of American freedom for the politically unfavored:

"Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me?/ The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?"

Were Hughes's poem to be updated, it would need to include the "millions" of unborn children aborted in the America of the modern Democratic Party. Kerry's slogan needs to be revised to, "Let Abortion Be In America."

The self-proclaimed party of the "little guy" won't fight for him in the womb. The Democrats see themselves in Langston Hughes' poem even as they subject millions of unborn children to a grisly procedure they wouldn't permit at Abu Ghraib.

So tenaciously do Democrats cling to abortion they are now even threatening to whip up America against the Catholic Church. "Catholic" Democrats -- the ones who pride themselves on "health care for children" provided it doesn't extend to unborn ones -- sent a letter to the American Catholic bishops with a veiled warning. Unless the bishops let them support abortion to the hilt and receive communion, they won't mind if America turns against the Church. Withholding communion from legislators like Teddy Kennedy could "revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice." It will certainly revive latent anti-Catholic prejudice in them, as targets of it like Antonin Scalia and the other Catholic judges whose nominations they have long stalled and smeared can attest. It is not too long before the Democrats say openly (they already imply it) that orthodox Catholicism is "un-American."

Yes, the abuse at Abu Ghraib is an affront to America. So is abortion, the sickness John Kerry's party treats with more respect than the sacraments.

topics:
Catholicism, Abortion, Constitution, Iraq, NATO