Anti-abortion, pro-Obama Dems seek clout

For pro-lifers, the paradox remains unresolved: Obama is pro-Roe and would appoint to the court judges who’d uphold and perhaps expand the Roe decision. Yet some pro-lifers support him.

“No matter who the president is, I don’t think you should use one issue as a litmus test either way (in nominating justices) and I would hope that he wouldn’t,” said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., who opposes abortion and supports Obama.

Casey was a featured speaker Wednesday at the Democrats for Life meeting in Denver.

Casey fielded a question from the audience on Obama’s comment in Pennsylvania that if his daughter were to become pregnant as a teenager before she was married, he wouldn’t want her to be “punished” by having a baby.

Casey said, “I don’t think it reflects what he thinks about the birth of a child.” He added that “sometimes a pregnancy is a crisis” for some women.

Former Reagan Justice Department official Doug Kmiec, who supports Obama and who was also at the Democrats for Life meeting Wednesday, said the question of whether Obama’s Supreme Court appointees would vote to affirm Roe is beside the point.

Kmiec’s view is that there aren’t four justices now on the court who’d vote to reverse the Roe decision and to allow states to significantly restrict abortion.

So for a president to replace Justice John Paul Stevens, 88, when he steps down, with a nominee committed to overturning Roe is both unlikely and pointless in Kmiec’s view.

Kmiec said he has “been greatly impressed by Sen. Obama’s understanding of faith.”

Kmiec said he’s been soured by the Republicans “using faith as a way of winning elections, creating fear and animosity in evangelicals and Catholics that ‘the Democrats hate you, they think you are irrational, that your beliefs disqualify you from participating in the public square.’ That kind of fear–mongering has become a (Karl) Rove-ian trademark.”

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